Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics. @slrpnk.net silence7 @slrpnk.net 1 yr. ago

America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow

www.nytimes.com America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow

Unchecked overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times investigation found, threatening millions of people and America’s status as a food superpower.

68 comments

That is the way humans have always been and it is not just the USA. I will be dead before the worst affects hit is the justification many think but few are willing to express. Around the world ground water is being used at rates that are thousands of time faster than replenishment.

When the water runs out, mass starvation will soon begin.
- But it's not everyone, not always. In Europe we started sustainable forest management in the 18th century, so for at least a couple hundred of years people are acting differently. Why?
  
  Yeah but it started after Europe was basically logged to the ground for wood or agriculture.
- Or a big drop in animal agriculture and biofuels
  
  That will also happen but it will not stop the hunger.
  
  Food exports will dry up as countries hold their food for their own people (See: India's ban on rice exports) and the countries that cannot feed their own populations will implode.
  
  The Arab spring started as protests over a jump in food prices.
  
  To think that getting rid of those two things is a silver bullet is naive.
  
  People like to shit on animal agriculture. However, you have to consider that only about 3% of the earth’s entire surface is suitable for agriculture, and even less to grow most of the crops we eat. Animals can be raised on land that’s not suitable for crops. It spreads out where we use our water, which is a good thing. Animal agriculture also gives us a plethora of goods besides just meat, and again, it’s goods from land that otherwise we cannot farm.
  
  As with all things in life, there are better and worse ways to go about it, but animal agriculture isn’t ruining the planet in itself.
  
  Secondly, the problem with biofuels is it should be replaced with nuclear, and getting hungry isn’t going to change that, a lot of people are just going to die from starvation and violence directly caused by starvation.
I’m about to read the article but commenting first to take a guess somehow nestlé is involved
- what humans use PAILS in comparisson to what the animals we eat use. Stop eating animals!
  
  I can understand why you’re getting downvoted. People don’t want to stop eating animals. I know I don’t. But we really should. You’re right, it’s horrible for the planet. I for one am looking forward to the lab grown meat future.
  
  People Eat Tasty Animals!
  
  animals mostly eat parts of plants that people can't or won't eat, so in that way they help us conserve resources.
  
  Vegans and their brain dead solutions.
  
  Eat some meat. Your minds gone numb.
  
  Your self righteousness ignorance won't save the planet.
  
  You're using the same type of self-serving half truths climate denialists use.
That's because there isn't one.
- It is this very thought that prevents reform.
  
  It isn't thought that prevents reform.
I’m not sure if this report mentions it but I remember reading recently that we’ve pumped so much ground water out of the earth, it’s affected the tilt of the fucking planet. Man we are a shithole species.
- We are an invasive species for the entire planet...
Extracting groundwatee in the death valley in order to make a golf is the most insane example
We need nuclear power stations all along the coast converting sea water into fresh water.
- And a string of nuclear power stations to pump the water where it needs to be...
  
  And small nuclear power generators to power all the maintenance cars and trucks.
- You joke, but we actually do need desalination plants — starting yesterday. Water will be the new oil soon.
  
  Yes, we definitely do. We are already seeing the result of not thinking ahead in the southwest. I’m not really joking about the plants. We need nuclear plants to provide the clean energy to desalinate on the levels we need to sustain agriculture and cities without contributing to global warming.
- And then we can pour the nuclear waste back into the sea! Just kidding 😂 I'm not anti-nuclear
  
  Hopefully by then Nevada is a barren wasteland uninhabited by nimbys so we can get the Yucca Mountain project started.
- Just to be sure this is sarcasm, right ?
American companies and local governments implementing unsustainable projects that will only face consequences once they're gone?

They would never!
There isn't much of one
"America"
The earth cannot sustain this many people indefinitely.
- That's not true. The vast majority of water overuse is industrial (including wasteful farm practices) and commercial. Gandhi said it well:
  
  There is enough in this world for every man's need, but not enough for every man's greed.

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