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Coastal Megacity Karachi Is Running Out of Water (earther.com)
The Pakistani megacity of Karachi, home to more than 20 million people, is among the most water-stressed cities in the world, only able to meet half of its daily water demand. From a report: Karachi requires 1,100 million of gallons per day (mgd), but only receives 550 mgd, according to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB). Karachi's water is sourced from the Indus River via Keenjhar Lake, which sits more than 90 miles away from the city. The water shortage in Karachi is linked to myriad factors including climate change, mismanagement of water resources, and corruption. Most of all, however, a rising population increasing at a rate of 4.5 percent a year creates a strain on the finite water supply. Pakistan ranks in the top ten of countries worst affected by climate change, and water shortages are likely to deepen in both intensity and frequency in the coming decade.
I'm running out of beer and the Grocery Outlet is closed and I'm too buzzed to drive. And I'm supposed to be upset because Karachi's running out of water just because there are 20 million people there? You SJWs really suck, you know that? Who's going to stand up for me, huh? Nobody, that's who. Wait, I think I just heard my neighbor come home. I bet he's got some beer. Never mind.
Happy Memorial Day everybody!
You are welcome on my lawn.
Pakistan has gone from 40 million people in 1955 to 200 million in 2018. That is a 5 times increase in less than 65 years. Is there anyone who thinks that is sustainable? http://www.worldometers.info/w...
Obvious solution: Raise the price of water.
Higher prices will incentivize consumers to conserve, producers to produce, and distributers to fix the leaks in their pipes.
In the end, they can leave or deal with water scarcity. It sounds like things aren't bad enough for people to leave and improvements are impossible, so deal with it they will.
Pretty sure the order of causes are corruption and water mismanagement followed by climate change being the crack that drained their fresh water supply.
Imagine the water saving from not flushing! Wha? No toilets in Pakistan? Never mind.
It never rains in Karachi?
Are you talking about the innate goodness and wisdom that would lead someone like you to post a comment like this?
All white old men must now feel guilty for the pakis growing their population at 4,5 percent per year!
Marxists are convinced!
Except that isn't happening, and fresh water in America has jack shit to do with fresh water in Pakistan.
Fuck off, Ahmed.
well if you read pakistan news today it say on first page they are "holding special prayers for rain" so they clearly fixed it now... right next to "two police officers martyred"
Climate change is of course front and centre as the main cause but I don't buy that. Australia is affected by climate change and growing population but still manages to keep the water flowing. It's done by resource management, infrastructure improvements [desalination etc] and educating people that water is a finite resource at least on land.
.
Fix the problems in Karachi of infrastructure, corruption, water use and population growth first.
This city sits right at the coast - just desalinize the seawater and they'll never run out. Humankind has known about desalinization for thousands of years so why are they forgetting now?
Right, because they get their water from the same place.
You fucking idiots will do anything to try and blame shit on the US.
water from rivers is free. But agreed, who needs fresh drinking water to flush the toilet? Maybe they should have thought about a greywater system in the 65 years it took them to go from 50 to 200 milion people?
Well I found this and the family in the picture puts America's Duggars (only 18 kids) to shame with 36 kids https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-population-muslim-birth-rate-census-disaster-poverty-million-a7938816.html
Fuck 'em.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
3.79 liters per gallon or 4.55 liters per gallon? Get with the fucking times, hicks. Then, are you trying to tell me that they really NEED more than 200 liters per person per day? Surely that includes industrial uses, because that's a lot for personal use in an arid country. And surely industrial use can pay for desalination, you know, with the city being on the coast, i.e. right next to practically unlimited amounts of water.
And you instantly get called racist, even though in the west that is exactly what people keep saying.
OK, raise your hands.
GIve me a second to count hands.
OK. Done. No hands raised. Well nobody here gives a shit about Pakistan.
A far better story: Parched for a price: Karachi's water crisis
... stealing water in Karachi is an industry worth more than half a billion dollars." (each year)
... manages a household of 5 people on an income of roughly $190 a month.
