Let's Talk About Water

[Thedutchjelle]

Ok, let's turn all the water into oxygen and hydrogen so we won't have that anymore..
Then , use truckloads of napalm to burn all the trees.

Otherwise i dont think we will run out of water anytime soon.

[Battlecruiser]

In any case, if we do assume your ridiculous premise (How on Earth, excuse the pun, does water, which covers 3/4s of the surface of the planet just disappear?), and men ARE forced to become cannibals to survive, then within a month or so, all men would be dead, even the cannibals. Human population is limited, and without resources, babies won't be born and elderly adults and young children would die very quickly. Then, the population would not only be decreasing due to death, but also to homicide by cannibalism. You will see an exponential decrease in the number of people. and within a month and a half, at most, the entire species would be eradicated. The Earth itself would be quite a different place without any vegetation or water. Temperatures would be very high due to the lack of cloud cover, resulting in the death of pretty much all animals, plants, and fungi. The only species that I can see that can survive would be the species that are a part of the kingdoms archaebacteria and maybe bacteria.

[Modred]

In any case, if we do assume your ridiculous premise (How on Earth, excuse the pun, does water, which covers 3/4s of the surface of the planet just disappear?)

All of the water doesn't need to disappear--just all of the freshwater. The US Geological Survey reports (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html) that only 3% of the earth's water is freshwater. Only 0.3% of that freshwater is surface water, and only 30% of the freshwater is groundwater. Almost all of the remainder is frozen in glaciers and icecaps.

According to the previously linked USGS page, only 0.3% of all of earth's water is usable by humans. Water shortages are already causing diplomatic strife in places like Mexico, Texas, Spain, Portugal, and North Africa. So problems with water aren't just something he pulled out of his ass, although the rest of his post is ridiculous.

As for the original proposition of this thread, that humans would cannibalize one another, I'm quite certain that we would kill to preserve the last bits of resources we had, so cannibalization probably wouldn't be necessary.

I'd be much more worried about a massive volcanic eruption, nuclear war, or a massive meteor impact, all of which cause effects more or less like what's described as "nuclear winter". If we were to lose access to or pollute most of our resources, it will probably take something catastrophic, not just a simple "we used them all".

[Battlecruiser]

All of the water doesn't need to disappear--just all of the freshwater. The US Geological Survey reports (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html) that only 3% of the earth's water is freshwater. Only 0.3% of that freshwater is surface water, and only 30% of the freshwater is groundwater. Almost all of the remainder is frozen in glaciers and icecaps.

If the ocean still remains, won't evaporation cause new fresh water to be created. Since evaporation would just pull up the water and not the salt, it would be drinkable. There would still be rain in that case as well, and thus a source of water. Humans would just have to live near the coasts then.

EDIT: I concede. You're right.

[Toucan]

Hmmm, people responses in this thread are quite interesting.
You are all aware that the water that covers 2 thirds of the Earth is actually salt water? And I would assume you would also all be aware that you can not drink it or clean with it. The cost of desalinating enough water to supply just the population here in Perth is staggering, not to mention the amount of environmental damage that is being caused by the super-concentrated saline waste.

But all that aside, if there was not enough rain water to provide the population (Just as there no longer is in Australia) that alone is a lot to be concerned over, why isn’t there enough rain water anymore?

Many of our farm animals are getting sick from new and unknown diseases every year. We all acknowledge that global warming is happening, the temp is rising, but what sort of tolerance to this change are we going to see from the farm life we depend on. Everything seems to be stretching to a breaking point.

[Modred]

If the ocean still remains, won't evaporation cause new fresh water to be created. Since evaporation would just pull up the water and not the salt, it would be drinkable. There would still be rain in that case as well, and thus a source of water. Humans would just have to live near the coasts then.

Who said the water would evaporate? The usable waters come from surface water and groundwater, both of which are subject to contamination. Now, that contamination could be human created or could be the result of some catastrophic event, but regardless of its source it could cripple human civilization.

Even if all of the surface water were to evaporate and groundwater dry up, your scenario about living near the coasts has very little basis for success, aside from the impracticable concept of relocating all 6 billion plus humans to a coastline. Ignoring that infeasible task for the moment, how would you guarantee where the rain would fall?

Assuming that the surface water and groundwater dried up, then much inland territories would no doubt now be desert. If the rain falls on that desert land, then most of it will be absorbed into the ground. The temperature would probably prohibit it from running on the surface, so we now have minuscule amounts of groundwater in a mostly inaccessible location.

As for desalination of ocean water, this too would present an extreme shortage of water. The largest desalination plant in the world, located in Saudi Arabia, can output only 300 million cubic meters of freshwater per year. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination). According to the NYC 2002 Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstat02a.pdf), New York City consumed an average of 1.2 billion gallons of water per day that year. Converting 1.2 billion gallons into cubic meters gives 4.5 million cubic meters per day. That's 1.7 billion cubic meters per year, over 5x more than the largest plant in the world can provide.*

And NYC is only providing water to some 10-11 million people. Imagine trying to use rainwater and desalination to provide freshwater to over 6 billion people. Most of the world would die before we could even get the infrastructure in place. And even if we had ways to get water to people, it would take years to build enough desalination plants to provide that much water.

If most of our freshwater sources become unusable, humanity will die a painful, agonizing death. Those who survived would be incapable of rebuilding our civilization for hundreds of years, if not longer. The era of man would be more or less over.

Note that I used more accurate numbers for the calculation and rounded for the presentation. The actual numbers were 4542494.16 and 1658010368.4

[Modred]

-Posted by accident. (Though i cant recall me ever making this thread.. odd?)

Now it looks like i'm the idiot - while my first comment in this thread was actually a response to someone else. Whose comment vanished. Something evil is at work here.

Someone, most likely GA, split off our seemingly coherent discussion from the thread we were responding to and it's mostly nonsensical premise. So it looks like you started a thread rather awkwardly, but it's really just a trick of the brain.

[Magician777]

well only .3% of the water is usable but i don't think we need to worry about running out right now... but in the future it may become more of a concern... although i really don't know what we would do if we ran out of water.

[Protogod]

actually, if we take advantage of water desalinization, we can use alot more.

[Modred]

actually, if we take advantage of water desalinization, we can use alot more.

Except NYC alone uses 5x more water per year than the largest desalination plant can produce (see my large post earlier in the thread). We won't be getting much more water with current desalination methods. But if we could develop cheaper desalination plants with much larger output capacity, then we might have a viable option there. Maybe someone will invent a better system in the near future.

[ecyor0]

Of course, towing icebergs clear of the ice caps and breaking them into chunks to transport elsewhere would be less expensive than desalinating water

[Thedutchjelle]

I doubt it. Transport of all that ice would cost a lot.