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#43649 05/16/12 05:15 PM
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How much of planet Earth is made if Water? Very little actually.
For if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers, less than half the radius of the Earth's Moon.
I find the picture below, visually astounding.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120515.html


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What a very scary picture that is Mike. I am so used to knowing water is scarce that I had not thought I could have been shocked again, but I certainly was. This image should be everywhere, and we should stop using water as though the supply is never-ending.

Thanks for the post. Astounding is right.

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...and that is ALL water. It is a similarly small fraction, 1-3%, which is freshwater or usable freshwater--sustaining our food supply.



...if you can even see the small dot of freshwater to the far right!

~ wink


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Water gets recycled, so the global quantity need not necessarily be a problem; but I think possession and unequal distribution are likely to result in violent conflicts between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.


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Here it has rained a significant part of almost every day since 2nd. April; yet they insist we have a drought, and there is a hose-pipe ban in place. How wet can a drought be?

Then, if you go to London you can see sprinklers running all the time on any patch of grass that might be spotted by any visitor to the Olimpics. What was that about "haves" and "have nots"?


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Well, here in Oklahoma we have a sort of a water problem. There is a water board down in North Central Texas that wants to buy water from Southeastern Oklahoma. A couple of Indian tribes are suing to keep the water from being sold, because they are afraid that there won't be enough for Oklahoma then. And of course the Indians have an interest in the matter because when the benevolent white man made the treaties with the tribes they got the land and water, but for some reason they don't want to let the tribes have a say in the use of the water.

In the mean time they have had watering restrictions in Texas. I don't think they apply of course to important things like golf courses.

Bill Gill


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Originally Posted By: samwik
...and that is ALL water. It is a similarly small fraction, 1-3%, which is freshwater or usable freshwater--sustaining our food supply.



...if you can even see the small dot of freshwater to the far right!

~ wink
Sam, which is it, 700 miles diameter? Or is it 860 miles in diameter? as it says in this link http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/if-you-put-all-the-water-on-ea.html Or does it matter?

Sam, I am amazed at how little fresh water we do have for our use. What if some super villain, from space, or earth, gets control of that "little blue planet" as you have depicted it? smile frown

Last edited by Revlgking; 05/17/12 09:46 PM.

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we have plenty of water.

our problem is what we use for energy.

or the price of that energy would be better because it is
the price of energy that causes us to think we dont have much water.

because if energy were cheaper or ((( FREE ))) then we could
desalinate sea water with the cheap or ((( FREE ))) energy.


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Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Sam, I am amazed at how little fresh water we do have for our use. What if some super villain, from space, or earth, gets control of that "little blue planet" as you have depicted it?

Well Rev, Ethan Siegel in his blog, Starts With a Bang has just discussed something on that order. He talks about Reverse Terraforming. If a supervillain disrupts the Earths magnetic field he can cause the Earth to dry up. The magnetic field is what keeps the Solar Wind from blowing the atmosphere away and that would be bad.

Bill Gill


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I wish I could be as hopeful as paul--- I feel more like Bill. This is a very grim thread for someone like me in the driest continent on Earth.

We are building a huge desalination plant in my state and since we had rain and some flooding (not huge flooding here, just what used to happen before we had drought), people are saying we will never use it. I do hope they are right!

Bill S do you have water restrictions in your part of the UK, or just a ban on garden watering? I was horrified to hear about that happening in some areas of the UK, and it isn'e even summer yet.

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At the moment we have just a hose pipe ban, but our suppliers, Thames Water, are threatening worse later in the summer. Fortunately, with the amount of rain we have had over the past couple of months, there is no need to water the gardens.


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just put down a shallow well to water your garden.
theres probably water only a few feet below you.

you say I guess that the thames water company is your supplier so
does that hint that your water comes from the thames?

if so then if your property is less than 29 ft higher in elevation than the thames you could easily get the water from the water table.

unless the uk gov has made natural water usage illegal.

which is what is happening all over the us also.
sad , but there are ways around it.

when they ( the gov ) steps in and causes the the water in the water table to stagnate by refusing to allow people in cities
to use the water that is just a few feet below their property they are causing the water in the water table to retain the toxins that would naturally be cleansed by garden watering.

