Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Once, a river ran through it. Now, white dust and thousands of dead fish cover the wide trench that winds amid rows of trees in France's Burgundy region in what was the Tille River in the village of Lux.
From dry and cracked reservoirs in Spain to falling water levels on major arteries like the Danube, the Rhine and the Po, an unprecedented drought is afflicting nearly half of the European continent. It is damaging farm economies, forcing water restrictions, causing wildfires and threatening aquatic species.
There has been no significant rainfall for almost two months in Western, Central and Southern Europe. In typically rainy Britain, the government officially declared a drought across southern and central England on Friday amid one of the hottest and driest summers on record.
And Europe's dry period is expected to continue in what experts say could be the worst drought in 500 years.
Climate change is exacerbating conditions as hotter temperatures speed up evaporation, thirsty plants take in more moisture and reduced snowfall in the winter limits supplies of fresh water available for irrigation in the summer. Europe isn't alone in the crisis, with drought conditions also reported in East Africa, the western United States and northern Mexico.
As he walked in the 15-meter-wide (50-foot-wide) riverbed in Lux, Jean-Philippe Couasné, chief technician at the local Federation for Fishing and Protection of the Aquatic Environment, listed the species of fish that had died in the Tille.
"It's heartbreaking," he said. "On average, about 8,000 liters (about 2,100 gallons) per second are flowing. ... And now, zero liters."
In some areas upstream, some of the trout and other freshwater species are able take shelter in pools via fish ladders. But such systems aren't available everywhere.
Without rain, the river "will continue to empty. And yes, all fish will die. ... They are trapped upstream and downstream, there's no water coming in, so the oxygen level will keep decreasing as the (water) volume will go down," Couasné said. "These are species that will gradually disappear."
Related Stories
Europe's drought exposes WWII ships, bombs and prehistoric stones:
Weeks of baking heat and drought across Europe have seen water levels in rivers and lakes fall to levels few can remember, exposing long-submerged treasures – and some deadly hazards.
In Spain, archaeologists have been delighted by the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle dubbed the “Spanish Stonehenge” that is usually covered by waters of a dam that have fallen in the worst drought in decades.
[...] The stone circle was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Since then it has only become fully visible four times.
Another of Europe’s mighty rivers, the Danube, has fallen to one of its lowest levels in almost a century as a result of the drought, exposing the hulks of more than 20 German warships sunk during World War II near Serbia’s river port town of Prahovo.
[...] Memories of past droughts have also been rekindled in Germany by the reappearance of so-called “hunger stones” along the Rhine river. Many such stones have become visible along the banks of Germany’s largest river in recent weeks.
Bearing dates and people’s initials, their re-emergence is seen by some as a warning and reminder of the hardships people faced during former droughts.
Dates visible on stones seen in Worms, south of Frankfurt, and Rheindorf, near Leverkusen, included 1947, 1959, 2003 and 2018.
See also:
Europe's Rhine River Runs Dry
European Drought Dries Up Rivers, Kills Fish, Shrivels Crops
Drought Forces Water Use Rethink In Spain
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 14 2022, @03:36PM (51 children)
Desalination, now. Not after the first billion people have died due to lack of water and lack of food. If we wait until then, another billion will die before the engineering and build out can be done. We KNOW that the earth is drying up. We need to prepare for it, or be ready to bury armies of dead people.
Most of the world's population lives close to the sea. Desalinate water to supply the major cities, relieving pressure on the rivers and lakes. Without most of the population using rivers for drinking water, showers, etc, what's left in the rivers will go a lot further toward food production. Then we could engineer and build irrigation schemes that would make the most of the remaining water, without destroying those rivers.
Los Angeles and southern California is a prime example, claiming water rights hundreds of miles away from the city, and even in other states. Desalinate, satisfy the city's thirst, and stop sucking water from all the surrounding land.
Global stupidity is going to kill a lot of people!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday August 14 2022, @06:15PM (7 children)
slight correction.
