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dwot (99.49)

Water Issues

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August 26, 2008 – Comments (6)

I have maintained that water issues are such that the growing lifestyle will never be for the masses.  Mish had a post about China, but I what I really took note of was the dead fish, and, yuck, the guy harvesting the dead fish...

I had not looked at Australia's water issues until quite recently.  I was with a group and a guy from Australia was talking about all the water conservation issues happening.  People have installed drums to catch rainwater off the roof.  Flushing isn't necessarily done everytime...  Well, naked capitalism had a post on water issues in Australia.

These water issues should be taken very seriously.  I have posted on it before, but there are many places in the US that the issues have become critical.  Personally, everytime I have visited Florida I am shocked at the degree of watering lawns when the unground water supply is depleting so fast.  Mead Lake and Hoover Dam are look bad.  They are lowering the intake pipes as Las Vegas is at risk of losing its water supply in the next year or two with the existing intake pipes as they are expected to be above the water level for the first time in the history of the dam.

I don't have time to do the research, but I think focusing investment research around water issues could be highly profitable.  I think water issues are going to be very serious and will have strong business consequences.

6 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 26, 2008 at 11:21 PM, devoish (98.81) wrote:

Look up Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant. Water issues are much worse than people realize or want to admit. The coming water shortages (and the ones already here) have already and will cause violence. Already the USA has decided it needs to bring gunboats into the Great Lakes for military practice in sight of Canadians. The real issue of pollution reducing the amount of usable water in the world, the idea that pumping more valuable water into tar sands to force out the less valuable oil is for crackheads. African lakes are being drained by flower farms which send the water to Europe inside the cut flowers. Many people think Veolia or Suez are good investments but they cannot pipe water that is not there.  Neither can you filter pollutants out of an emptied lake. Here on Long Island we have two huge glacial aquifers which we use for drinking but noone will drink or use the groundwater by choice because of pollution. But as the upper aquifer is depleted salt water encroaches toward the wells and our County governments are arguing about who has the right to the lower aquifer. Many Mexicans have come to the USA because their farms no longer have water. I agree with you about the investing issues. KO and Nestle may be good red thumbs. But I am more concerned about war. Many countries share the water from the disappearing Himalayan glaciers, and China is moving to claim more. Many of the worlds largest rivers no longer reach the oceans. Of course there is a workable solution, but the invisible hand will not like it and I shouldn't spoil the books ending.

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#2) On August 27, 2008 at 10:34 AM, mandrake66 (94.93) wrote:

Jared Diamond's "Collapse" has a great chapter on Australia, which put the problems of the Murray-Downing river system in some perspective for me just prior to reading the Naked Capitalism link. Australia's problems are severe and to some degree peculiar to Australia, but the situation in the American southwest is probably not much different, or won't be in another decade or two. From what I understand the flow in the Rio Grande dries up periodically now also.

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#3) On August 27, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Tastylunch (29.89) wrote:

Gunboats on the great lakes?!! whaaaa?

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#4) On August 27, 2008 at 3:58 PM, devoish (98.81) wrote:

recently upgraded coast guard boats: http://sweetwatervisions.com/Pages/livefire.html

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#5) On August 27, 2008 at 6:26 PM, dwot (99.49) wrote:

Last year I think there were military lining up the border between Chili and Bolivia as Bolivia is poor and has water, Chili is well off and needs water.

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#6) On August 27, 2008 at 6:34 PM, dwot (99.49) wrote:

More water issues...

Mish has another post on building homes in a desert.   You have to ask yourself what are people thinking putting that kind of money into a desert.

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