Good thing we’re inviting all those AI datacenters into our communities that cool themselves with drinking water. Maybe we can get Nestle to come in and bottle what’s left to sell back to us for huge profit margins. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always the “hydrogen economy” where we can use our scarce electrical power to split clean drinking water into hydrogen and oxygen so we can burn it to power our cars.

Even were global warming not an issue, we’re draining American aquifers at an alarming rate, especially out West. (I know other countries have the same issue, but I only know America.) Aquifers take 100s of years to fill, at best, thousands is probably more accurate.

Been in NW Florida for the last 20 years. The past several summers have seen us dry up, yes, in Florida. This past spring was the first rainy season in recent memory. Once we got to late summer, I saw water levels dropping everywhere. I’m outside a good deal, I watch these sorts of things. No one else seems to notice. :(

Desalinization isn’t going to cut it. Even if we come up with miracle tech, we’re left with literal mountains of salt to contain and we’ll be fucking up our watery breadbasket.

We can’t move people around fast enough to dodge this. There’s simply too many damned humans. I laugh when people comment, “There’s enough for everyone if it wasn’t for the capitalists stealing it all!” No. There’s not enough for 8B+ souls, not enough of anything. World poverty is taking a nosedive. Those people are more and more educated and well off. They want stuff. They really want water.

This is like the Dust Bowl all over again, except planet-wide. Regional fixes aren’t going to turn it around as we did in the American midwest. Fat Americans missing a meal will riot. We’ll really riot when there’s no tap water.

Should have listened to the scientists.

quietly? no it has been loudly been in news and research, people just ignored it. also by denying it exist when granting “research funds” too.