At least in CA Urban water usage only accounts for ~11% of the water diverted for human use, about 9 million acre feet (MAF) out of the ~200 MAF CA gets on average from rainfall and other natural sources.Agriculture is the biggest user of that diverted water at ~34MAF.
https://mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Delta-Plan-Fig-3-1.jpg [mavensnotebook.com]
Putting the most blame on cities isn't fair. Most of the criticism can be directed at the farmers who continue to grow high water crops like Almonds and grapes in what is effectively a desert. But please keep in mind that most of those family owned farms were originally created generations ago when water wasn't seen as scarce, and the family owned farms continue to grow what pays the bills so try not to be too harsh towards them. Big AG on the other hand deserves the lion share of the criticism, they just want the consistent high profit from those crops and damn the environment. They need to die.
Personally I am in 100% agreement with you that the Urban water should be sourced from desalinization simply for the reliability and reduction of as much impact on the environment as possible. If sufficient capacity can be built then AG can start easing off pulling water from aquifers too
one of the truest and most accurate statements I have read anywhere.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 14 2022, @07:26PM (4 children)
I wasn't placing blame, so much as addressing where the greatest good will come from desalination. Cities consume more water than most farms. Fact is, lots of people use lots of water. That whole concept of efficiency dictates that if you're going to desalinate, put the plant where it will benefit the most people.
I honestly believe that every coastal city in the world should be addressing this issue soonest. Leave the ground water in the ground, for nature, agriculture, and for country people who rely on wells that might have been dug 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago in the old world.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:40PM (1 child)
According to the EPA water usage statistics [epa.gov], all municipal water supplies are around 12% of total usage and another 1% is residential wells, while irrigation and watering livestock is around 2.5 times that. And according to the stats in GP's comment, California is somewhat worse than the country as a whole.
So no, cities don't even come close to consuming more water than farms. Sure, a major city will use more water than 1 farm, but 1 average farm uses more water than 1 average family of city-dwellers.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @05:37AM
You can tell him again, and again. And he will pop up in the next thread on the same topic saying the same thing. At what point is it propaganda? Or spam? It's similar on many topics - the same shit over and over. I only come on SN to shitpost nowadays, once a week or so, and when I do... there's the same Runway shit (not just him) regurgitating his rightwing talking points. It's trash here, tbh.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Sunday August 14 2022, @10:01PM (1 child)
I agree that we need to leave ground water alone as much as possible. It's creating disasters across the world (the sinking of Indonesia's capital of Jakarta, the sinkholes appearing all over Turkey etc). My view of aquifier use is that it's buying water on credit, hoping that the groundwater will be replenished. Every time you need to dig a well deeper, you're demonstrating that you're spending more than you're earning and are going further into debt.
City users are far smaller consumers of water than agriculture. It's true that a city consumes more water than a single farm, but completely inaccurate to say that a city consumes more than 'most farms combined' around it. Use of greenhouses and switching to lower-water crops would certainly help.
A shame that our European Urban Planners of 500-1000 years ago didn't decide to build towns near rivers - a lot of good farmland is now under towns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2022, @01:08AM
Cities probably consume more water per area than farms. They also use far more power. Putting the desalination plants next to both probably makes sense.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:02PM
Lately I am starting to think that water from air systems are the best way to go for drinking water, at least. Too much potential for contaminants and other crazy variables when cleaning up seawater and other sources. As long as you have some humidity, and a source of power for a chiller, you can pull relatively clean water from the air, with a side benefit of chilling the air while you do it. I'm sure this can be improved upon in many different ways. [amazon.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:26PM
Not just California, Florida is running out of water and the crops are drinking more than the people.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2022, @06:37PM (5 children)
If they can, the psychopaths we put in power and give all our money will happily wait until five or six billion people have died, still leaves plenty of slaves to wipe their asses.. Time to realize it's not stupidity that is killing us, it's more antipathy
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedGreen on Monday August 15 2022, @12:03AM (4 children)
"If they can, the psychopaths we put in power and give all our money will happily wait until five or six billion people have died, still leaves plenty of slaves to wipe their asses.. Time to realize it's not stupidity that is killing us, it's more antipathy"
That was my thought when I read the pathetic excuse given for the murdering bastards that engineer the conditions that results in all the deaths we see from their actions. Time for them to be eliminated from our presence has long since past, I have become rather militant in my views on this this past few years watching them kill countless more people with their garbage..