Quotes:
Perween Rehman: "It is not the poor who steal the water. It is stolen by a group of people who have the full support of the government agencies, the local councillors, mayors and the police; all are involved."
"Shortly before her murder, Rehman spoke to a documentary crew, who were making a film about her work."
More:
"The scale of the theft is staggering.
"Ali Asghar, 75, says he still has to pay bills to the utility company for water that never comes in the pipes."
Another problem:
Family size.
"... Farzana Bibi, 40,
"... his entire household of 17 people is dependent on water bought from tankers."
Al Jazeera is generally a good place for such news. However, this story has no date. It was apparently written in 2017.
So, the parent comment is exactly correct.
Cut off all emigration from Pakistan and let them deal with their own problems. Overpopulation has its consequences. China knew it and implemented the One Child Policy to great success. Europe (and colonies) and East Asia have dealt with their population problems and now have stable or declining rates. If South/West Asia, the Mid East and Africa can't figure it out themselves, we're not going to bail them out by taking millions of their excess people.
Those arseholes of Americans did not build a 12000km long water pipeline. Bastards. But Allah is great, Islamic Sciences will solve the problem by throwing enough rocks to woman or mutilating them.
The number of children per woman in Pakistan has decreased rapidly in the last decades to now around 3 children per woman (2.3 is required for population to just be static in the long run). The only reason the population still grows is many children growing up and having (on average 2-3) kids of their own. There is no statistic link between religion and population growth.
See here: https://www.google.com/publicd...
Or if you do only trust the US, check the CIA:
https://www.cia.gov/library/pu...
Moritz
But Americans still have water.
And why not present figures in metric values so that people in the rest of the world would be able to understand how big the issue is?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
For globalist it does
Quit fucking. You're producing too many people. I can't continue supporting you. Try oral sex or jerk off, just quit fucking!!
Breeders are always needers
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/world/saudi-arabia-awakes-to-the-perils-of-inbreeding.html
As the World fills up with Muslims, they'll all start killing one another because the all the other Muslims practice Islam the wrong way.
What we in the West need to do is just stay out of the way. As soon as we step foot in one of those countries, we become the infidel invaders and they band together and forget their imaginary differences.
For example, we should just let ISIS do its thing and save our money - we'll need it for Medicare and Social Security.
....when that happens, perhaps population should be controlled instead of letting it continuing to grow at will.
It's on a website called "Earther" and written by a Pakistani journalist. No agenda there at all! Must be absolutely the Truth.
If you want to understand how big the issue is, then "they only get half the water the need" is a good description.
1.1 billion gallons, or 4.2 million cubic meter are equally useless for proper visualization.
I'm also struggling to understand how many swimming pools is in 550 mgd, or should I be thinking about stacks of one dollar bills on a football field?
they had a water shortage too, all these coastal cities have no excuse sitting next to HUGE bodies of water, they need to build desalination plants and turn sea water in to potable drinking water
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Some will just have to pay more for it.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
You got it! Karachi is home to more than 20 megapersons and is only able to meet about 5 decidemands of water per day.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
NUCLEAR Desalinization plants. That's the key. Of course then there's all that hot super-salty water that goes back into the ocean, but what harm could that do?
Why was this down modded ?
I think this post is on the money.
Perhaps you can refute the claims ?
They need to use Desalination
The problem is in units of people. 10 million too many. Good luck trying to save the planet by banning plastic grocery bags while the third world is breeding like locust.
Yes but is it half the water they need in gallons? We Americans don't understand metric fractions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Although it's just as hard to generalize about Muslims as it is Christians, you are projecting a kind of thinking onto Islam that would be regarded as heterodox,
Most if not all orthodox schools of Muslim thought don't believe good or bad luck have anything to do with reward and punishment. In fact they view such beliefs as superstitious. Actual reward and punishment are only meted out on the Day of Judgment.
