The oil crisis in China..... but is water now the new oil?

[jewel]

China's government has said 1,500 tons (461,790 gallons) of oil spilled after a pipeline exploded two weeks ago near the northeastern city of Dalian, sending 100-foot- (30-meter-) high flames raging for hours near one of the country's key strategic oil reserves. Such public estimates stopped within a few days of the spill.
But Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, estimated 60,000 tons (18.47 million gallons) to 90,000 tons (27.70 million gallons) of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea.
"It's enormous. That's at least as large as the official estimate of the Exxon Valdez disaster" in Alaska, he told The Associated Press. The size of the offshore area affected by the spill is likely more than 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), he added.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_pipeline_explosion

Through tax credits, US taxpayers will pay a third of BP’s expenses from the Gulf oil disaster. This a drop in the bucket compared to the over half a trillion dollars in consumption subsidies for fossil fuels worldwide .
A recent report identifies those subsidies and how they lead to wasteful overconsumption—but they neglected to consider the impact of peak oil.

China's worst known oil spill is dozens of times larger than the government has reported — bigger than the famous Exxon Valdez spill two decades ago — and some of the oil was dumped deliberately to avoid further disaster apparently.

And the recent deep well oil disaster in the gulf of mexico is another example, and further evidence we have reached peak oil.
This is the problem.....there is plently of oil still left. But it becomes harder to get at that oil. Once all that was necessary was to stick a pipe into the ground at the right place and oil would gush out. Now huge floating rigs have to be set up right out in the ocean and drilling a mile down below the sea surface and then a mile or more below the sea floor. This was what was done at BP’S site in the Gulf of Mexico.

The second set of problems with dependence on oil is that it is polluting. Humans, other animals, and plants did not evolve to function in a world with oil and plastics in the environment. Burning it puts particles in the air. It poisons us, creates asthma and cancers. Plasticsare “nonbiodegradable” once “thrown away” plastic material last forever. Pesticide residue is poisonous to people and other animals. And right now we are just beginning to see the disasterous consequences.


The earth is known as the "blue planet" due to the amount of water it contains.
But the point is where is all the water?
In some areas, such as central China, desertification is occurring directly outside Beijing, with desert-like conditions coming to areas that were once fertile

In the same way that climate change has become part of the conversation ... the agenda of legislators and policymakers, blue needs to be part of the agenda ("blue" meaning water.)

We need to consider our "water" footprint as well as our carbon one as water becomes scarcer.
The water crisis is an expression of the environmental catastrophe of human over-exploitation. This is the age the Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has called 'the Anthropocene', because the natural system has been so fundamentally altered by human activity. And it all began when people settled down and began to chop wood and farm.
But what humans need is water that is fresh and clean, and most of Earth's water is salty or dirty. If all the earth's water fit in a gallon jug, available fresh water would equal just over a tablespoon. There is no more fresh water on Earth today than there was a million years ago. Yet today, 6 billion people share it. Since 1950, the world population has doubled, but water use has tripled.
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I don't have a plan......so nothing can go wrong!

[LivinginLuxor]

So? It seems the answer is to cut the population, not wring one's hands over one's "water footprint". The Indian idea of offering a radio in exchange for a vasectomy appeared to work, so why not (in the richer west) offer an iPhone?
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Stan

[Kevininabydos]

Ok, we need fresh water. Where do you think that clean fresh water comes from? Clean fresh water does not occur naturally, the rivers of fresh water are not there "naturally". The fresh water springs are not there "naturally". where does the rain that falls from the sky come from? It comes from the clouds of water moisture circling the earth. They are the result of evaporation of the unpotable water of the oceans by the air currents that circle our earth. No water is "lost", water cannot just disappear. Even the water we drink is given back either by evaporation, (sweat) or by urine. (even the 60-70% water our bodies are made up of is returned to the earth when we die!) There is as much water on the earth as there has always been, the earths winds still blow across the the earth as they have always done and the rain still falls as it always has. But the location of where that rain falls has changed, as it always has done! There is evidence that the climate of the earth is in constant change. Places that were once subtropical Forrest are now desert, places that were once deserts are now savanna. Ancient city that flourished for hundreds of years were abandoned because the water stopped, even civilizations disappeared or moved on because of the rain pattern changed. The problem is we are living in the wrong places now. The pattern has changed but we have not learned the lessons of our ancestors and moved with the changes. We have invented artificial borders that force peoples to stay static. Yes, there are now deserts where fertile land used to be but there are also vast tracts of land being flooded on a regular basis by rain. There is not a water shortage, it is just that the water is now not, what we consider to be, in the right place.
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“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

Marcus Aurelius

[Horus]

Got it in one Kevin
You only have to go back in recordable history to know that most ancient civilisations were affected by drought in some way, the Nasca people, the Pueblo Indians and the Maya to name but a few. Even in pre history the geological records show that places such as Egypt were fertile and well watered.
The earths climate is changing all the time and whether it is accelerated by man's activity is of little consequence in the long run. Africa will collide with Europe, India will continue ploughing into the sub continent and the Himalayas will get even higher, now what effect is that going to have on the earths climate?
Oh, nearly forgot! in about 4.5 billion years the sun will expand into a red giant with a diameter that will encompass the earth and it will be burnt to a cinder.
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[Zeitgeist]

Totally agree with Kevin and Horus.
Even Egypt must have been a lush savanah only a few thousand years ago, it is well documented that the Nile has changed it's course many times.

It's our "living in a box" society that is the problem.. ( the box being a country or even a town) humans were migratory creatures, and moved with the times and circumstances.

The master plan for control is failing and they try to balme us and tax us for something that is naturally occuring.

If we didnt have a climate it wouldnt change.. the definition of a cimate says it all really.

It could mean that mankind will have to move and set up base elsewhere to survive..A bit inconvenient really, and probably going to kick off a few wars in times to come.. Wars will be fought over water, that is for sure.

Mankind has watched the weather patterns for a few hundred years and think they know it all. I call that BAD SCIENCE.. the earth has constanlty changed for millions of years and will continue to do so.

The raising of the Pyrannese probably caused the desrtification of Egypt and north Africa, once all the rainclousds that you can see logjammed behind the mountains could not pass to deposit the rain into North Africa, to be used as one example to add to that of Horus's.
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Nothing is truth Until you realise it..