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Exactly what happens if we run out of water? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: and resolves online fraud safe Secure Visa. I'm welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. It's Josh and Chuck here, Josh Clark and
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  Speaker 1: Charles Bryant. Just a couple of staff writers at how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. That's all we are, that is it,
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  Speaker 1: Chuck Um, Chuck. I imagine you're familiar with Dark four, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I am. I keep up with them with the niche
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  Speaker 1: you have. You have you heard about the basically the
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  Speaker 1: peace agreement fallen apart lately? Yeah? I think you should
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  Speaker 1: tell people though, Okay, Well, um, basically uh. In two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six, the the Sudanese government UM had a
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  Speaker 1: piece of cord established with this lone rebel faction. And
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  Speaker 1: there's a multitude of rebel factions fighting each other and
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  Speaker 1: the Sudanese government right now in in Sudan, UM and uh. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: one rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, step forward and said,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, we'll come up the ceasefire. Let's come
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  Speaker 1: up with an accord um or a power sharing agreement,
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  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And everything was going pretty well
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  Speaker 1: until apparently the Sudanese army bombed some villages that are
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  Speaker 1: under SLM control. This happened like yesterday basically. Um So,
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  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, the SLM leaders accusing the
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  Speaker 1: President of Sudan of even further war crimes. The president
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  Speaker 1: al Bashir I think is his last name. He is
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  Speaker 1: basically about to be indicted by the Hague and um
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  Speaker 1: he's in big, big trouble, crimes against humanity, war crimes,
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  Speaker 1: the whole shebang. Um So, it sounds like things are
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  Speaker 1: falling apart, as if they couldn't get any worse. It's
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  Speaker 1: pretty heavy stuffed. But did you know that, um, that
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why the conflict in Sudan's taking
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  Speaker 1: like two hundred thousand lives so far started in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand three. Um, it was in large part started over
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  Speaker 1: access to um drinking water, right, and that's not unusual,
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  Speaker 1: you know, safe drinking or clean drinking water in third
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  Speaker 1: world countries and around the world is getting more obsolete,
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  Speaker 1: and it's kind of a problem. It definitely is. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: As I understand at one point two billion people don't
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  Speaker 1: have access to um clean drinking water. That's like of
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  Speaker 1: the world population, I know. And sadly, I think six
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  Speaker 1: thousand children every year die because they don't have access
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  Speaker 1: to safe drinking water. And that's that's a very startling statistic. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: then there's plenty of them. I mean, we could sit
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  Speaker 1: here and rattle them off. Basically, all of what they
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  Speaker 1: add up to is that we're running out of water
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  Speaker 1: and we're beginning to see the effects of that. UM.
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  Speaker 1: Africa seems to be kind of the uh, at the
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  Speaker 1: cutting edge of all things horrible for some reason. UM.
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  Speaker 1: And right now it looks like what we're seeing in
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  Speaker 1: Africa as far as water goes, is what the developing
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  Speaker 1: world's gonna see in twenty or fifty or a hundred
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  Speaker 1: years UM. Largely because we don't value water. It's cheap, right,
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  Speaker 1: it's cheap, and people use it like it's uh, like
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  Speaker 1: it's free. Yeah, I mean I think it takes like
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  Speaker 1: twelve gallons is to stay in a human being every
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  Speaker 1: day twild gallons of water and then includes everything bathing
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  Speaker 1: and drinking water and cooking, cooking, the whole, the whole shebang. Right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so you've got twelve gallons that you need to stay alive, right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: Americans use I think a hundred and fifty eight gallons
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  Speaker 1: a day on average. Every single one of us on
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  Speaker 1: average uses that much. And true American spirit, it's uh,
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  Speaker 1: we don't treat it with much respect right now? So
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  Speaker 1: I mean, what, what what will happen if if we
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  Speaker 1: start to run out of water? There? Chucker? What happens
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  Speaker 1: when we in the developing world, I should say run
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  Speaker 1: out of water? Well, there could potentially be you know,
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  Speaker 1: worst fault over water. I know that. Uh. The World
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  Speaker 1: Bank vice president at one point said that the next wars,
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  Speaker 1: uh in the next will be fought over water. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he said that in and we only had to wait
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  Speaker 1: like eight years, three years into the twenty one century
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  Speaker 1: when Dark four breaks out. It was the first war
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  Speaker 1: fought over water in like years. The last one was
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  Speaker 1: among Mesopotamians, I think so, and what happened to them exactly?