P.S.

you can put down a shallow well using a 1/2 inch - 3/4 inch pvc pipe !!!

just hook up a 20 ft pvc pipe to your water hose , point the open end downwards and the water coming out of the pipe will drill the well for you.

unless you hit a rock , that is.









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WATER HAS MEMORY? Is this a fact, or a fiction?
If so, maybe there really is such a thing as holy water.

Which reminds me of the old joke. Making holy water is easy to do. All one has to do is: Put ordinary water on the stove and boil hell out of it. laugh

http://odewire.com/170441/scientists-investigate-water-memory.html


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:-) Rev!

If Bill S's water comes from the Thames area then his locality may be part of the Artesian Basin under London. If this is so then I doubt anyone would be able to drill into it at will. But I could be wrong.

Here on Oz some people, in previous droughts, drilled bore holes in their gardens but there were a lot of rules. In the last drought most of these dried up anyway.

Capturing rain and grey water is effective for garden watering, though probably not too good for drinking, especially off city roofs.

No problems now though. We have had a very nicely rainy May-- though Will the Pug and Wallace the fluffy cat hate getting wet. I suspect that's because rain is really unusual for them. They are both 11 and the drought lasted 10 years!

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there is another method of getting free water as long as you live in a humid environment.

use several 2 litre coke bottles and fill them with water.
put them in your freezer and let them freeze.
then you can use them to get fresh water by placing the
bottles in a pan and setting a fan beside them , this will also
cool down a room a little.

condensation will form on the bottles and by the time the ice has melted you will have apx 8 oz of water in the pan.

of course the amount of water will depend on the humidity in your area.

and there will also be some particulates in the water that are in the air.

I have never had the water tested.

I suppose that if you no longer can get water from your tap but
you still have electricity this could save your life.

and its most likely much cheaper than buying bottled water for drinking.

I would say that you could get apx 8 oz of condensated water per hour this way , so in a day you could get the 8 glasses of water you should drink.

I like the large chest type freezers because they dont allow all the cold air to escape when you open the door.

then theres the problem of refreezing the bottles of course.
I suppose it would take a full day to refreeze the bottles.


you could catch the water that comes off the airconditioning system , but I wouldnt drink it , theres alot of bacteria that grows in the pipes of a draining system.

but you could use that water for gardening.










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getting back on topic.

with good ole global warming there is also good ole water vapor.

so water is no problem as long as there is also electricity.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator


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Originally Posted By: paul


I suppose that if you no longer can get water from your tap but
you still have electricity this could save your life



If the water is off where do you get the water to fill the bottles?

Bill Gill


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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
Originally Posted By: samwik
...and that is ALL water. It is a similarly small fraction, 1-3%, which is freshwater or usable freshwater--sustaining our food supply.



...if you can even see the small dot of freshwater to the far right!

~ wink
Sam, which is it, 700 miles diameter? Or is it 860 miles in diameter? as it says in this link http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/if-you-put-all-the-water-on-ea.html Or does it matter?

Sam, I am amazed at how little fresh water we do have for our use. What if some super villain, from space, or earth, gets control of that "little blue planet" as you have depicted it? smile frown



Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer

Mike Kremer said,

Greetings Revking,
I think you will find, its 700 kilometers, as it states in the original NASA picture,
a couple of letters back.



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Originally Posted By: paul
getting back on topic.


so water is no problem as long as there is also electricity.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator


Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer


Mike Kremer said:-
You are correct Paul, go out and buy a small portable De-humidifier, thay are cheap
to run and will extract enough water out of the air to keep two or three people hydrated



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Quote:
go out and buy a small portable De-humidifier


not a bad idea !!

this way even if there is no water to start with you might get enough to start collecting water for other things.

hmmm , water utilities charge you for sewage and water and other fees and cost are priced according to how much your water meter reads.

using one of these dehumidifiers might save you some cash also especially if you use solar cells to power/run it.





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