T
Texas_Roofer
Guest
We have been watering Los Angeles for 70 years with no problems yet. It is not ocean water we use it is redirected river water. Ocean water has to be desalinized which cost more than using rain water.
- Status
K
Kaninchen
Guest
I was aware that it wasn’t ocean water - it’s naïf of you to think me so naïf.
It’s not just ‘salt’ but ‘salts’ and they build up over many, many decades.
V
Valke2
Guest
IT is also misleading to suggest that los Angeles does not have a water problem.
Does anyone know if the Colorado river makes it to the ocean anymore.
Does anyone know if the Colorado river makes it to the ocean anymore.
B
beckycmarie
Guest
Then we need to clean it up, not eliminate people.
My parish is actively involved in a clean water program in Haiti that costs about $8 per family per year.
V
Valke2
Guest
ok. To be clear, I haven’t advocated for eliminating anyone. Only for the more efficient use of resources and investing in clean, renewable energy.
Can you post a link to more information to helping out with Hati’'s water problem? Perhaps some here might like to get involved.
T
Texas_Roofer
Guest
Sorry, I am not following you at all. All running water will have some form of salts. i see no reason to believe the desert southwest has this problem, and the water use there is unbelievable
The SoCal water issue is a population growth to 20 million people and growing. The bigger issue is understanding natural water in that area could not support 20 million people. Man’s change has improved SoCal and the surrounding states
B
beckycmarie
Guest
That is something we can agree on. We waste so much! I think the bad economic times ahead may force us to learn how to be better stewards of the earth.
Sure!
Click the website below and links to an informational page and video on water program is one of the top links on the page.
Saint Monica’s in Haiti
W
wynnejj
Guest
I don’t see it that way. Sure, we have lots of growing room. So for some number of generations, it is probably a true statement to state that more population is good for prosperity. Without colonization on other worlds, if you extrapolate the growth in population then there has to be a saturation point. When debating those who see down the road farther, then I think the science falls apart. However, there is the theory that as the saturation point is being reached, then aggressions increase and wars break out that depopulate the planet such that the growth cycle restarts.
I’m curious though. What scientific evaluation have you run across that says that there is never a world population saturation point?
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
The last article I read on the subject said that it does reach the ocean. However, it is not much more than a creek at that point and is hopelessly polluted.
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
My understanding is that the desert southwest does have a salinization problem. I have seen aerial photos of the results. Some of the areas previously dependent on the Oglalla Aquifer are nothing but a succession of gigantic salt circles. It is my further understanding that a lot of the salinization can be avoided by very expensively putting in what amount to lateral lines below root level so the salts wash downward, enter the lateral lines and drain into some catchment somewhere else. But I believe it’s very expensive to do it, and requires enough irrigation to wash the salts downward past the root level.
Interesting that you would say SoCal’s development has been an improvement along with that of surrounding states. Not to dispute you at all in that assertion, but I really am wondering what SoCal is going to do from here on. My understanding is that utilization of the Colarado and other rivers has just about hit the maximum that can be derived from those sources.
W
wynnejj
Guest
:clapping: Finally a straight answer!
C
Calliso
Guest
Yes of course large population are good. I think where some people are making a mistake is taking that too ok now matter how big the population gets things will get better or at least stay the same. Like the last person said there is a saturation point though. Just like there is a point where the population could get too low to return from.
Also someone mentioned coal and oil being renewable and clean I think? Oil is not clean, coal well I think I have heard of clean coal…course I have also heard there is no such thing as trully clean coal too soo. They are pretty efficient though especially oil I will give you that. both take millions of years to form…though answers.com/topic/petroleum. I would hope that 50-100 million or whatever it takes year from now. Either the Seconding Coming will have happened…or we will have found something better.
As for forest depletation I think if handled well nothing is wrong with using forests as resources and cutting them down for farm land and what not. The problem is they aren;t always handled well. Much of the rainforest is being cut down for instance and not handled well. trfic.msu.edu/rfrc/status.html
And a general article on deforestation too… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation.
