Are the Water Wars Coming?

–David Zetland, water economist, professor at Leiden University College in the Netherlands, and author of Living with Water Scarcity, joins David to discuss water shortages, drinking water, water wars, and desalinization

–On the Bonus Show: A global cocoa shortage, pedophilia and murder in the UK, virginity tests for Indonesian female police recruits, more…

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[MrKAHutch]

Fantastic interview! David asked phenomenal questions and got great responses.

[dangerouslytalented]

They have been using more water than has been falling as rain. The groundwater, particularly in the US, has been going down massively because corn farms have been soaking it up. But it's fossil water. It was deposited millions of years ago, and is now gone.

[deepashtray]

This is going to become a major issue in the next 35 years.

[SocialistSkeptic]

It's possible with renewable energy and energy recycling to desalinate an abundance of water cheaply. First solar energy can be used to power the boilers, also desalination plants are often located in areas with high wind speeds and tides which can also be used to generate electricity to power desalination and produce power to sell back into the grid.

Secondly the evaporating water creates steam which can be used to power generators which can feed back into the boilers recycling energy.

Desalination can be much more feasible and efficient than most  modern desalination plants are currently if adequate technical planning is employed in their construction. Most modern examples are simply inadequately designed to act as primary sources of clean water.

[Jex]

They're already here - Syria was caused by a massive ongoing drought in the region which drove farmers and villagers into the cities from the countryside; once they massed in the cities they began demanding government support, which Asad provided in the form of bullets, which sparked the current civil war.

[TheDuke]

The water wars have already began. Great movie on it: Blue Gold

[hurleygt]

Good interview however, it seemed like this conversation could have gone on longer. Only 10 minutes on a very interesting topic like finite water resources seems to be pretty short. Why not make the interview longer? Was an extended interview on the bonus show?

[RayHoughton]

David, where is that Amazon 'button' you mentioned!

[RayHoughton]

What about using (now cheaper than natural gas and coal) Solar Energy to desalinate water! Anyone have comments on that!

[vladark]

Sensible and knowledgeable person, but no vision or imagination.
Most effective way to change situation with salty water in the next 5 years is use new energy sources which are almost free or very, very cheap.
Once it will be super cheap even to boil it off, new desalination plants will be built in no time.

[watersignwater]

sad, if this happens Americans are very darwinistic and they would fight over it like a mad max movie

[Idellechi]

Really really trying not to make a Team Aqua joke here. 

[AbnormalWrench]

This is so silly.  Jesus promised to give us all the water we want if we pray hard enough.  It must be the gays fault.