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  Speaker 1: It's a cautionary tale if I've ever heard one, Right,
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  Speaker 1: I think part of the problem is that water is uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times the countries and even
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  Speaker 1: states share borders with bodies of water, so it's not
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  Speaker 1: the kind of thing you can really claim ownership of.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, here in Georgia, we had a situation
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  Speaker 1: recently where we had uh, well we're still in a drought,
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  Speaker 1: but we have a situation with Alabama and Florida and
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  Speaker 1: I think Tennessee even where we're kind of all battling
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  Speaker 1: for the same water. Well, we drew Tennessee into it
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  Speaker 1: by suing to have the Georgia border go into the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the Tennessee River all of a sudden, rather
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  Speaker 1: than at the banks, based on based on an old
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  Speaker 1: survey that they said was incorrect from the hundred and
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  Speaker 1: it was you know, no one really cared much until now,
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  Speaker 1: and now we kind of need that water. But uh,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's not a problem when there's neighboring states and
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  Speaker 1: everyone's good friends, were trying to work it out diplomatically.
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  Speaker 1: There's no war crimes going on yet, no, but it
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  Speaker 1: can be a problem and and developing nations where you know,
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  Speaker 1: they're not exactly the best of friends exactly, and it's
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  Speaker 1: a little more dire of a circumstance, and so you
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  Speaker 1: can't have wars break out over water. Well, even even
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  Speaker 1: beyond wars. I mean there's a there's a pretty um
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  Speaker 1: I imagine a predictable model of what will begin to
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  Speaker 1: happen when you start to run out of water. The
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  Speaker 1: first thing um that would go would be crops, right,
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  Speaker 1: because I mean, we we need food and much less
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  Speaker 1: supply than we need water. But you know, water is
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  Speaker 1: the basic essential ingredient of everything we need. We can
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  Speaker 1: go like two days without water, but like eight weeks
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  Speaker 1: without food, right, Yeah, about sixty days. You can live
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  Speaker 1: without food as long as you have water, But three
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  Speaker 1: to five days without water, and it's dehydration and death
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  Speaker 1: and um ironically though, we need water to raise that food.
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  Speaker 1: So even if we have drinking water, we're still gonna
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  Speaker 1: need food eventually. So you run out of water, you
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  Speaker 1: run out of food. If you run out of food, right,
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the farmers who were you know,
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  Speaker 1: once raising these crops and livestock, uh, still need money
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  Speaker 1: to survive. They still need money to get by and
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  Speaker 1: to be able to purchase whatever food is available, right,
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  Speaker 1: so they start moving to the cities, and then the
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  Speaker 1: city experiences this big population boom that strange the infrastructure
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  Speaker 1: system for which eventually is broken and becomes polluted, which
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  Speaker 1: takes out even more of the water supply. So it
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  Speaker 1: really is a trickle down effect, and it's excuse upon there,
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  Speaker 1: but it affects everything all the way on down and
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  Speaker 1: and it's wide reaching. Yeah. So basically this is a
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  Speaker 1: kind of the nightmare scenario that we're facing. Um. And
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  Speaker 1: one of the things that I questioned when I was
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  Speaker 1: looking into this for this article, exactly what happens if
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  Speaker 1: we run out of water? UM? Was Okay, well, we've
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  Speaker 1: got climate change going on right now. Clearly there's some
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  Speaker 1: climate skeptics also an article on how stuff works dot com.
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  Speaker 1: But um, for the most part, most people can see
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  Speaker 1: quite clearly that you know, some eighteen thousand year old
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  Speaker 1: glaciers around the world that have sustained humans for as
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  Speaker 1: long as humans have lived near them are suddenly losing
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  Speaker 1: six of their mass and like the last twenty years, right,
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  Speaker 1: So why don't we just drink all that? It sounds
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  Speaker 1: like a good idea to me. It is. The problem
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  Speaker 1: is is we rely on these glaciers, which support billions
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  Speaker 1: of people in like Asia, UM, South America, Central America UM.
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  Speaker 1: They rely on them for their drinking supplied to kind
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  Speaker 1: of melt in a predictable rate each year and then
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  Speaker 1: be replenished by snow. Well, if it's too warm to
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  Speaker 1: support like a snow peak or a glacier any longer
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  Speaker 1: it's not being replenished, it becomes part of the rain
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  Speaker 1: cycle and eventually becomes salinated water. And we have water
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  Speaker 1: water everywhere, right, so most of the Earth's water is
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  Speaker 1: either shan or locked in ice right now for the
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  Speaker 1: time being. It will eventually be mostly ocean, right right,
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  Speaker 1: which we can't drink we can't or can we Well,
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  Speaker 1: I know that if you drink plain salt water it
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  Speaker 1: will dehydrate you even more. But I think you might
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  Speaker 1: be talking about removing the salt from the water. Yeah, desalination, right,
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  Speaker 1: and that's actually in in progress right now. There's some
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  Speaker 1: desalination plants around the world that are that are providing
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  Speaker 1: fresh water from saltwater. But it's like super super expensive
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  Speaker 1: technology right now. Yeah, that's one of the problems. I know.
