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It's a scary thought, but scientists say the 40 percent of humanity living in South Asia and China could well be living with little drinking water within 50 years as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, the region's main water source.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/09/himalayan.glaciers.reut/index.html

Much like what we are watching on the US Gulf Coast ... don't expect anything to happen until the disaster strikes close to home.

They have abundant drinking water because the glacier is melting. If things froze solid the rivers would dry up. "Global Warming" is the only thing keeping them alive.

It's kinda obvious, folks.

Water supplies in many countries all over the world are likely to dwindle in coming years due to a number of factors. Check out some of these past articles:

Pollution Disrupting Earth\'s Water Supply

War Over Water

The real water supply problem exists in Australia, where it is projected that major cities like Perth and Sydney have somewhere between 1-5 years supply of water left (depending on how the situation is handled). Because of this, Australia will no doubt be at the forefront of new technologies aimed at curtailing the problem.

Australian Drought Towns Run Out of Water

Running out of water - and time

CSIRO

Water, Water Everywhere...

Jared Diamonds book Collapse also covers this bleak topic pretty comprehensively.

Maybe we need to harness one of these babies...

Orion\'s Water Factory

Fearing global warming is the worship of the angry gods, sacrifice to Adam and Eve guilt, surrenger to events outside our control, obedience to unknown fears, primitive, fearful, destroying. There are a million things which could end our existence. Our best chance is to live in the present so that our energy is still high when disaster strikes, as it always does for an unforseen direction.

I am not a researcher, though I have worked for one. I would compare the fear of global warming with the sky is falling syndrome. But I was a researcher, it would be more like finding the fabled pot of gold: there is plenty of research to be done, with more to follow.

Australia's problem is no mountains, and lots of immigration. With the Snowy Mountains barely over 1000 feet high, there is little to uplift moist air to cause rain. With a lot of emigration from the prolific East Asian countries, the country is fast outstripping its water resources and depleting its ground water. Hint: Saudi Arabia uses energy to purify seawater, but it is expensive.

I personally believe that trying to pass laws about global warming and ozone holes is a wasted effort. There are larger forces at work here than mankind can deal with. I fear that most of the science being done in the field is aimed at political expediency instead at understanding. And the panic engendered is a disservice to science and mankind.

Blaming SE Asian immigration (lots of immigration?) as the cause of falling water levels is not only unfounded (and verging on xenophobic), but is also a more genuinely alarmist issue of "political expediency" than is climate change.

Using your logic you could just as easily blame Australia's Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, for Australia's current, and any future, water crisis, because he provided a baby bonus and then encouraged families to have more children.

Hmm it has been three years since I last visited Australia. What is the Asian population of Australia now? A small nation of 20+ million with limited rainfall cannot long take in immigrates from Indoneasia and other populous asian countries. I am sorry that my observations are politically incorrect.

Can't disagree with anything Uncle Al said.

Global warming is temporarily allowing the production of more food and more mouths. So perhaps the solution is not to stop global warming, not that we really can, but neither is it to sit back and wait for the inevitable as they did in New Orleans.

Then again I don't see anyone supplying these people with a reality check and birth control pills either.

I was traveling in India three years ago, and there was a full fledged campaign entitled "me, mine and ours". Billboards, trucks and many other places. I asked what that meant and was told: "myself, my spouse and our child". It was a campaign for having only one-child families.

That is also the hotly debated issue on abortion over there. Parents seem to favor aborting girls, and having boy babies just like in China. We are getting into an issue of not having enough women in society. An over abundance of men and a shortage of women has lead to a lot of social problems (war) in the past. One suggested excuse for terrorism in the Middle East is an over abundance of men without wives. Polygamy reduces the number of possible families.

Not that I favour in any manner the infanticide that was China's solution but there are certainly some advantage to preferentially aborting females.

First the female's reproductive potential is limited as compared to the males. Fewer females means a far smaller next generation. And that is not a bad thing given the reality of this planet's current situation.

Secondly a shortage of females might in a generation or two change the balance of power such that females become at least equals. Something they most assuredly are not now.

I think women add a great deal to society, and ensure some stability. I fear that a large poplulation of frustrated males will result in a more violent society.

Well, the fact that you specifically point out "Indonesia and other populous asian countries" does show your bias, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics' study of Australia's overseas-born population reflect this.

Yes, according to ABS statistics, overall overseas migration (52% during 2002-03) marginally outstrips natural population growth in Australia, but as you can now appreciate it is not exclusively, or specifically as a result of Asian migration.

Sparky wrote:
"... a large poplulation of frustrated males will result in a more violent society."

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will kill themselves off.

Women's roles in most countries are roughly equivalent to that of the family dog except that the dog doesn't have to work like one.

10,000 women and 1 man = 10,000 babies
10,000 men and

Sparky wrote:
"... a large poplulation of frustrated males will result in a more violent society."

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will kill themselves off.

Women's roles in most countries are roughly equivalent to that of the family dog except that the dog doesn't have to work like one.

10,000 women and 1 man = 10,000 babies
10,000 men and 1 woman = 1 baby
Do the math.