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @05:48AM (3 children)
I don't think you realize, they don't consider you have any value whatsoever. It's only their benevolence that stops them wiping out all but 500m of you. People are just no longer “useful” to the global elite and their agenda. Forget the logic, feel the narcissism.
https://nationalfile.com/wef-advisor-says-global-elite-dont-need-the-vast-majority-of-the-population-to-live/ [nationalfile.com]
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Monday August 15 2022, @02:07PM (2 children)
"People are just no longer “useful” to the global elite and their agenda. Forget the logic, feel the narcissism."
I do not care I am in favor of killing them before they kill us, a simple plain solution to the parasites of society problem..
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:38PM (1 child)
"They" are not some special type of baddie that you kill to solve problem, like in the movies. They are just rich versions of us; it's a million years of psychology we're working with here. Even your opposition is something that's played out thousands of times before. Progress in retraining the psyche is slow, a lifetime for an individual, thousands of years for society. Look at us in 2022 in civilized countries still struggling with strong man leaders, still attributing the random distribution of wealth to innate ability.
Imagine if money was issued at birth purely randomly but people acted like they attained that money by their own effort and talent. Yeah, you don't have to imagine because that's how we do it around here, boy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2022, @12:27AM
I think we are being set up to attack each other.
Notice how we are being divided and pointed at each other.
The elite will sell us guns.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 14 2022, @07:47PM (9 children)
Ask Kentucky and Las Vegas if the earth is drying up.
Weather patterns are changing, and we are going to have to learn to adapt in ways we're not accustomed to, like moving. The concept of land ownership and fixed lines on the map doesn't work well when global rainfall patterns go chaotic.
Desalination, preferably powered by something that doesn't make more problems for the global climate, is one good answer. Given the power, building out the desalination works isn't too hard, or time consuming. But relocating people and farms might be more efficient, if you ignore the self imposed ownership and political costs we put on ourselves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:00PM (2 children)
That whole people moving thing? Where are they going to move to? How much you want to bet they want to squat on the newly arable land that should be feeding them?
Leave the cities where they are, move the farms wherever the arable land is, and truck the food to the cities. Better yet, let's make a rail system that runs on time, so we can ship the food by rail! That would be really cost efficient, and far less polluting.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:05PM (1 child)
Like Russia is moving their farms to the Ukraine? Expect a lot more of that in the future.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:48AM
Except they're not. They're just mining the fields and burning the crops, depending on the mood of the day (and supply/logistics). Russia has no military objectives in Ukraine save extermination of Ukrainians.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @04:56AM (5 children)
In the US, the moving industry effectively moves the entire population of the US every eight or so years.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @09:48AM (4 children)
Edit to add: moving across national political boundaries.
Yes, the US has a tremendous number of economic refugees who get internally shuffled every few years, uprooted from family and friends local support to start over with strangers wherever they are needed by the economic engine. It's not all bad, but moving the work to where the people are is much better for most people, particularly those with children and spouse, than moving the people to chase the work.
What we haven't started doing, yet, is relocating people and farms to where the rainfall supports them best. Instead we go wherever the land is attractively priced and fuck up the ecosystems in an attempt to move the water where we think we need it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @01:38PM (3 children)
Not much point to the observation, if society can't achieve it. For example, how do we move high paying high tech work to Africa? My take is that it'll eventually happen in the better part of a century - perhaps by 2100. But in the meantime, would it be better to an African to stay in Africa waiting for that job, making do with whatever they can find for 80 years, rather than moving to the developed world now?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @02:27PM (2 children)
Hypothetically speaking? The same way we move high paying tech work domestically these days: via broadband.
Realistically speaking? We had the ability to WFH the bulk of tech services work (IT, software dev, tech support) 20+ years ago, but the social inertia in leadership wouldn't budge.
Africa isn't that far off, timezone wise, from most of the US, particularly western Africa vs east coast. Then, you just need attractive housing (safe, secure food and water supplies, affordable) and a reliable broadband infrastructure.
But, why are you trying to send my IT guys to Africa?
In the meantime, it would be better for Africans to stabilize their domestic situations, curb the violence, ensure adequate food water and shelter for their people - those are pre-requisites for a prosperous civilization that are missing from too much of the world, and expecting outsiders to fix them is folly.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @03:42PM (1 child)
Africa is vastly cheaper than your place.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @04:27PM
It won't be once they get a handle on the violence, food security, water security and similar issues.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:35PM (11 children)
Whatcha gonna do with all that salt?
Where ya gonna get all that energy?
