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Britain Could Run Short of Water by 2050, Official Says (nytimes.com)
To the casual observer, Britain -- an island nation that's no stranger to rain -- could not get much wetter. From a report: But, as it turns out, that's a fallacy. And if preventive steps are not taken, in less than three decades, Britain might run out of water, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, a public body responsible for conservation in England, said on Tuesday. "On the present projections, many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast, where much of the U.K. population lives," the agency chief, James Bevan, said at a conference on water use.
In about 20 to 25 years, demand could close in on supply in what Mr. Bevan called "the jaws of death -- the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs." The reasons, he said, were climate change and population growth. And he called for a change of attitude toward water conservation to help tackle the problem. "We need water wastage to be as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby or throwing your plastic bags into the sea," Mr. Bevan said. Many in Britain, citing the often rainy weather and expressing frustration with the infamously high levels of leakage from underground pipes, tend to belittle warnings about water shortages.
In about 20 to 25 years, demand could close in on supply in what Mr. Bevan called "the jaws of death -- the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs." The reasons, he said, were climate change and population growth. And he called for a change of attitude toward water conservation to help tackle the problem. "We need water wastage to be as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby or throwing your plastic bags into the sea," Mr. Bevan said. Many in Britain, citing the often rainy weather and expressing frustration with the infamously high levels of leakage from underground pipes, tend to belittle warnings about water shortages.
A perfect application for solar energy for a place surrounded by ocean... not seeing any real issue here that isn't readily solvable with known tech. And it's not like they have to transition to getting all their water that way, just some percent on the order of a tenth or so
Problem is about 20% of leaks aren't worth fixing. Water is too cheap.
Say you have a small leak costing 5 or 10 quid a month. £120/year lost, or you can spend a thousands locating it, arranging to close the road, closing the road, digging up the road, fixing the pipe, filling in the hole and resurfacing the road.
So it gets left alone until it gets big enough to be worth fixing.
So we can either pay more for water and require some of that to be spend fixing such leaks, or we can nationalize the water companies and spend the shareholder dividends and board member remuneration packages on small leaks, or we can switch to low flow showers and leaving the yellow mellow.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
it's just an expensive supply of water to make drinkable
Not really. Tons of the stuff literally falls out of the sky in drinkable condition. That's actually sort of the problem. The UK gets so much rain that it's never really been worthwhile to invest in the infrastructure to capture and store more than a tiny fraction of it. All this article is really saying is that as the population grows, that tiny fraction will need to increase. Which is hardly a startling revelation.
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Idiot activist says something idiotic...like polar ice caps could completely disappear by 2004.
The AGW activist community repeats again and again.
It makes its way into official reports
News papers publish breathless articles.
People chain themselves to shit in protest.
Scientists say nothing
When the idiot prediction fails, activists mutter, "..said no scientist."
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.