Orthodox Muslims believe God wills good or bad things to people as a test of character. If Karachi is running out of water, that must be something that people there are capable of handling, if only they do the right thing.
I understand you're trying to be snarky, but it doesn't work if you are obviously ignorant about the people you're mocking. It actually tells us more about you and the religious traditions you are personally familiar with.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But Americans still have water.
America has plenty of water issues, and they sure as shit didn't quintuple their population over the last half-century. If they had, then America would probably be more fucked than Pakistan right now with regards to water.
Do not attribute to God that which the stupidity of man has created.
very well put
If you can't do a simple conversion, or type it into Google, then you're not capable of comprehending it anyhow.
ah, the no true muslim fallacy.. Irrational belief is wrong unless of course it's the one decreed in the book. I've already heard this one from the christian bible thumpers here in the US.
I'll pass.
How many football fields is that?
Acre-feet for the win.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is /.- it needs to be in the standard units of Olympic sized pools or Libraries of Congress. And there needs to be an automotive analogy as well...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You mean another five-fold growth over the next 65 years? Funny thing about exponential curves: another 45 years of Moore's law would require re-inventing the atom.
Exponential growth is not sustainable. That's what "exponential" actually means. There's two kinds of inflation in this world: comic inflation, and cosmic inflation. Only cosmic inflation never runs out of elbow room. News for Nerds, now in high middle age (with burgeoning male pattern baldness), and we're still overrun by bald appeals to comic inflation.
Or did you mean to ask whether Pakistan's current population of 200 million is sustainable, at that number, with no further growth, and no immediate shrinkage.
Washington Post: A disaster in the making — 9 September 2017
It seems to be that the function of Catholic clerics is to deny our population of effective birth control; whereas the function of Islamic clerics is to deny their population of effective birth control. The poverty/sin cycle is good for business. (Especially if your baptismal basin has priority claim on the fresh water supply.)
We seem to forget, however, that birth control (BC) is a relatively modern human invention. Before the BC epoch, clerics everywhere did a tidy little business in tiny tombstones.
Evolution always has a solid backup plan, even if we don't.
"The reason I don't have a job is because of the recession! Yes, I know, I quit my last job because I was bored (gave the boss the finger on the way out) and was fired from my last two jobs for a mix of showing up 2 hours late and drunk, but seriously, it's not me, it's the economy, stupid!"
Karachi needs to take some responsibility for themselves. They're a coastal city, build desalination plants. Fix the problem yourself instead of taking the easy way out!
There is zero fucking excuse for any coastal town or city to have water shortages.
D E S A L I N I Z A T I O N
I too live in a a coastal city and have to endure preemptive water rationing"to preserve resource availability". It's utter bullshit. Build additional desalinization plants to meet demand and charge accordingly. Fuck shortages and restrictions.
There is no easy way out. Complaining about climate change wouldn't solve anything if that were the cause of Karachi's problems, and certainly not otherwise.
Build a massive nuclear powered desalination plant. That would solve the problem. As an added benefit it would really confuse the liberal greens. On one hand they really hate people and nuclear power. So they should oppose this because it would upset the fishes. On the other hand they love all disadvantaged minorities (and Pakistani Muslims fit nicely in that box)
The liberals would not know what to do and would leave the Pakis alone, which would be a really good thing. Pakis and Muslims are smart enough to figure this out without the SjWs running in to fix things
Yeah. But I said they had water. Not that it wasn't without issues.
USA could afford desalination of necessary I suppose.
Pakistanians maybe not. Even if they use less of it.
I never said anything about population growth of USA.
It is pretty easy to understand if you just divide the water amount with amount of people. Obviously the summary could have done that for us, that is what editors are for.
America west is dependent on several streams that are shared amongst states. Problem is, these are drying up, while states like AZ, are playing games. But with our Congress solving nothing, the water issue is only going to get worse.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A million cubic meters is a square kilometer, one meter deep. Can you picture that? Thought so. Now try 4.2 meters deep.
There may be areas in which Al Jazeera is not helpful.
