Will Global fresh water be shortage in 20 years?

Water problem TODAY,
Many references.
http://www.consciouschoice.com/1995-98/cc084/nonpoint.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-03-17-water-wars_N....

Enlarge By Julie Hunter, USA Today

Gary Goodwin, manager of the Lake Purdy Boat Landing, helps Tracy Herron, left and Henry Jones of Birmingham, Ala., set off in their rental boat for a day of fishing on the lake March 17. The lake is the main water supply for Birmingham.

Enlarge By Julie Hunter, USA Today

Ray Davis of Mt. Olive, Ala. helps his grandson Balke Glasscock, 8, fish for the first time as Davis' wife Jackie tries to hook a fish at Lake Purdy outside of Birmingham, Ala. March 17. After recent rains, the lake has reached its normal level for the first time in a year.

Yahoo! Buzz Digg Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
ATLANTA — It's raining again in the Southeast. Much of the drought-parched region has been deluged recently by winter downpours, including weekend storms that battered the downtown business district and a swath of north Georgia.
The drought has not ended, but it has eased across most of the region, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor and the National Weather Service.

Lake Purdy, the main drinking water supply for Birmingham, Ala., is at normal levels for the first time in almost a year. From Jan. 1 through Sunday, Birmingham received 12.09 inches of rain, just below the average of 12.78.

Some Alabama farmers are finding fields too wet to prepare for spring planting. North Carolina dropped recently from 39 to zero counties in the worst category of drought.

Here in Atlanta, where stark pictures of a drier-by-the-day Lake Lanier pushed the drought into the national spotlight last fall, the drought is essentially over, says Pat Stevens, chief of the environmental planning division of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

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We are already short of fresh water. The water table in Arizona drops one meter every year. Lake Meade water level is 30 meters below full for the past 5 years. Sediment in the Great Lakes is polluted with PCBs. Canada's tar sand project produces 6 barrels of toxic water for each barrel of oil recovered. 80% of China's rivers are dead from raw sewage. - and the world population will increase by about a billion.

We can however turn salt water into fresh and squeeze condensate out of the air. It just requires energy.

And that's the real problem. Eventually we will exhaust our supply of cheap fuel. It really doesn't matter whether we have reached "Peak Oil" or not because ---supply can not keep up with demand (China increased inport of crude oil this year by 11 %) but that doesn't matter because --- oil exporting countries are starting to keep it for their own growth, but even that doesn't matter because ---- as Charlie Hall has noted from his observations, the EROI (energy return on investment) is diminishing.

In the beginning we used one barrel of oil to recover 100 barrels. We now only recover 10 That's an EROI of 10:1 As we approach an EROI of 1:1 the quantity of oil we have in reserve becomes irrelevent. We need an EROI of 5:1 to maintain the complexity of our civilization and all the future sources of energy are lower than this. We need to learn very quickly how to be much more energy efficient so that we can survive on alternate energy.  Our present economy runs on oil.

clean fresh water is critical NOW.  Check the water in your area. In 20 years at this rate we won't be around to talk about it.

There is so much mercury in the water from coal fired power plants that no one can eat the fish. Many farms can no longer survive becuase their wells and water supply is dried up or gone bad.

Oil spills are happening every week. The Exxon Valdez was not even the biggest.

Power plants that run on Fossil Fuels use a large amount of water to make electricity. About 1 gallon for every KWh of AC.A Nuclear plant used 50% more than any other fuels.

Animal farms use 60% of the drinkable water for live stock each year. Their waste also creates some of the most harmful greenhouse gases, methane ! 

 the solar stacks

Delvin,

Could you cite your information or present a factual base. As there are already freshwater problems in some areas on the globe, troubled waters are here and now.

I think it is neither terrible or incredible, inevitable maybe, if we don't make changes to ensure water quality now. Contact your law makers and representatives, let your voice and opinion be known.