Desalinated water costs 50 cents per cubic metre in Singapore. 8 cups of water per day * 365 days gives 2/3 of a cubic meter. 35 cents per person per year. Even the poorest of the poor can afford that.
Individual people will fight over water. If you don't get enough to drink, you die. That's worth fighting over.
Governments fighting over water is stupid. Yes, I know governments being stupid is pretty commonplace, but it's our place to tell them they're stupid, not egg them on, like you and NatGeo are doing.
> Desalinated water costs 50 cents per cubic metre in Singapore. 8 cups of water per day times 365 days gives 2/3 of a cubic meter. 35 cents per person per year. Even the poorest of the poor can afford that.
The issue is irrigation, not drinking water.
Food to feed a person requires farming. If the natural rainfall isn't enough, it requires irrigation too. Lots of farming is done with irrigation, as has been true for millenia.
Far better to teach the farmers dryland farming techniques rather than destroying their soil through the use of irrigation. Wheat can be grown in areas that only receive 12 inches of rain a year, which is technically considered a desert.
Comments
Desalinated water costs 50 cents per cubic metre in Singapore. 8 cups of water per day * 365 days gives 2/3 of a cubic meter. 35 cents per person per year. Even the poorest of the poor can afford that.
Individual people will fight over water. If you don't get enough to drink, you die. That's worth fighting over.
Governments fighting over water is stupid. Yes, I know governments being stupid is pretty commonplace, but it's our place to tell them they're stupid, not egg them on, like you and NatGeo are doing.
> Desalinated water costs 50 cents per cubic metre in Singapore. 8 cups of water per day times 365 days gives 2/3 of a cubic meter. 35 cents per person per year. Even the poorest of the poor can afford that.
The issue is irrigation, not drinking water.
Food to feed a person requires farming. If the natural rainfall isn't enough, it requires irrigation too. Lots of farming is done with irrigation, as has been true for millenia.
Far better to teach the farmers dryland farming techniques rather than destroying their soil through the use of irrigation. Wheat can be grown in areas that only receive 12 inches of rain a year, which is technically considered a desert.