However, if, like me, you live in the U.S. and have never been to the countries Al Jazeera covers most, the articles are often far ahead of others on the same subject.
You said, "They covered a ceremony in my hometown and claimed eight people died. No one died."
Could you tell us more about that?
And why not present figures in metric values so that people in the rest of the world would be able to understand how big the issue is?
Now I understand. A litre is .946 quart, A gallon is around 3.8 litres, and the rest of the world is supposed to be so much smarter than us, but can't do the really simple math involved. For a not very specific number like this, just multiply the gallons by 4 and you are in the ballpark. You only know 1 method, and can't use anything else at all. I can do several, and gallons to litres is among the simplest that a child can do.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes but is it half the water they need in gallons? We Americans don't understand metric fractions.
No, the superiors only understand litres, and metricand once you don't use those, you are incapable of using antything else, and must resort to moaning and crying.
And your vaunted metric system is just as arbitrary at base as anything else. Otherwise, did you know this well thopught out and flalwees metric system, th emetre is exactly 1/299792458 of the distance that light travels in a second.
So no need to run around brandishing the big metric cock like it is the end all and be all of measurements.
I mean, unless it is the length that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second - then you have bragging rights.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Fools - you pikers are not using the ultimate in superiority - the metric minute. All else is foolishness.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yep to many people. Water will cause the next big war. Too much or too little .
Get up!
No Desalination Plants for a city next to a body of water? OK, I will watch the will of the people in CNN.
Except that youâ(TM)re using those feeble US quarts that are smaller than the genuine, original, accept no substitutes Imperial quarts, which weigh in at 80oz.
Bet you didnâ(TM)t know about them.
The thing is 95% of the world use something better. They already know what big numbers are in that system. They have to convert it from your silly system to understand and compare it to what they already know.
It's not like the scientists/engineers who did the calculations used your silly system anyway. It was already converted for you to understand, because you little snowflakes just have to be different. Just use the original measurements. If whiny little Americans only understand gallons or whatnot, let them convert it.
You asking for a link Windy to back up numbers, you are just too funny.
You offering credibility advice, when you are the least credible person here, priceless.
Actually, large cities generally use less resources per person than small cities or rural areas.
And Pakistan has an average of 2.62 kids per family which is hardly "breeding like locusts". Replacement fertility is probably about 2.4 in Pakistan, so they are barely over replacement.
Actually imperial units are still in widespread usage here even within engineering groups. My company uses metric for softwaee, but physical stuff like structures or antennas gets done in foot pounds and the like. I am a proponent of switching, but they tried that 40 years ago and the only thing that stuck was liters on bottles of diabetes, er soda.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Except that youâ(TM)re using those feeble US quarts that are smaller than the genuine, original, accept no substitutes Imperial quarts, which weigh in at 80oz. Bet you didnâ(TM)t know about them.
Bah, I prefer the biblical units of measure, as they come direct from Gawd.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The thing is 95% of the world use something better.
And we do too. We just don't take a hissy fit if someone says something else.But it is fun to troll ya.
Now to really piss y off, I have a socket set ....... in Whitworth. It's from back in the day I worked on vintage british motorcycles.
They already know what big numbers are in that system. They have to convert it from your silly system to understand and compare it to what they already know.
And? So what? We convert measurements all the. time. decimals, fractions, percentages, standard, metric, that old school whitworth.
I have a metric Mill and lathe that has no problem to make fractional standard measurement parts on. I've even made the occasional part that is standard on one side and metric on the other.
It's not like the scientists/engineers who did the calculations used your silly system anyway. It was already converted for you to understand, because you little snowflakes just have to be different..
Have a seat sweetheart, and let uncle Ol explain sumpin for ya.
A goodly few years ago, 'Murrica was drawn into one of the world's occasional attempts at exterminating itself. We were mostly content sitting in a corner and gazing at our navels, but old Tojo and then Adolph couldn't resist tickling the dragon's tail. So player three entered the game. Next thing ya know, we have to make tanks and planes and shit like that. Well, ont thing Uncle Ol knows is that those buildy machines you make your killy machines with have gotta be doggone good and precise kind of machines.
