Cape Town to run out of water

[Izuno]

I've read multiple stories on this topic:

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/

tl;dr: South Africa plans to shut taps off in Cape Town in April.  Read the link for why, though it's basically because of record drought.

Anyone here from South Africa?

Scary shit!

[Minos]

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By late spring, four million people in the city of Cape Town—one of Africa's most affluent metropolises—may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the region's most precious commodity: drinking water.

Scary shit indeed!

I remember back in school there was a geography teacher who was always preaching that future wars would be fought over fresh water. I thought he was tripping balls back then but that possibility grows more plausible by the day. It doesn't seem like we are doing great advances in water purification programs (at least not large scale afaik) and Brazil has the biggest reserves of fresh water in the world so guess who would be the prime target in that case that comes to be 

Sao Paulo, a city of more than 12 million almost ran out of water a few years back and no one seems to remember or care anymore. Honestly I can't really blame them, being bombarded by news and information from everywhere makes it easier to forget about important matters, especially when you are having a hard time just getting by with a bad economy and rampant crime.

Quote

 

Much like Cape Town's fiasco, reservoirs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, dropped so low in 2015 that pipes drew in mud, emergency water trucks were looted, and the flow of water to taps in many homes was cut to just a few hours twice a week. Only last-minute rains prevented Brazilian authorities from having to close taps completely.

"Sao Paulo was down to less than 20 days of water supply," says Betsy Otto, director of the global water program at the World Resources Institute. "What we're starting to see are the confluence of a lot of factors that might be underappreciated, ignored, or changing. Brought together, though, they create the perfect storm."

 

 

It's very clear how humanity has advanced exponentially technologically, but we are still the same dumb primates we have always been.

But even that doesn't matter either. Mother nature will rebuild this place once we are gone. Let's go out in the sun and enjoy our pools while we still can 

And good luck to my South African friends.

[blackdog]

This is real scary, something that should be prominently reported, like Minos says, a country with incredible resources can still manage to be shit at their resources management and create a crisis.

Italy has always done well in terms of water, I grew up with the pride that we were creating a lot of power with water... yet all that is still for nothing when climate changes and you face droughts. For as good as north italy does, Southern italy always had problems, I watched documentaries about farmers being ruined by increasing droughts and providing rationed water to the islands is no strange news in the worse draughts (which were often followed by terrible monsoons and floods).

I lived in Namibia for one year so I really feel for the South Africans