Drinking The Ocean Not A Solution For A Thirsty World
| Tue Jun. 19, 2007 10:32 AM PDT
Making drinking water out of sea water is a growing trend but a potentially insidious threat to the environment that could exacerbate climate change. The World Wildlife Fund reports that desalination is not only expensive but also an energy-intensive and highly environmentally unfriendly way to get water. Yet more and more of a drying world is looking to it: the Arabian Gulf gets 60% of its fresh water through desalination; Perth, Australia, hopes to source a third of its needs the same way; Spain uses 22% of its desalinated water for agriculture and holiday resorts in arid areas. Meanwhile, the impacts of desalination include brine build-up, increased greenhouse gas emissions, destruction of prized coastal areas, and reduced emphasis on conservation of rivers and wetlands. . . Howzabout we stop engineering and start conserving. First on the chopping block: golf courses.
This from the Aussies, drought masters.
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Comments
Always in search of wildlife, I have traveled to a lot of the third world. I assure you that the U.S. attitude toward fresh clean potable drinking water goes beyond insane. Water is indeed a precious resource. In much of the world, potable water is only available in bottles.
Here in the U.S. however, we flush our toilets, wash our cars, take long hot showers, hose down sidewalks, etc. all with potable drinking water. This is madness.
All of these could easily be done with gray water with no risk to health. Potable drinking water is for brushing teeth and drinking. All else can easily be done with water that only looks potable, but isn't. And, I've never had any health risk from this while on travel.
We need to reuse our water. Sewage is great after it is processed. But only 10% of our water is used by cities. The rest is primarily agriculture, for the raising of meat to be consumed by humans. If we are serious about this, do not eat beef and pork. Americans eat way too much flesh protein for what is needed. That is why we have such a high rate of related diseases. I am not saying go to an extreme, like a vegetarian(children need meat to grow) but we can safely reduce our flesh consumption by a large amount.
Jojo Z., very good point!! I would modify that though to point out that the most efficient source of plant protein is soy. However, it is actually more efficient, in terms of protein per acre of farm, to have a fish pond on the farm, grow grains and feed them to carp, tilapia, or catfish. All of these will produce more protein per unit of land than soy, which is also a huge consideration. I'm not sure how they compare on total water used for the protein raised. I'm just saying, vegetarian may not be the best environmental solution. You're clearly correct about beef and pork, and probably chicken as well.
Can't believe it. it's not
Submitted by Los Angeles Locksmith (not verified) on Sat Aug. 15, 2009 2:29 AM PDT.
Can't believe it. it's not environment friendly. Learned something interesting.
Now i am bit afraid.
Submitted by Life Annuity (not verified) on Mon Sep. 14, 2009 11:18 AM PDT.
Now i am bit afraid.
I am agree that desalination
Submitted by Anuncios (not verified) on Sat Oct. 31, 2009 11:13 PM PDT.
I am agree that desalination might a threat harmful to the environment, but the people of dry land need drinking water. so the authority needs to find out the new environment friendly way to solve water problem.