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  Speaker 1: Another one of the cool ideas that they're working on.
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  Speaker 1: Bioengineers are trying to produce crops that need less water
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  Speaker 1: or that can live through artificial irrigation, which I know
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people against us think it's kind of
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  Speaker 1: creepy to eat this bioengineered food, But um, it might
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  Speaker 1: be a good solution if it will save us water.
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  Speaker 1: I think everybody will just kind of you know, tongue
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  Speaker 1: exactly right. And you know, um, agriculture as it stands
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  Speaker 1: is uh, basically one of the biggest users, actually the
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  Speaker 1: biggest user of water. I think it uses seventy of
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  Speaker 1: the global water consumption goes to agriculture. The problem is
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  Speaker 1: is our irrigation technology is just so terrible. We lose
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  Speaker 1: like of that water. It's not it's not a very
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  Speaker 1: efficient system. Problem. That would definitely help as well in
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  Speaker 1: addition to creating those hybridized crops that kind of thing. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I know, drip irrigation is I think, uh effective or
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  Speaker 1: efficient the wave of the future in my opinion, I
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  Speaker 1: think you're right. So check. Do you know anything about
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  Speaker 1: carrying capacities? I know a little bit, but I think
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  Speaker 1: you might be the man in this round. I did
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  Speaker 1: study anthropology at the dear Old University of Georgia, and
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  Speaker 1: that's why I first learned about. Carrying capacity is basically
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  Speaker 1: the total number of people that any any kind of
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  Speaker 1: um anything can sustain, especially with food, water, that kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. Before we overtext the planet to the limit,
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  Speaker 1: So we used to run around as hunter gatherers. Right,
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  Speaker 1: some of us still it, right, that's true, but for
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  Speaker 1: the at one time, all of us did, and we're
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  Speaker 1: that can sustain like twenty million people. Then all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden we come up with agriculture ten twelve thousand
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  Speaker 1: years ago, and all of a sudden, we can sustain
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  Speaker 1: twelve billion people with that, right, Right, that switch from
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  Speaker 1: hunter hunting, hunting and gathering to agriculture give some people
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  Speaker 1: hope that technology is going to be able to stay
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  Speaker 1: ahead of this curve and that we will never actually
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  Speaker 1: reach the caring capacity, will have moved on to something else,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, the day will be saved and we
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  Speaker 1: will create statues for scientists. Right, That's what I'm hoping for. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: me too, Chuck, because the alternative is kind of kind
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  Speaker 1: of scary, yeah and thirsty. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna drink
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  Speaker 1: my out of date fresca and really enjoy it for once. Um, thanks, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about water and exactly
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  Speaker 1: what will happen uh if we run out of it?
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  Speaker 1: Type in exactly what happens if we run out of
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  Speaker 1: water on how stuff works dot com and stick around
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  Speaker 1: for Chuck's recipe for a water free breakfast smovie right
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  Speaker 1: after this. It's good stuff you should know is brought
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  Speaker 1: How's that for peace of mind? Safe secure Visa? So Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: give up your secret. Tell us this a great recipe.
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  Speaker 1: It's really good, Josh, and good for you. What I
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  Speaker 1: do is I prep ahead of time and make them
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  Speaker 1: kind of throughout the week. So I'll get a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of strawberries and some of my raspberries and blueberries, and
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  Speaker 1: I'll chop them. We'll chop up the strawberries and I'll
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  Speaker 1: freeze it. And that's one of the keys that everything's
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  Speaker 1: gonna be frozen. I hadn't heard that one before. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's good. That's why my smoothies are terrible. I guess right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it keeps you from having to add ice with all
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  Speaker 1: the just frozen. So you put all that in a
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  Speaker 1: blender or a food processor with a banana, and then
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  Speaker 1: you add some orange juice, and then you add the
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  Speaker 1: secret ingredient is vanilla protein powder, which you get at
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  Speaker 1: your health health food store. I can eat that stuff
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  Speaker 1: dry right out of the canister, and I know it's good.
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  Speaker 1: So you blend that all up. It gets nice and thick,
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  Speaker 1: and you've got a delicious breakfast smoothie on your hand.
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  Speaker 1: That's fantastic show. Now you can find all sorts of
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  Speaker 1: great recipes, not necessarily Chuck's water free breakfast smoothie recipe,
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  Speaker 1: but it's some other really great ones on the food
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  Speaker 1: channel on how stuff works dot com for more on
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  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff
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