This morning I listened to NPR on the way to work and they were discussing the growing water crisis and how some states are addressing it. Nevada is positioning itself for water in the same way that Silicon Valley positioned itself as the hub for IT. They have a Center of Excellence that works at the nexus of public-private sector collaboration in water-focused technologies. Las Vegas was the center of global water crisis talks in February. It’s fitting that a city trying to prosper in a desert would take the lead!
There are some great new technologies and Nevada is learning from places like California, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Israel has been working on water shortage since before the actual state of Israel was created. For them, water is no different than national security or the military or their ability to absorb immigrants. Water desalination – very expensive and very energy intensive – is often cited as the future. A more far-reaching technological solution discussed on NPR was the chemical rearrangement of water molecules to increase water absorption. Crazy stuff, right?
While all of this is good (leave it to science to create solutions), I think nobody is addressing the underlying root cause – overpopulation. Until 1950, California had less than 10 million people. In the next 30 years, they added 10 million more. And 30 years later (~2010), they nearly doubled that to 38 million. All of those people are not only individual water consumers, but they all work (more industries) and eat (more agriculture)…more water. We simply cannot keep growing the US (or any other country’s) population. The Earth is incredibly resilient, but we are overwhelming her. We have to begin talking about overpopulation. It’s an incredibly difficult conversation. Look at China… some unintended consequences resulted when they limited childbirth to one per family, and today the enforcement of this rule has subsided and families are growing again. But look at their environment – their water and their air. The country is terribly polluted.
Overpopulation is completely unsustainable. Better technologies are minimizing our human impact, but there will always be limits. So, it’s fine to talk about what new water technologies we need for the future, but I’m feeling like we’re not working on the Big Thing that we need to.
There are some great new technologies and Nevada is learning from places like California, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Israel has been working on water shortage since before the actual state of Israel was created. For them, water is no different than national security or the military or their ability to absorb immigrants. Water desalination – very expensive and very energy intensive – is often cited as the future. A more far-reaching technological solution discussed on NPR was the chemical rearrangement of water molecules to increase water absorption. Crazy stuff, right?
While all of this is good (leave it to science to create solutions), I think nobody is addressing the underlying root cause – overpopulation. Until 1950, California had less than 10 million people. In the next 30 years, they added 10 million more. And 30 years later (~2010), they nearly doubled that to 38 million. All of those people are not only individual water consumers, but they all work (more industries) and eat (more agriculture)…more water. We simply cannot keep growing the US (or any other country’s) population. The Earth is incredibly resilient, but we are overwhelming her. We have to begin talking about overpopulation. It’s an incredibly difficult conversation. Look at China… some unintended consequences resulted when they limited childbirth to one per family, and today the enforcement of this rule has subsided and families are growing again. But look at their environment – their water and their air. The country is terribly polluted.
Overpopulation is completely unsustainable. Better technologies are minimizing our human impact, but there will always be limits. So, it’s fine to talk about what new water technologies we need for the future, but I’m feeling like we’re not working on the Big Thing that we need to.