Cape Town expected to run out of water April 21st !?!?!?!

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-south-africa-water-crisis-20180119-story.html

  Quote

 

South Africa’s second-largest city is facing its worst drought in a century, with its water supply expected to run dry April 21.

They’re calling it “Day Zero.” In this city of 4 million, people will have to line up in the streets at just 200 water stations. The police and army will enforce a limit of 6.6 gallons per person and adopt measures to control crowds. Some experts believe evacuations will be necessary.

If the city runs out of water, it will be the first major city in a developed country to do so.

But a number of details of the crisis plan remain unclear. How would one person carry 26 gallons of water for a family of four? How would the elderly and disabled cope? What about the fact that officials expect there will be insufficient water to flush the city’s toilets?

“A lot of the logistics are not known, and that’s worrying and it’s causing a lot of alarm. We just never get any answers, which tells us there is no plan,” said resident Brigetti Lim Banda, who started a Facebook page on the water crisis. “We are at the point where it’s impossible to avoid Day Zero.”

 

I fear that water woes will become an all-too-common headline in the coming years.

remember at the end of that one movie where the guy shorted the housing market where he started investing in water? he'll probably make bank!

  On 1/20/2018 at 4:13 AM, juiceciuj said:

remember at the end of that one movie where the guy shorted the housing market where he started investing in water? he'll probably make bank!

Sounds weird lol I've never even thought of that as a thing to do.  How do you invest in water?  Just invest in utility companies?  Are there "Water ETFs"?  Crazy

This is one of those situations where I almost want to say benevolent colonialism is the answer.  Clearly South Africa doesn't have their shit together...  But I'm also skeptical and probably not aware enough regarding the history of the drawbacks of this.  But it sounds like a good idea.

  On 1/20/2018 at 4:59 AM, Zeffolia said:

Sounds weird lol I've never even thought of that as a thing to do. How do you invest in water?

I doubt the guy "investing in water" in that movie actually had the water on-hand himself.  You can't drink centralized authority-dictated ownership of a digital representation of a piece of paper representing abstract ownership of water that may or may not have been collected yet, that may or may not even be stored in a particular location at the time you purchase "ownership" of it, which is all that commodity investment is.

you're not thinking about what investment represents in terms of what it does in the real, physical world, e.g. infrastructure development, resource acquisition/management, etc. investment is not just what you're holding, it's what happens as a consequence of you throwing your weight - either in fiat or digital currency - behind a given project or idea.

anyway, bitcoin/etc has nothing to do with this. it'll be p ironic if something as primal and essential as water is what does us in, in spite of all our grand ideas (like digital currency ). projecting water availability is super complex and I think that LA Times piece is deliberately alarmist but it is certainly a growing problem.

Sorry, I admit it was just a sophomoric dig at Zeffolia's ill-fated thread. Carry on, better-informed denizens.

it's futures trading or whatever.. but it's "The Big Short" which if you havent' seen you should see.. .great movie. great cast.. excellent script.. entertaining.. infuriating.. the guy who convinced the banks to create a product so he could bet against the housing market because he was sure it would collapse and by betting against it his fund could make billions.. and it did.. he's a savant of sorts and per the film is on the spectrum.. 

here's a bit about him and commodity trading 

http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/02/michael-burry-water/

also, yes.. the water wars are next.. oil wars are going away.. water wars.. here we come.. india and china will have some issues.. 

also i found this.. water conflict chronolgy timeline

http://www2.worldwater.org/conflict/timeline/

but wtf cape town.. had no idea.. first i'd heard the reports of it was on national news tonight.