homehome Home chatchat Notifications


The price of oil without water

The environmental challenges we have to overcome (fast) cover virtually every field in human activity. Focuses such as finding green fuels, renewable and sustainable sources of energy and other related findings attract more people, more ideas, and visible steps are made towards the right direction. Probably the only concern is how fast and how effective […]

Mihai Andrei
July 24, 2008 @ 4:14 pm

share Share

oasis desert

The environmental challenges we have to overcome (fast) cover virtually every field in human activity. Focuses such as finding green fuels, renewable and sustainable sources of energy and other related findings attract more people, more ideas, and visible steps are made towards the right direction. Probably the only concern is how fast and how effective these methods will prove to be. Hopefully, due to all the brilliant minds involved, the response will probably be positive(maybe I’m being to optimistic, but is there any other way to be??).Still, it concerns me to see how little attention is being paid to water. Maybe it’s not right to call it a water crisis, but the thing is water scarcity is showing up even in some unexpected place. Despite the fact that oil is the elixir behind industry, water is the elixir behind life; and life is behind industry, so a scarcity in water is without a doubt a bigger threat than oil. This leads to the simple yet pretty much ignored observation that if water runs out, oil will be pretty hard to drink.

What should worry pretty much everybody is the fact that water scarcity threatens farm productivity, limits growth, increases business expenses, and drains local treasuries. Also, why people ar

e>e ignoring the dangers of building cities and other related things in deserts is quite hard to understand, at least for me. It’s the desert, it was never meant to have cities; and we definitely can’t support them against the desert when our planet has so many things to be worried about.

“I truly believe we are moving into an era of water scarcity throughout the United States” said Peter Gleick, science adviser to Circle of Blue and president of the Pacific Institute, a think tank specializing in water issues based in Oakland, California. “That by itself is going to force us to adopt more efficient management techniques.”

share Share

Deadly Heatwave Killed 2,300 in Europe, and 1,500 of those were due to climate change

How hot is too hot to survive in a city?

These fig trees absorb CO2 from the air and convert it into stone

This sounds like science fiction, but the real magic lies underground

The US Military Emits More CO2 Than Sweden. But A Slight Budget Cut Could Have an Oversized Positive Effect

New study finds reducing defense budgets has a larger impact than increasing them.

Humans Have Been Reshaping Earth with Fire for at Least 50,000 Years

Fossil charcoal reveals early humans’ growing impact on the carbon cycle before the Ice Age.

Methane Leaks from Fossil Fuels Hit Record Highs. And We're Still Looking the Other Way

Powerful leaks, patchy action, and untapped fixes keep methane near record highs in 2024.

Glass bottles shed up to 50 times more microplastics into drinks than plastic or cans -- and the paint on the cap may be to blame

Glass bottles may surprisingly release more plastic particles than plastic ones.

What side do cats prefer to sleep on? The left side, and there's a good reason for that

The fluffier side of science.

The Physics of Cozy Beds Shows Why Your Toes Freeze While Your Back Sweats

Scientists decided to peek under the covers to figure out how bedding actually keeps us warm (or doesn’t)

A Massive Study Just Proved Plastic Bag Bans Actually Work

Reductions in shoreline litter offer rare good news.

Climate Change Unleashed a Hidden Wave That Triggered a Planetary Tremor

The Earth was trembling every 90 seconds. Now, we know why.