So we built them. And we saw that they were good. They were built in the units that were in use at the time. And we saw that they remained good. I've used WW2 vintage milling machines and lathes as late as three years ago.
So we have a lot of eally good long lasting machines that make other machines out there.
Bot lo and behold, there are other measurement systems, should we throw away millions of metric tons (see what I did there?) of very precise machinery? Sounds like a terrible waste of a lot of good work. So we stuck with Standard.
Then along comes Computer aided machining. So cool, much accurate very excellent. And it can take that bad old standard machine and turn it into metric, or even Whitworth or biblical measurements if ya wanna.
So now those old machines have a new and versatile life after being retrofitted to enter the computer age. And despite the whining and moaning of the people who have a shittin hemorrhage every time a non metric unit is mentioned, we 'Murricans actually produce a lot of metric stuff. Y'all are simply repeating talking points that show your hatred of 'Murrica with no more thought than Aunt Trudy's mynah bird saying "Pretty bird, go eat a turd!"
Just use the original measurements. If whiny little Americans only understand gallons or whatnot, let them convert it.
Weird, but y'all are the ones doing the whining. I'm enjoying y'all's outrage and limited worldview and ability to understand how to do mental conversions. Do it metric, or do it standard, I got it. I might have to whip out the calculator if someone wants to use the Maris as a unit of volume. But at 30.3 litres, we can do a rough calculation of their water needs in Maris as well.
But perhaps I am giving y'all more credit for 'rithmatic cypherin' than I should.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's just like California crying about their own inept attitudes.
You are coastal, De-salinate the ocean water. You can do it with some magnifying lenses and containment vats of water, As it evaporates, you collect the condensation and big surprise, you have potable water.
DUH!
Interesting, but totally irrelevant. I really couldn't give 2 shits what measurement system you use, or 5/8ths of a shit, or however you measure them. I'm sure you have your reasons.
The point is it was originally in metric, but dumbed down for Americans to understand. If they are as wise and all knowing as you claim, why the need to change it for them?
For said Americans to then complain about people wanting it converted back again into sensible measurement is just too funny. Maybe Americans just don't get irony either.
Interesting, but totally irrelevant. I really couldn't give 2 shits what measurement system you use, or 5/8ths of a shit, or however you measure them. I'm sure you have your reasons. The point is it was originally in metric, but dumbed down for Americans to understand.
Oh bullshit. And quit being such a quasi-racist Euro-bigot. It is so ridiculously easy to be proficient in multiple measuring systems at the same time, you really have no right at all to claim that the article was dumbed down for the 'Murricans. Because anyone who can pull off that ridiculously minor feat of thinking isn't going to complain. The metric system is but one system that we use. We use it every day. Along with any other system we need to use. Which pretty much puts the lie to your whole premise. You might as well whine and moan about people who are proficient in multple languages. The metric system is at base, no less arbitrary than measuring in barleycorns of handbreadths. Get over yourself, Spanky.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes but is it half the water they need in gallons? We Americans don't understand metric fractions.
No, the superiors only understand litres, and metricand once you don't use those, you are incapable of using antything else, and must resort to moaning and crying.
And your vaunted metric system is just as arbitrary at base as anything else. Otherwise, did you know this well thopught out and flalwees metric system, th emetre is exactly 1/299792458 of the distance that light travels in a second.
So no need to run around brandishing the big metric cock like it is the end all and be all of measurements.
I mean, unless it is the length that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second - then you have bragging rights.
The Gallon is a standard for the USA and for it's territories. But if the USA wants to export products to the world, or manufacture cars, or airplanes or any critical equipment such as space ships for example, it is definitely not American measure. Neither is the weather tracked in around the World in American Standard. The world's standard applies and so America is once again not great. The non American world standard is the metric system.
