Try desalinating the Dust Bowl. That should make it clear enough.

Unlimited energy can theoretically solve almost all problems. But one remains: the very use of that energy, and the pollution -or waste- it produces. That could only be solved by using more energy, which would lead to more waste, which could only be solved by using more energy, which... (copy and paste).

Unlimited energy (when used) equals unlimited waste.

River diversion, that very term brings up China. The most megalomanic project in the history of mankind is underway as we speak, digging 1000's of miles of canals and tunnels to divert water from the relatively wet south to the very dry and desertifying north.

Mao started talking about it 50 years ago, and it will take another 50 to complete.

The South to North China Water Diversion mega-project is the largest of its kind ever planned. In November 2002 the hugely ambitious, multi-billion dollar river diversion plan was given the go-ahead by the Chinese government.

The main aim of the project is to alleviate the water shortage in northern China around Beijing, the Tianjin municipality and Hebei province by diverting water from the south of the country.

The three south-to-north canals, which will stretch across the eastern, middle and western parts of China, will eventually link the country's four major rivers - the Yangtze River, Yellow River, Huaihe River and the Haihe River.

The first and second phases of the east route and the first phase of the middle route will be constructed by 2010. It is hoped that by 2008 enough of the infrastructure will be in place to help Qingdao host the water sports during the 2008 Olympic Games. The total cost of this work is estimated to be more than US$22 billion. Construction of the west route, the largest of the three, will cost US$36 billion.

Planning of the South-to-North Water Diversion Projects started in the 1950s and will take almost 50 years to construct. By 2050 it is expected the project will be capable of shifting 44.8 billion cubic metres of water annually.

One problem that is not part of the planning process: melting glaciers. By the time the project is finished, 50 years from now, there will be hardly any water left, the southern rivers are fed by the Himalaya's.

It'll be a fitting end for Peak Stupidity.

Do you suppose that if we had enough oil we could just build enough desal plants and fill it up again?

In a word...yes.

I'm not saying it would be desirable, mind.

Releasing water on the ground to artifically produce wetlands for waterfowl.

Quit draining wetlands for humans to have more sprawl space and pretend they are living the rural lifestyle.

Stop irrigating crop land when normal rainfall is insufficient and live on what we can actually produce, even though this means a lot of the rest of the world must learn to better shepherd their resources as well, in other words quit trying to be the worlds saviour and just live with what we got.

Turn off the 'green revolution'.

Stop washing streets, let the residents sweep them off.

Ice hockey? Forget it.

Swimming pools in everymans backyard? Ignorant.

Sprinkling desert land in Arizona to grow grass? Fools.

Huge water fountains in Vegas? Screw the gamblers. Let them eat dust.

The list can go on and on and on. Just as long as human stupidity can go on and on and on. Live within the parameters or die off. Thats what it is coming down to.

Why does India need all that water? Could all our ignorant offshoring of our once domestic jobs have anything to do with it?  

Two years ago this would have been utter nonsense. Today I submit it makes sense. You can't legislate people's lifestyle so nature is going to do take over that job for us.

I strongly disagree on the basis that local conditions are so different. Continents are separated by big swathes of water called oceans which have a tendancy to keep eco-systems, people, cultures, resources apart. I cannot even believe I am debating this.

Sure if you fully understand controll theory as applied to climate/geology and know your boundaries and 879,057,423 variables then yes you could treat earth as one boat.

Marco.

Otherwise, the resource would be gone immediately.

In absolute terms hardly any ground-water exists completely independently of the natural water cycle. However, water moves at very different speeds in different aquifer layers, and in addition the distances travelled may vary greatly. Where water has to cover hundreds or even thousands of kilometres at speeds of the order of several metres a year, it may stay in the subsoil for periods of up to tens of thousands of years.

This does not mean that this "fossil' water, as hydrologists call it, is stagnant or that there is no renewal of water in these very extensive deep aquifers. It is simply that the renewal is very very slow.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1985_Jan/ai_3581835

I think the Ogalalla is a fossil aquifer so it is not replenishing.  Once that water is gone, it's gone.  But many of the replenishable aquifers world-wide are being depleted faster than they can replenish, hence declining water tables, deeper wells, etc.  And I wonder, when Odograph says we are not in the same boat as India, how he defines the boat.  True, we in the U.S. don't currently face the same water issues as India, but we're not too far off.  And we here in the Northeast don't face the same water issues as LA and San Diego.  So, are we in the same boat in the U.S., the western hemisphere, or the world?  Odograph needs to read Lester Brown's Outgrowing the Earth or Plan B 2.0 to see how far-reaching our water issues are before deciding who is in what boat.

In times of drought, elephants and other species trek 100's of miles from the Serengeti and Great Rift Valley towards the "wet" land beneath the mountain, their final option.

The snow peak is not the only tourist attraction that will soon be gone. The animals will have no place left to go.

Also, Africa these days is full of stories of lakes that are drying up at record pace. This doesn't just affect drinking water, it cuts of electricity to scores of people as well.

Now we might presume that since there is a water cycle, what goes missing in one place, will end up somewhere else. But that is not entirely correct. Why?

Ask yourself what makes the sea levels rise.

Stable glaciers obviously were not providing water, though they play an important role in regulating the flow of snow melt.  New ways will have to be found and/or implemented to capture irregular fresh water flows.  Not many grey cells will be consumed in this process.

Even with the stress of 6 - 9 billion people, the stress of climate change and the stress of emerging problems like adaptive germs, our fundamental problems are mental.  The solutions are an exercise of the divine gift of self-reflective consciousness.

I guess that's the Saturday morning consensus at TOD anyway - a cornucopian is someone who does not belive we in overshoot and hanging before an inevitable collapse.

BTW, oh yeah, all us Cornucopians drive Priuses.  We were shoulder to shoulder down at the Toyota dealer.

There is also this summary article by demographer Philip Longman, whose concern is that an abrupt, natural, decline in world population beginning about 2075 will entail serious problems:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83307/phillip-longman/the-global-baby-bust.html

The only purpose these projections serve is to get hefty salaries for a bunch of bozo's with academic degrees. Want to know how many times these projections have changed over the past 20 years? Not so long ago (5 years?) it was 12 billion by 2050, equally moronic. No-one can predict the weather more than 4 days in advance, to any reliable degree. too many variables.

And still, my opposable digits tell me to listen to Richard Duncan. At least he has tried to do the best he could.

And no-one has proven him wrong as far as I can tell. Except for himself, when fine-tuning.

Was referring to this line "No, we are deep into overshoot but still having more babies but are at the same time reducing the world's carrying capacity."

You're right that I misread this as one of the standard "The population will grow forever until we all die" arguments, which it only borders on.

Basically, unless you can demonstrate a problem with less than 2x current population, then it isn't a problem. I'm not saying that there aren't to many people, but rather that this whole "well, exponential growth until the year 2980 and even the Uranium will be used up..." nonsense is not viable.