Molten salt nuclear reactors don't work like that.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 14 2022, @09:34PM (7 children)
Put most of it right back where we got it - the ocean. If they can extract and make use of some of that salt fine, but the bulk gets returned to the sea.
Solar, wind, and nooklar. No fossil fuels necessary, I'm certain. No hydropower either, if the rivers are drying up.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:21PM (6 children)
The brine destroys the ecosystem around the coasts and causes more serious issues.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 15 2022, @12:27AM
So pipe the brine to deeper water . . .
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday August 15 2022, @01:05AM
So you think we should do nothing and continue to drain rivers and aquifers for potable water? How is that going to help the planet?
Yes there is an issue when you dump highly concentrated brine right at the coastline. But there are things that can be done that can mitigate the problem.
For example; divert some of the incoming water from the pumps and use that to dilute the concentrated brine to less harmful concentrations, and then release that though a number of smaller pipes spread out over a large area in the deep water column, not on the seafloor, to diffuse the brine even more instead of just dumping a 90% salt solution right at the coastline from a single point source. Yes it would cost more and reduce the efficiency of the desalinization plant but it would also reduce the environmental impact from the plant. I'm sure there are other solutions that better minds than mine can come up with if they were asked..
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:41AM
Maybe right at the outflow if you just dump it on a beach, but it is easily mitigated by dumping the outflow far enough out that it is in a current.
Note that most desalination plants only remove about half or less of the water, so the outflow is at most about twice as salty as the water going in.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @01:42PM (2 children)
Causes more serious issues than the Runaway scenario of a billion people dying? Not happening. I happen to think that the drought scenario has been grossly exaggerated for climate change purposes - we're not even close to a genuine water supply problem for most of the world, but you're insane if you think that the environmental damage from a billion people starving to death will be lighter than some localized higher salinity regions in the oceans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:42PM (1 child)
This all assumes globull warming isn't a Chinese hoax amirite? Or did we move on from that argument.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @03:16PM
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 15 2022, @06:58AM (1 child)
Well, the OP can power their magic silver-bullet solution with:
Take your pick, any of the above.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:45PM
You forgot: (1) Pray for rain, like the governors of Texas and Utah have already done, and (2) Let Mother Gaia run her course.
I choose (1). Praise the Lord!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @12:13PM
> Whatcha gonna do with all that salt?
Some of the brine can be used for de-icing roads, at least for areas where it snows/freezes. Probably not good economics to truck or pipe brine from warmer to colder parts of the world...
Around here (Great Lakes area), they make brine from mined rock salt and spray it on the roads. Asphalt roads turn white in the winter. It seems to do a better job of keeping the roads clear than just spreading the salt around. And I think the brine solution uses less overall salt per mile of roadway (anyone have some data?)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Sunday August 14 2022, @09:45PM (14 children)
A bit of googling finds the first hit . . . [htt.io]
A brain dead simple kneejerk solution seems to be: Get rid of all forms of agriculture and there will be plenty of water.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Sunday August 14 2022, @10:08PM (13 children)
Seems to be the best bang-for-buck is to fix those inferior systems. Put a cap on the water available to any given farm, and they'll have a strong incentive to make better use of it. At the moment they just need to pay an extra few cents.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Sunday August 14 2022, @11:48PM (12 children)
If we had any sense at policy making we would have started to do something when we first learned of this inconvenient truth that is now manifesting world wide.
Of course deniers will deny until humans are extinct.
The changing narrative:
1. Climate change is a hoax (probably by the chinese)
2. It is real, but humans didn't cause it.
3. Humans may have caused it, but there is nothing we can do about it.
4. Okay, there is something we could do about it, but it would adversely affect rich people and corporations which cannot be allowed to happen.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @04:57AM (11 children)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @01:40PM
That is too vague. There will always be problems that can be blamed on climate change. Too hot, too cold, floods, droughts, more hurricanes, melting ice, cold snaps, snowstorms, less tornadoes, forest fires.
