International South Africa's Water Crisis: Taps Have Run Dry Across Johannesburg

Arkain2K said:
The discussion on unfeasible Desalination vs. Water Recycling start from page 3 of this thread. You will at least quadruple your knowledge on the subject matter just by skimming through :)



Tree huggers are the reason why there haven't been any new power plants or water dams built in California for half a century, despite the population tripled.

I'm also quite sure a billion dollar nuclear power plant is outside of Cape Town's city budget, and thus people gonna be paying up the wazoo for water when those desalination projects they're building now finally comes online a few years from now.
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I don't really want nuke plants in California either.... lets try and keep them out of earthquake and tsunami zones.

I don' think south Africa has that problem....
 
Cape Town counts down to Day Zero as water supply evaporates
By Joseph Cotterill in Cape Town

http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2F911d761e-ff6f-11e7-9e12-af73e8db3c71


At the foot of the Devil’s Peak in Cape Town, well-to-do residents turn up each day to fill jerrycans from a bubbling spring. It is not that the cool, mountain waters are believed to have special powers, but a reflection of the deepening crisis facing South Africa’s second city.

Within three months, Cape Town is at risk of going from a tourist haven and hub for the wine industry to becoming the world’s first big metropolis to run out of water after a years-long drought.

“We have reached the point of no return,” Patricia de Lille, Cape Town’s mayor, warned this month. With anger in her voice she added: “It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care.”

It is likely to get much worse. Barring a drastic improvement in conservation efforts, at some point in April this year — on or about the 21st, according to the latest estimates — Cape Town will wake up to ‘Day Zero’, when toilets and taps will run dry.

If that happens, businesses say that overnight they will either have to shut down or drastically cut back on staff reporting for duty, heaping more pressure on a stagnant economy.

Local government-controlled distribution points under armed guard will be the only way thousands of residents are able to access water — at a strict limit of 25 litres per day. The remaining piped water would be prioritised for hospitals as well as standpipes in the poorer townships to prevent a public health catastrophe.

Helen Zille, premier of Western Cape, the province around Cape Town, has conceded that managing the queues in a city of nearly 4m people will be a “logistical nightmare”.

https://www.ft.com/content/8a438352-fc76-11e7-a492-2c9be7f3120a
 
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/art...overtaking-the-cape-town-crisis/#.Wmbb0K6WbIU

Cape Town has dominated headlines as the city most likely to run out of water due to the crippling drought in the Western Cape. But as officials in the Cape Town Mayor’s office scramble to work around a series of political scandals within the province’s ruling DA, the neighbouring Eastern Cape has been rolling headlong into disaster. And they don’t have a lot of options.
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@Arkain2K just in case you're interested, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/ is probably the best source of news and opinion in this little corner of the world.
 
Just stumbled across this. It's not a news story, per se, just the published musings of a Western Cape man contemplating a dry future.
I found it to be an interesting read, if only to gain some insight into the trepidation gripping the area.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/ideas/2018-01-19-sweating-over-the-water-crisis-in-cape-town/

Tim Flack describes himself as a regular Joe who earns a living by making knives and jewelry. He lives just outside of Cape Town – which could soon become the first major city in the world to run out of water. It’s an unpalatable predicament for everyone living on the parched southern tip of the country. Here‚ in his own words‚ is what it’s like.

Day zero is looming and we are now at the point of no return.

I wake up and stumble to the loo. The smell is interesting first thing in the morning. This is because we don't flush the loo - “If it's yellow let it mellow‚ if it's brown flush it down.” My dad still lives by this‚ due to the droughts he experienced when he was a young man like me.

I pee‚ my partner pees and that's one flush a flush with soapy shower water collected the night before. The house reeks if you don’t do this. The toilet ceramic needs cleaning‚ it's pretty gross in there.

Off to the kitchen. I put just enough water in the kettle for two cups of coffee. I drink a lot of milk in my coffee so I'm saving water there‚ I think. Off to the shower because‚ by the time the kettle has boiled‚ I'll be done with showering. Shave? Haha‚ not in a long time.

I shower in the morning because the heat at night is so bad I wake up feeling dirty. I sing the two-minute version of the national anthem as the water runs. #CountryDuty‚ turn the water off as I soap up. I have two buckets in the shower‚ one that catches the water as it becomes hot and the other for flushing. The clean one is for my prized bonsai trees. I've grown them since I was a child. They need water in Paarl’s almost daily 30+ degree temperatures. We've given up on the grass‚ it's dead. And the dust is just fantastic.

I'm a professional knife maker and jeweller. My hands stay dirty from here on. It's so bad that if I go into the sea my hands turn orange. It takes about five minutes to scrub them clean. So I leave them dirty most of the day until I shower at night. I have to because grinding knives leaves you covered in steel dust and particles. This stains any sheet if my hands are not cleaned properly.

While I finish off an order for knives I think: People are still wasting water‚ why has government left it so late? Do they really care? Mayor Patricia de Lille has basically been fired‚ and we only see Mmusi Miamane when he wants votes. Helen Zille? Who is that? National government has kind of become defunct. We hear nothing from them. Politicians really don't care. When it's time to vote they will blame each other and make promises that they won't keep.

I think: Hang on‚ when there's no water where will I go to the toilet? I can't poop in the loo‚ what will I flush it with? Use my 25 litres of allocated drinking water? Ha! Fat chance! I'll have to build a compost toilet - eeuw. It can be done though. I'll have to seal my drains and toilet because there won't be water in them.

