[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

I agree, but the more environmentally conscious among us (I state it circumspectly) are already over THAT idea like flies on dung. Their major complaint is that by discharging water heavier on salt back into the oceans after separating out fresh water (which is how it is done) it changes the salinity of the seawater at the point of discharge, thus conceivably harming ocean plant/animal life. I'm not sure if there is any credible research done on this topic, but that is the argument. It is not new technology, by the way: Titanic had desalination equipment to produce fresh water for the ship. And anyone who has taken a cruise on any of the larger cruise ship knows that with their desalination equipment, they produce enough fresh water to not only assure that the cruisers have all the water they want but also enough to supply the fun and games aboard. The Flow Rider on RCCL ships for example needs 30,000 gallons of fresh water in order to operate.

But in reality this agonizing over this perceived water shortage is merely another sky-is-falling histrionic. Lake mead, for example, received plenty of attention on the part of the environmentally conscious after the water level sank over several years to what were termed dangerous levels. But after 2021 Mama Nature took over, replenishing the lake water by natural means. An article in Newsweek (12/8/23) states, in part: "Lake Mead, which is in Nevada and Arizona, reached drastically low levels last summer after years of drought, but water levels have since started to recover because of above-average precipitation and snowpack that have melted this summer. Stunning photos comparing this year's levels to those of 2022 have abounded on social media, including how the rising levels again submerged a previously sunken boat that was revealed during the drought.

The lake has blown past 2022 water levels by more than 20 feet, and last Saturday, Lake Mead reached another milestone when it surpassed 2021 levels for the first time this year, a feat AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dave Houk previously told Newsweek was unlikely to happen given forecast trends."

This is why I don't give the gloom-and-gloomers much attention. Hysteria makes for poor science.

In the response - in 2023 water levels"started to recover because of ABOVE AVERAGE PRECIPITATION and snow pack that MELTED this summer". I will NOT dispute that this happened, however I would like to mention the WHY behind this happening. The last 7 or 8 years have been the WARMEST in recorded history and climate scientists are worried that the HEAT is increasing. That EXPLAINS WHY the snow pack melted. And average precipitation worldwide in bound to increase because WARM AIR holds more MOISTURE.