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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the so-thirsty dept.

Cape Town, home to Table Mountain, African penguins, sunshine and sea, is a world-renowned tourist destination. But it could also become famous for being the first major city in the world to run out of water.

Most recent projections suggest that its water could run out as early as March. The crisis has been caused by three years of very low rainfall, coupled with increasing consumption by a growing population.

The local government is racing to address the situation, with desalination plants to make sea water drinkable, groundwater collection projects, and water recycling programmes.

Meanwhile Cape Town's four million residents are being urged to conserve water and use no more than 87 litres (19 gallons) a day. Car washing and filling up swimming pools has been banned. And the visiting Indian cricket team were told to limit their post-match showers to two minutes.

Such water-related problems are not confined to Cape Town, of course.

Nearly 850 million people globally lack access to safe drinking water, says the World Health Organisation, and droughts are increasing.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:42PM (1 child)

    by RS3 (6367) on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:42PM (#621843)

    I'm no authoritairian, in fact I was a staunch libertarian much of my life. (Of course, by definition you can't enforce libertarianism, right?) As I've learned more about life, people, society, etc., I've realized that some people need restraint; IE: "government". The 1800s saw the rise of "Robber Barons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) [wikipedia.org], monopolies, and the richest most opulent era in modern history, and with it, a disparity of wealth much worse than what we have now; children working all 7 and long days, for example: http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor [history.com].

    So I've come full circle and back to what was decided ~240 years ago: for a just, fair, and balanced society, we need government, which should be: Of, For, and By We the People. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/preamble.asp [yale.edu] Unfortunately, money has power, so to keep society balanced, fair, and just, we need strong laws regarding prices, markets, etc., of certain essential goods and services.

    One of the many things learned from the Great Depression of the 1930s was that food supply and prices needed to be controlled, subsidized, etc.; IE: the market _had_ to be manipulated. More and more the same will be true for water. And we may need cross-continent pipelines for water, like we have for various fossil fuels.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 15 2018, @01:11AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 15 2018, @01:11AM (#622349) Journal

    in fact I was a staunch libertarian much of my life

    Sure, you were.

    The 1800s saw the rise of "Robber Barons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist), [wikipedia.org] monopolies, and the richest most opulent era in modern history, and with it, a disparity of wealth much worse than what we have now; children working all 7 and long days, for example: " rel="url2html-28134">http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor.

    And what's wrong with that? The same era also saw a transformation of the US from a provincial backwater to developed world superpower. To the contrary, it shows that not even the worst excesses such as child labor and wealth inequality are that bad for the future. What is missed here is that workers made considerable sacrifices during this time and those sacrifices were paid back with one of the wealthiest societies in human history.

    So I've come full circle and back to what was decided ~240 years ago: for a just, fair, and balanced society, we need government, which should be: Of, For, and By We the People. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/preamble.asp. [yale.edu] Unfortunately, money has power, so to keep society balanced, fair, and just, we need strong laws regarding prices, markets, etc., of certain essential goods and services.

    This is the real flaw of libertarianism. Government should be this way, but you can't force people to govern themselves well, particularly, if not forcing people is the foundation of your creed. It's nice to say that government should do these things, but when you simultaneously admit that it'll merely favor the very ones it's supposed to regulate, then where are you? You've painted yourself into a corner.