Oh God! What about people who don't know this? I'll have to tell my friends and family. What diseases can we expect? What did government not tell us about? Gees‚ this is worse than I expected. Cholera‚ dysentery‚ tuberculosis‚ Lyme disease‚ West Nile virus‚ E coli‚ salmonella? All very real threats. People can die if this isn't dealt with.

It's dinner time. We cook with a small convection oven and microwave vegetables. Not much water there. The dishwasher takes about two days to get full and we do a half-hour clean. It apparently saves water.

Back in the workshop I think: four million people‚ 200 water collection points. I suck at math but that's 20 000 per station isn't it? I check on my calculator. I can forget about working for the next three hours now. Now what? Can I make something to distil salt water? YES‚ I can! So I start costing. Wait in line all day to get water or drive to the beach‚ collect sea water and let the sun work for me? I can keep working at least.

Work? Oh no‚ what will people that work do? They'll still have to go to work. Bosses are mostly terrible. If they are standing in line for water then how will they work? And if they have to work how will they get water? I assume the water would be in short supply in the shops; it's already R15 for five litres.

There are so many things to think about. It's inconvenient now. What is it going to be like when I can't wash my clothes? Or find water in the shop? What will the poorest of the poor do? I feel alone. Am sure so many others do. What are we going to do?
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Just to reiterate, I am not in Cape Town, I'm in Johannesburg. We've had a heat wave recently, but our dams are full and our skies aren't dry.
 
Lowmanproblems said:
Can we just leave the racist part out and admit that the right-wingers just want to watch their wives breed with the African men.
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Nah. The cucks are those wanting to see their nation get fucked by immigrants. Aka, you
 
The movie, based on Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, tells the story of four investors who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse in 2008 and decided to bet against Wall Street, earning billions of dollars in the process.

The first of these investors that predicted the housing bubble was Dr. Michael Burry, who is portrayed in The Big Short by Christian Bale.

While the movie does a great job explaining how Michael Burry was able to make nearly $1 billion betting against the housing market in 2008, it left many viewers very puzzled about a completely different issue – the last line of the movie, printed on a placard, is:

“Michael Burry is focusing all of his trading on one commodity: Water.”

This is a perplexing statement, because unlike other commodities like oil, cotton, or silver, there is no market to trade water.

So how can someone invest in water? Should you just buy a rain bucket?

Well, you have 3 different options if you want to invest in water:

  1. Purchase water rights
  2. Invest in water-rich farmland
  3. Invest in water utilities, infrastructure, and equipment.
https://vintagevalueinvesting.com/how-to-invest-in-water-like-michael-burry-from-the-big-short/

Reminds of a story I saw awhile ago about the guy Christian Bale played in the Big Short.
 
alanb said:
Just remember these are the ones that will be hit hardest by this. Every day native Boers face persecution and government discrimination. These are the real refugees I am glad Georgia is taking in some. The U.S. should follow suit.



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Good on Georgia and good for those Afrikaaners that recognize the impending shithole they were living in and going somewhere that would improve both their lives and also making a significant improvement to their adopted country.
 
Bargey said:
Good on Georgia and good for those Afrikaaners that recognize the impending shithole they were living in and going somewhere that would improve both their lives and also making a significant improvement to their adopted country.
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Arent you a Trump supporter?
 
Things are fucked up in Africa? Wow, truly a sign of the apocalypse.
 
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Diamond Jim said:
The movie, based on Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, tells the story of four investors who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse in 2008 and decided to bet against Wall Street, earning billions of dollars in the process.

The first of these investors that predicted the housing bubble was Dr. Michael Burry, who is portrayed in The Big Short by Christian Bale.

While the movie does a great job explaining how Michael Burry was able to make nearly $1 billion betting against the housing market in 2008, it left many viewers very puzzled about a completely different issue – the last line of the movie, printed on a placard, is:

“Michael Burry is focusing all of his trading on one commodity: Water.”

This is a perplexing statement, because unlike other commodities like oil, cotton, or silver, there is no market to trade water.

So how can someone invest in water? Should you just buy a rain bucket?

Well, you have 3 different options if you want to invest in water:

  1. Purchase water rights
  2. Invest in water-rich farmland
  3. Invest in water utilities, infrastructure, and equipment.
https://vintagevalueinvesting.com/how-to-invest-in-water-like-michael-burry-from-the-big-short/

Reminds of a story I saw awhile ago about the guy Christian Bale played in the Big Short.
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sounds like time to buy some Nestle stock

<{clintugh}>
 
Arkain2K said:
Shit, the local government is practically begging people to curb water use and it's like most people in Cape Town don't even care.

The S.A national government seems to care even less about this impending crisis. I guess election campaigning season is still far away.
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There is also a lot of conflict at the national level.
The ANC is fractured and has been taking a lot of hits lately:
  • The president of the country has been unseated as president of the ruling party.
  • The DA and the EFF took major municipalities in the last municipal election.
  • Since taking Johannesburg, the DA's been uncovering millions of rands lost to corruption during the ANC's tenure here.
  • Zuma's absolute shiftiness as a president has put the ANC at very real risk of losing the general elections next year.

DA-run Cape Town has long been considered SA's "most well-run city": The DA's best argument for Being given a chance to run the country.
There will almost certainly be conflict at the national level about how enthusiastically to approach the idea of helping them solve this crisis.

Edit: also a lot of urban, middle class south Africans have a first world mindset while living in an often third world setting - we too often assume that things will just keep on keeping on.
Capetonians especially so - most well-run city and all.
The rural poor aren't much better, generally failing to fully grasp anything past immediate consequences.
 
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