Now back to the question of how big the population should get. Another possible thing to consider is what sort of life quality and expectancy are we looking for?
Also someone mentioned coal and oil being renewable and clean I think? Oil is not clean, coal well I think I have heard of clean coal…course I have also heard there is no such thing as trully clean coal too soo. They are pretty efficient though especially oil I will give you that. both take millions of years to form…though answers.com/topic/petroleum. I would hope that 50-100 million or whatever it takes year from now. Either the Seconding Coming will have happened…or we will have found something better.
As for forest depletation I think if handled well nothing is wrong with using forests as resources and cutting them down for farm land and what not. The problem is they aren;t always handled well. Much of the rainforest is being cut down for instance and not handled well. trfic.msu.edu/rfrc/status.html
And a general article on deforestation too… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation.
Now back to the question of how big the population should get. Another possible thing to consider is what sort of life quality and expectancy are we looking for?
B
Brendan
Guest
It depends on the year and on the snowfall upstream. It has not reached the ocean with any regularity since 1960, and the last time enough water was released by the dams upstream to allow water to reach the ocean was 1997
K
Kaninchen
Guest
Indeed, anywhere dependent on river water or artesian water (as with the Oglala dependent areas) is vulnerable, it’s not that agriculture becomes impossible, it’s that it becomes untenable - the remedies, involving acquisition of even more river water or artesian water (until the water table falls too low for that), become far too expensive.
M
mpi
Guest
No no. Use an objective measure of water cleanliness, such as spread of cholera.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera
Cholera is a proxy for dirty water and the link I provided shows that the outbreaks are much less severe these days.
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
When I was a kid, we got our water from a spring. When I was maybe five or six, the whole family contracted Hepatitis A; doubtless from point-source pollution.
Those springs are a lot cleaner now, and I drink freely from them and never have any ill effect from doing it. Of course, I guess I’m now immune to Hep A.
But I never hear of anybody else contracting it either. When I was a kid, people plowed hill land and raised animals on practically bare dirt and had outdoor privies. People thought cattle had to be afforded shelter in barns, when the climate didn’t actually require it, creating horrible quagmires of dirt, hay and manure. When it rained, the water ran everywhere from all those places. Now, the land is covered with forest or thick, thick sod-forming grass upon which cattle are rapidly rotated and through which water must filter so slowly and through so many organic processes that most of it sinks, highly oxygenated and pretty clean, into the further-filtering limestone karst formations instead of blasting downhill into every low spot, which included springs and wells. Nobody plows the land anymore because people have come to realize the topography is just too steep for it. But being in the “fescue belt” the “bermuda belt” and “bluestem belt” all three, it is highly productive even so. More so than it ever was before. But people didn’t know any of that then. People fought soil-holding Bermuda, Bluestem and crabgrass back then like they were the Pharoah’s Curse, when they’re actually good things.The springs and creeks also flow discernably more water now than they did years ago, with fewer and less dramatic ups and downs.
People simply learned how to do things better. Nothing mysterious about it.
O
Oscarthecat
Guest
Speaking of odd statements…read your’s
"IN the last 100 years we have irrevocably used about 40-50% of the planet’s natural resources, not including oil and coal. "
This entire planet is a resource, so unless 50% of the planet is missing, we have not used 50% of the planet’s resources.
Come to think of it, the biggest resource at our disposal is the human intellect- and I think a strong argument could be made that we’re running out of that resource faster than anything else.
M
mpi
Guest
5000 years of global population increases is coupled with 5000 years of life expectancy increases. These two track each other extremely well.
You make the point about colonization of other worlds. This will happen when economies of scale allow it to happen, just as economies of scale led to “new world” expansion 500 years ago.
G
Gamera
Guest
I’m old enough to remember when “scientific evidence” showed that by the year 2000 we’d have only an arm’s reach of living space per person and need to build artificial “raft” islands covering the ocean to hold all the people.
- Status