<story><title>Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here</title><url>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CydeWeys</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never been as afraid of fresh water shortage as a lot of other people seem to be precisely because it is exactly the kind of shortage that is solved by market forces.  Freshwater getting scarce?  OK, so the price goes up.  Now there&amp;#x27;s more incentive to conserve water by replacing fixtures for low-flow variants, letting your lawn die (why do you really need one in a desert anyway), and using more efficient irrigation methods in agriculture.  The price of water still keeps going up?  Then the price of meat goes up because growing crops to feed animals become more expensive, and people eat less meat.  Meanwhile, increased price makes desalination more profitable, and more plants come online.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see it as anything rising close to a civilization-ending threat.  Seawater is abundant.  Freshwater can be made cheaply enough.  We are extravagantly wasteful with water as it is, and that can be fixed easily enough as it becomes more expensive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pipio21</author><text>Remember Arab Spring?&lt;p&gt;People in the West believe that it was about &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot;, but it was about food and life getting so expensive normal people needed to spend most of their salary just on it. Poor people not being able to eat well or not eat at all as there were no jobs.&lt;p&gt;People will revolt if they can&amp;#x27;t buy food because it is very expensive. That is the civilization ending treat: war.&lt;p&gt;War is really the worst experience you could experience. I will remember things I have seen in Congo all my life.&lt;p&gt;For example WWII was created because Germans lived a miserable life paying for WW1 and Great depression. Just interest in the WW1 debt grew faster than their productivity meaning they were slaves forever, just like Greece is today.&lt;p&gt;Americans were very careful not making the compensation for war for Germany excessive in order not to repeat History.&lt;p&gt;People will choose whoever person that promises an easy exit for their problems, and the easiest thing is to steal from others. You don&amp;#x27;t have water, you take the places that have water, like the Golan heights.&lt;p&gt;And that is war.&lt;p&gt;For market forces to work you need a long time. Inventors will only discover innovative methods after working for decades in a problem.&lt;p&gt;Letting your lawn die? This is a really stupid idea. I have worked in Sahara desert precisely helping people stop the desert just putting vegetation in place(that holds sand and makes soil so wind does not move it).</text></comment>
<story><title>Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here</title><url>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CydeWeys</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never been as afraid of fresh water shortage as a lot of other people seem to be precisely because it is exactly the kind of shortage that is solved by market forces.  Freshwater getting scarce?  OK, so the price goes up.  Now there&amp;#x27;s more incentive to conserve water by replacing fixtures for low-flow variants, letting your lawn die (why do you really need one in a desert anyway), and using more efficient irrigation methods in agriculture.  The price of water still keeps going up?  Then the price of meat goes up because growing crops to feed animals become more expensive, and people eat less meat.  Meanwhile, increased price makes desalination more profitable, and more plants come online.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see it as anything rising close to a civilization-ending threat.  Seawater is abundant.  Freshwater can be made cheaply enough.  We are extravagantly wasteful with water as it is, and that can be fixed easily enough as it becomes more expensive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JDDunn9</author><text>It might not be a civilization-ending threat, but it affects several outliers.&lt;p&gt;- If you live on less than $1 a day, rising food&amp;#x2F;water costs is a big deal.&lt;p&gt;- If you are in a land-locked country, desalination isn&amp;#x27;t an option.&lt;p&gt;- Desalination plants aren&amp;#x27;t built over night. In the meantime droughts would have consequences.&lt;p&gt;- If water became a major percentage of the cost of food, it would shift what crops are grown. Towards monoculture and away from diversity. The poor would especially be constrained.&lt;p&gt;- If we let our lawns die, we&amp;#x27;ll see more property damage due to soil erosion.</text></comment>