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RE: Geology and Civilization Part 2: Not a Drop to Drink
How about desalination of sea water?
We used to have a severe problem here in Cyprus, and, like Cape Town, we were rationed our water. I remember those years of water restriction and I still get a negative emotional reaction. Having a water ceiling is not good!
But then - always in hindsight rather than foresight - the government installed desalination plants, and we've been dandy ever since.
Can't everybody do the same? Are there cons in doing this?
Desalination plants can conditionally be an excellent solution, but there are associated environmental costs. They're also damn expensive. There's some really crazy scifi desalination tech being developed in Israel that might circumvent a lot of those problems, but for now it's still a solution with a lot of caveats. I might do a post on them later on, dunno.
I'd love to read that, and it will make a good sister article to this one.
Technology is what'll save the day, I think, as people don't really take to injunctions of the "no, bad human!" sort. They'll just keep doing what they're doing till they self-annihilate (like the movie Annihilation, I guess, if I interpret its meaning correctly).
As much as it depresses me, I have trouble arguing with you- we're not a particularly intelligent species when it comes to looking past today. Correcting our environmentally destructive basic behaviors is clearly the best strategy, but we're making terrible progress at it.