They need to show the connections and how their "required actions on climate change" would mitigate that problem without causing worse problems elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 15 2022, @03:49PM (9 children)
It is like trying to prove to someone that the earth is a sphere rather than a flat plane.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @04:06PM (8 children)
Or the other way around. That evidence thing is what carries the day.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 15 2022, @05:47PM (7 children)
That's what the flat earther told me.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @07:39PM (6 children)
But here, try rational argument and evidence. I know there's all kinds of AC out there swearing that I would never listen to that, but they never try to confirm their hypotheses. It's not very scientific, is it?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 16 2022, @09:41PM (5 children)
If you cannot see that climate change is happening, I'm not going to convince you. It's like talking to a flat earther. They don't want to have a discussion. They just want to pull your strings.
If you cannot see what a scientific consensus is saying with their evidence, then I'm not going to convince you. Nor am I going to try.
I already went through this with the covid deniers right here on SN. One million Americans dead is not enough evidence.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 16 2022, @10:08PM (4 children)
That's not the problem here. I acknowledge (and have for years) that there is global warming - the usual sort of climate change that is referred to by the label "climate change". The problem is blaming a variety of human failings on climate change - like business had a tendency to blame the failures of the past decade on covid. Notice that this thread started with the observation that so much water is lost to farms - and that in turn most of that water was lost to the environment through poor farming and water management techniques.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 16 2022, @11:47PM (3 children)
Before climate change, the water used on farming was not a problem.
Climate change is not a result of human "failings" as in moral failings. Climate change is caused by human activity. Gradually. And it is now catching up with us.
I don't know what you mean by the "label" climate change. It has a name. Higher high temperatures and lower low temperatures. More extreme summers. More extreme winters. More extreme hurricanes. These things are happening.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2022, @01:12AM (2 children)
Protip: climate change predates agriculture by over four billion years.
*cough*
Does that sound like a moral failing to you?
It also means any other change in climate. Vague labels for very specific phenomena and predictions should be a warning sign. Among other things, it allows for excessive confirmation bias. Because if the very specific phenomena and predictions should be mistaken or incorrect, they can change it out to fresher stuff without admitting that error.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 17 2022, @02:13PM (1 child)
I'm talking about human created climate change. Not natural climate change. Climate change that is much larger levels of CO2 rise than anything known in history. Please do not try to compare it with natural climate change.
I am not going to try to convince you.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2022, @11:03PM
I wasn't, but let's consider your premise in the same vein. Agriculture does have a global warming effect (through a combination of albedo change, deforestation, and methane production) - it would be slight at the advent of agriculture, but significant by the beginning of the Industrial Age. For example: [sagepub.com]
The latter would be crudely over 20 ppm of CO2 equivalent which is roughly a sixth to a seventh of the increase in CO2 equivalent since 1850.
And the assertion that "Before climate change, the water used on farming was not a problem." is ignorant of history. For example, here's a website listing 10 famous civilization-ending droughts [wunderground.com]. Bottom line is that only one of those listed was since the Industrial Age started. I'm sure, if we looked, we'd a few more candidates in the present, but the point is that we have nine examples of pre-Industrial Age droughts that were the real deal. Consider the first few lines of this linked article:
News flash: I already noticed. I am however trying to convince you. I doubt a few posts will do. But perhaps you'll notice how one side seems to have all the mistakes and bad assumptions.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Username on Sunday August 14 2022, @06:26PM (23 children)
I remember the climate fascist saying europe would be under a few meters of water by now. The dutch living in giant wooden shoes floating in the north sea, all tied to a windmill so the tide doesn't take them away.
Can't wait for it to rain, then the story will change back. The climate story always seems to change to fit the weather.
Hot out? climate change. Cold out? climate change. Mild with a pleasant breeze? Climate change, and it's horrible you uncaring bastard.
(Score: 5, Touché) by pe1rxq on Sunday August 14 2022, @07:41PM (1 child)
It is perfectly possible for sea levels to rise while the rivers dry up at the same time.
The story did not change, it just got bigger.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday August 15 2022, @02:46AM
It's not only possible, it's likely. The water had to go somewhere.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 14 2022, @07:52PM (19 children)
The climate story was, is, and will be: change. We're taking the Holocene to an early close, and it's going to suck for far more people than it benefits.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @05:53AM
It already do suck, brah.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @01:44PM (17 children)
Hasn't happened yet - instead the best time ever for the majority of humanity. Have you checked to see if that narrative is plugged in?
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @02:35PM (16 children)
So, you're talking the median: 50% level? Because the Pharohs and Kings had it pretty good in antiquity, too.
