May 31 2004, 10:04 pm
In response to Kujila
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Goku72
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Never knew talk about water could turn into such a heated discussion that would span over a course of 3 days. =P
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Well, I don't necessarily know of anyone who's said it in those words... But that always seems to be the underlying sentiment...
I never get the sense of "Just don't be wasteful" and always the sense of "we'll run out"... Here's an example: The way this is worded comes off very strongly like "don't use it all up!" Basically, it all sounds too much like a warning and not enough like common sense advice... There's a huge difference in connotations, and the one most of them choose is one of "don't waste it or it'll run out!" Now, I can understand that some of this warning emphasis might be placed based on economic concerns... Basically, "don't waste water because it costs money to clean more!"... I can accept that... But they never really get to that, they always make it seem like we're losing the water that we're wasting... When in reality, we are definitely not... And I just recently realized another aspect I had ignored... The fact that cleaning water takes energy, which has to come from another, usable resource... Which essentially boils down (heh, another pun) to "waste water, and we'll have to spend more energy to clean more... and we'll run out of fuel faster..." So given those two secondary issues, then the cost of wasting water becomes an issue... However, these aspects are rarely focused on when we receive these warnings... I just always take away an implied meaning of "we'll run out of water!" And at the cost of being a broken record (which I have throughout this thread, I know...lol), that's just not the case... | |
Ahaha...... oh Lord, I'm laughing...geez....it's...three-AM...holy crap no wonder it's so funny... 0.o .......... fds vbf bxc lol oh lord help me im tireddddddddddddddssssssssssssssssslllllldssfv
/~Kujilaa | |
Well, yeah, aside from running up your monthly water bill, leaving your sink running and such also is just....so wasteful! :D
You shouldn't waste something because you can... :-P ...or at least, that's my standpoint. ~Kujila | |
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
I'm saying that it's not really necessary, because any water we "waste" will always remain water and can always be used again... Not if it's being sent off into space or used as some new kind of fuel. Besides, salty water takes quite a bit of energy to desalinate into drinkable water. | |
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
Alright, I see what you're getting at... Running out of water entirely isn't likely at all, but running out of "drinkable" water is. Of course, if we were in a situation where our access to water was limited, then sure, it would definitely be wise to use only what we need and save the rest... Relatively unlimited? If you're in the northern US, or Canada, for example, a lot of your water comes from rivers which comes from melting glaciars. Eventually they'll have melted away totally. It's not like fossil fuels, for instance... If we use those, then they're gone... The supply can be used up (sure, it replenishes itself, but the rate of replenishment is far exceeded by our rate of use, so eventually, it'll run dry... pun not intended), but with water, we can use it all we want, but it'll never go away... It just goes back into the "pool" (pun intended this time...lol) to be used over and over... Even if we waste as much as we can, someone else can still always use what we wasted... Again, much unlike fossil fuels or lumber... But what condition will the water be in? If it's not drinkable, a bunch of energy will need to be expended to make it drinkable(desalination, purification, etc). | |
However, doesn't anyone think that if it became necessary to do so, it would be done regardless? I mean, if it really came down to a matter of "spend money or everyone dies", who's going to hold onto the cash? I think you're underestimating the actual costs of purifying water. There are private islands out in the Pacific where all of the water comes from desalinisation plants, and a massive chunk of their incomes go into obtaining just the average amount of water used every day. Also of particular note is that a lot of fresh water is indeed "lost" into the ocean, to become salt water -- that water isn't reclaimable except when it rains, which means that if you're suffering a particularly dry season, the water is gone that year, and crops, homes, hygiene, and MANY other things all suffer. Finally, don't forget that while we can convert most of these things back to usable water, animals can't. We waste all of the water, the plants and animals die. The plants and animals die, we die. | |
But we are! My dad has to "travel" on Nucleur Submarines quite often, and all the water they use comes from "unuseable" water. They have showers, toilets, drinking water, and it all comes from the sea. Not only that, but the process of getting clean water also provides oxygen for breathing, and oxygen for the electric motors when they need to be stealthy and other purposes! Nifty! In the movie Alien, the crew's food was made of... well, the crew's past food. I didn't realize that there was a similar thing in the modern day. | |
