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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.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:03AM (1 child)
Thank you for your kind reply.
Please let me say a couple of things. One, I’m not a Southafrican so I really don’t care very much about what the world thinks about that country. I do have family there and yes, I know a bit of the country, but it is not an honor-thing to defend them and/or explain their ways.
Some of my family lives in KwaZulu-Natal, a province (state) which has a murder rate higher than the national average, but not the highest. However I do not know of anyone (family, friends or acquaintances) killed there. Some will say it is just white privilege speaking and maybe, just maybe, that is the right explanation. But I have travelled through the country and have never felt less safe than in Houston or San Francisco or Miami and maybe, as you say, it is because we’re now used to shitty cities.
I don’t have hard data because “race” is not tracked on the statistics but my observations point to murder being mostly black-on-black and my opinion (again no hard evidence) is that when you or I see a black person, we see that: a black person. Whereas a black person in SA sees a Zulu, Xhosa or any other ethnicity (tribe) and some of them are sworn enemies to the death.
In a more familiar way, when you or I see an Asian we have no clue if they are Korean, Japanese or Chinese. However an Asian will tell you immediately to what ethnic group they belong because of a “funny nose” or a turn of phrase that is a clear indicator of ethnicity to another Asian and to which we are blind.
Second, the per capita GDP of SA has never been $13 thousand dollars. Maybe someone scrambled ZAR and USD on the chart you referenced. Not to dispute that the country has seen better years (2010-11 is an example of much better), but in general the GDP [google.com] has been growing, just not with the current government.
Finally, would I move to SA? Probably not. Will I go again this year for 3-4 weeks? Definitively yes. Being forced to move and given a choice, where would I go? To Canada or New Zealand. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @12:59AM