Look around your community for households (not individuals) living on $10K per year [gallup.com]. How are they doing? Take a look at Turkey or Uruguay today where the median household income is slightly lower, so those who are getting $9,733 annual income are a little above average in their countries, how are those "average" households faring? I mean, the ones who get to clean house for retired Europeans and Americans, they're doing O.K., right?
https://www.guruguay.com/living-in-uruguay/ [guruguay.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @02:52PM
Poor people are just lazy. If they clean the best they can, put in the years, they will move up the cleaning ladder from Brits to Americans then finally Saudis. The big time, baby!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @03:20PM (14 children)
Absolutely. A majority of antiquity weren't pharaohs and kings. I find it remarkable how people just can't understand how good things are today.
Dishonest argument. First, that's a small number of people in the US. The rest of the world is considerably bigger. Second, inflation. $10k will buy less and less as time goes on. So people who are earning that amount will do worse and worse.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @03:27PM (9 children)
I find it remarkable how people just can understand how tenuous the "good times" we live in today are, and just how quickly they can go away and leave us not only back at 1700s levels of prosperity, but trying to do that on top of a decimated ecosystem with hordes of starving people screwing up what's left.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @05:06PM (8 children)
You can talk a great game, but where's the evidence? I'll note some counterevidence:
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @05:57PM (7 children)
Food scarcity, water scarcity. Money is not the real issue, the essentials of life are.
Most capable, until they aren't. The Ukraine was a wealthy area. Wealth basically translates into the ability to take resources from others. As we continue to shake up who gets rain and who doesn't, you're going to start seeing more and more places around the globe where people spend more for their water than they do for their cellphone and service.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @07:26PM (6 children)
And yet those things aren't particularly scarce. We might see some famine with the problems of the Ukrainian war and ideological insanity, but it's not the fault of the fragility of the system when a major factor, a superpower decides to misbehave - and starts a war that takes out two big food producers, or Sri Lankan politicians decide to priority organic farming feelgood over the well being of their citizens.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @07:45PM (5 children)
In a world run by wealth, they are:
https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis [wfp.org]
As many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared - from 135 million to 345 million - since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
https://ourworldindata.org/water-access [ourworldindata.org]
One-in-four people do not have access to safe drinking water
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @07:55PM (4 children)
In 2011, it was 870 million [countercurrents.org]. My understanding is that in 1970, this would have been around 2 billion people.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @08:28PM (3 children)
Slow golf clap. Also, liars, damn liars, and statistics: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america [feedingamerica.org] According to the USDA, more than 38 million people... in the United States are food insecure.
A bit more than 10% of the US population, seems like all that wealth isn't really curing hunger at home either.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @08:39PM (2 children)
Second:
So a bit less than 90% of the US population isn't food insecure.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @09:42PM (1 child)
38 / 350 is in the ballpark of 828 / 8000.
>So a bit less than 90% of the US population isn't food insecure.
Slow golf clap.
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @10:03PM
Even if the food insecure are comparable, you're missing the obvious - cost of living and the various developed world games that go into making that expensive. There's a lot of questionable choices, mostly matters of regulation and policy, having little to do with the narrative of wealth here for why food can be really expensive in the US.
Consider what happened with baby formula in the US. A plant goes down and suddenly there's a months long period of inadequate supply. It took them a while to allow safe foreign formula into the country. And there was a lot of opposition from certain professional societies against DIY formula. In other words, food insecurity because regulators and professional groups had higher priorities than feeding babies.
It remains the case that we have huge food security in the US. And that's due to the wealth of the society.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @03:32PM (3 children)
Inflation has nothing to do with it. $9733 is the number today, vs today's expenses and available resources. 4 billion people live in households which have less than $9733 annual income, today.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @04:55PM (2 children)
Median income almost doubled in ten years. That latter number incidentally is the same year your number is (2013).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 15 2022, @05:50PM (1 child)
Now you're talking about numbers which are impacted by inflation, and calculating inflation in a country which has gone from living off of freely available natural resources to requiring payment for the essentials of life is an interesting challenge indeed.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2022, @07:31PM
How much inflation in ten years?
Which incidentally is no actual change in the country. Labels mean things, but as you demonstrate above there's a lot of variety in them.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday August 14 2022, @08:56PM
Except that you seem to have confused water in the sea with water on land. Sea and land are different, you see?
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