This is a concern: 

World population is forecast to grow

to 10 billion in 2050

fresh water

will need to be found

for an extra 3 billion people

in only 34 years time

That’s more than all the people

in India & China today.

We’ve done it before…

What are the odds that in 1911

you would have said

that a combined army from Japan & Germany

would be beaten in 1945?

Or in 1935

who would have said

that Neil Armstrong

would walk on the moon

and be flown safely home in 1969

34 years is 34 years

We can do it

we can be making & distributing

fresh water every day

 around the world

from the sea

using just renewables by 2050

We are all co-captains of the good ship Earth

the condition in which she arrives in decades to come

wherever that might be

will be the direct result of all the decisions we all take now

day by day

Our population grows

7 billion now

10 billion in 2050

water will need to be found for an extra

3 billion people in 34 years time

–       15% more than China & India today

Our water hungry middle class grows

doubling every 15 years

1.4b in 2000

2.5b in 2015

5b in 2030?

The modern lifestyle is itself water hungry

growing beef taking 16 times as much water

asgrowing corn

the generation of power uses water

4 litres of water are taken to make each litre of fuel

fracking takes 24 million litres a well

Climate change is drying our lakes and rivers

and making our bores saltier

runoff from industry & farms pollutes the water tables

30% of London’s water leaks away

25% of Chicago’s

Climate change is of course important

But just 34 years to find the water

for another new India/China

puts the Water crisis ahead

Will a combined

 world renewables powered water war

beat both climate change & the water crisis?

 

“Looks like it’s getting closer to midnight

on 31st December and not sure we’ve got a viable plan.”

The climate change traffic lights

may have gone green in Paris

& while all around engines might be revving

–       few have yet to drop the clutch

Are we mentally strapped

by fear of financial meltdown?

will we be emancipated

by the shift of currencies based on simple gold

rather than hopes & promises compounded

Perhaps we are numbed

by the precipitous drop in the price of oil

–       those gallons gushing into the sky

as CO2

All those sheds

all those paddocks round the world

all those ‘Charlie Taylors’ making engines

from aluminium rather than cast iron

to help this centuries Wright brothers

dreams take flight

Those thousands of ideas,

 concepts, 3D printing, computer design

in hundreds of languages

linked by the common computer

with the identical target

however achieved

of CO2 reduction & sequestration

It may not be a plan

but it might just be viable.