I understand that American congressmen and educators felt that it is too difficult to teach the metric system, or to increase the size of a football field from 100 yards to 100 meters.
Your 2x4x8 lumber and 4x8 gyproc etc. is standard, but we use a metric equivalent for the 4x8 panels of gyproc
Some countries use both in some cases Eg. Canada. We buy some fruit and vegetables by the pound, But USA suppliers provide the quantities in metric measure. Officially Canada is a metric country.
Re building supplies. https://www.gypsum.org/wp-cont...
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The Gallon is a standard for the USA and for it's territories. But if the USA wants to export products to the world, or manufacture cars, or airplanes or any critical equipment such as space ships for example, it is definitely not American measure. Neither is the weather tracked in around the World in American Standard. The world's standard applies and so America is once again not great. The non American world standard is the metric system.
I understand that American congressmen and educators felt that it is too difficult to teach the metric system, or to increase the size of a football field from 100 yards to 100 meters.
You have the citations that it is considered too difficult? I learned the metric system in High School in the late 60's and I lived in a town that refused to teach evolution - we were that backward.
At my desk, I have some containers of stuff. Let's take a look.........
Equate Hand lotion - net weight 14 Oz, then 397 grams
Polar Seltzer Water 12 fl Oz then 355 ml
Palmers Cocoa Butter skin cream 250 ml then8.5 fl oz
Armor All Air Freshening plastic protectant 1 Pt (16 Fl Oz ) then 473 ml
Friskies Cat treats weight 2.1 oz then 60 g
90 percent Isopropyl alcohol fo rremoving flux from circuit boards 32 fl oz (1 qt) 946 ml
Clobetasol topical solution 50 ml.
Blaster teflon infused Multi-purpose lubricant spray - 8 oz then 227 grams
Everything in the house is in both standard and metric, and those things that have one only are metric only. This is why the meme that 'Murrica is standard only is BS
Your 2x4x8 lumber and 4x8 gyproc etc. is standard,
Minor quibble, the cheeps who do lumber have been making 2x4 lumber skinnier over the years, now you have to specifiy "dimensional limber if you want actual 2x4, and good luck once you find it.
but we use a metric equivalent for the 4x8 panels of gyproc
Some countries use both in some cases Eg. Canada.
Canada even uses two languages!
We buy some fruit and vegetables by the pound, But USA suppliers provide the quantities in metric measure. Officially Canada is a metric country.
Re building supplies. https://www.gypsum.org/wp-cont...
And it is perfectly fine to be a one unit only country. We just have two. My major issue is the people who have the ideas that the US does not use metric, and that metric is some sort of non-arbitrary standard. Powers of ten are nice and all, but it has been revised many times, and now the official base of the metric length of measure is............ a fraction! Which is priceless - that they revert to the bad old way to define it
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Explain why it was dumbed down for Americans.
If you think it is so ridiculously easy to be proficient in both systems, why change it for them?
Where did I say metric wasn't arbitrary? I said it was used in 95% of the world, and that means it's much more common. You do understand percentages right? You don't need them dumbed down too do you?
"Lastly, salinity levels in oceans are predicted to rise, which would make filtering water more expensive. The more salt there is to filter out, the more energy required. That’s why plants often convert brackish water (think lightly salted potato chips vs. regular) to clean water. But brackish water is not as prevalent as ocean water."
Guess what resource wars will fight about in the future?
The water shortage in Karachi is linked to a lack of birth control
Just another day in Paradise
Rural areas use more per capita because they are agricultural producers. Its relatively hard to grow crops and meat in the inner city. No?
Some individual Pakistanis need to heat up sea water in skillets and catch the boiling steam evaporation into funnels and route that water via a tube to sealed water bottles. Unfortunately it takes a lot of heat to boil water. Personal desalinators are a partial solution to this problem. Another partial handle is to heavily tax parents who have more than one child and use that money towards mass desalinization efforts . Harsh but necessary. Doing nothing could lead to much much worse problems.