In 1995, the then-vice-president of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin, made a dire warning for the years ahead: “Many of the wars in this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water.”
pull down to refresh
related posts
31 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 4 May
I remember the climate change psyop in public school decades ago now where they once brought in a touring speaker to tell us that India and Pakistan would go to war over water...
And that we should be extra scared because both are nuclear armed countries...
My dad being a Navy veteran, I asked why they don't just use nuclear-powered desalination like are used on Navy vessels...
CLASS DISMISSED
reply
52 sats \ 1 reply \ @JesseJames 4 May
Logic dictates that we should be able to overcome this issue on account that water is about 70 percent of the planet surface. Smart nation states will invest in desalination technologies and will become more powerful because of that. Definitely interesting to watch for sure.
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 May
You read my mind
reply
31 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 4 May
Very interesting. I've been expecting fresh water to become an increasingly big political issue for a while.
Where markets are prevented, violence is inevitable.
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 4 May
Wow. Great chart find.
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 4 May
I just posted about water use in north Texas
#528152
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 4 May
Oh man, do you remember when Mead was so low?
They were saying that they were going to start draining the great lakes because they needed water.
This kind of shit needs to stop.
If you live in a desert, you should expect to have no water.
Why would you be watering your lawn? Just a total waste of resources.
Its going to happen to Cali again, just a matter of time.
reply
10 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw OP 4 May
An interesting observation back in 1995. Not only is water a precious human resource for life, but it is also increasingly required for cooling for compute power. A worrying trend and one to watch.
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @quark 4 May
I think in the end it is all about energy. Because if we had a cheap abundant energy source it would solve the water problem too with almost free desalinisation and the oceans are big enough.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @025738dda8 5 May
https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-1014
reply
0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4 May
Yes, water is definitely one very important aspect of warfare.
While being specific to India, it has so many conflicts with neighbouring countries including Pakistan. Almost 70% of rivers in Pakistan get water through India. It's good that India is peaceful country and not using it as a warfare otherwise it would have been devastating for China supporter Pakistan.
The situation of fresh water is still very bad though. Pakistan is running out of fresh water
reply
0 sats \ 2 replies \ @xz 5 May
As I understand, SE Asia has a lot of issues with water self-sufficiency because of the Three Gorges Dam in P.R.China. Particularly Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. I've never really understood the issue completely, but seems that engineering problems in large nations cause havoc for smaller nations downstream.
Do you know if that is a similar situation?
reply
43 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 5 May
Yes, China is regularly trying to stop water for Vietnam and Laos countries because two or three major rivers flow down to these countries.
But as far as I know that china hasn't been so successful in these efforts so far. The main reason is being that China can't stop so much water without an extensive channel of Canals. China does not have so much use of the water from these rivers so it has to leave it for Vietnam and Laos. Nature is much bigger than China.
On the other side the Brahmaputra river that flows down to India, China has been trying to stop its water as well but with limited success. Also India holds a Trump card where it can divert the Indus river if China tries to escalate water war.
Practically, the impacts of Chinese Dams on the rivers that flows through 18 countries are not very big. Yes, if there's a severe lack of rainfall in China, that too once in 10 to 20 years, a little impact may be there on Vietnam, Laos, Combodia and other Southeastern Nations.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 5 May
Thanks for explaining that. I've been in many of those countries, but never really fully understood the impact nor been able to talk to anyone in the region about it.
Good point! Indeed it is, lest we forget
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw OP 4 May
Wasn't aware of that, thanks. I definitely don't think we're setup for scarcity ahead, which is how I uncovered that chart when writing about the topic here #528956
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 4 May
This tension between Egypt and Ethiopia is probably known to many. Ethiopia was mentioned in the paper. Some EU states put “water protection” to their constitutions.
reply