Re: Military prepares as major dispute threatens to rock r...

[Guest guest]

Water is predicted to be a major source of wealth and war in coming decades. As the human population has swollen, demand for water is outstripping supply in the Third World and developed nations alike. In the Middle East and now it seems parts of Africa, surface water will be a main driver. In the US, deep aquifers that will never refill are being drained. Some of this is being done by farmers to irrigate their land while a lot of it is being done by companies sucking up the water and putting it in bottles, much of which is sold overseas. There is some evidence that such projects in the Midwest are starting to reduce water flow into the Great Lakes, not to mention lowering local watertables making small lakes and streams dry up. Then there is T Boone Pickens, that darling of wind power, who is buying up rights to a major aquifer around north Texas which he wants to suck dry by selling the water at a premium to cities and also bottling it.

Anyway, the point is that water is going to become a major point of contention in the near future. Misuse of water, like the tapping of aquifers, has been causing damage all around the world, expanding deserts and ruining farmland. In this way humans have probably done and are doing more harm than they have contributed to global warming. Its also going to be a far harder problem to rectify or adapt too.

In a message dated 4/5/2011 9:40:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Will this be next Middle East war?Military prepares as major dispute threatens to rock region