this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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  • Mexico City could run out of drinking water by June 26, an event locals call "Day Zero."
  • Three years of low rainfall and high temperatures have worsened the city's water crisis.
  • The Cutzamala water system, which provides water to millions, operates now at 28% capacity.
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[–] Brkdncr 136 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Oh wow the water wars are starting a few years earlier than I anticipated.

[–] Oneobi 26 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Mankind better watch out. Next it'll be air.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Oh, it's already being sold.

[–] sandalbucket 10 points 6 months ago

Those things are awesome. They weigh next to nothing, the small ones have 60 inhales in them, and a single hit is night and day when running at high altitude. A buddy didn’t have time to acclimate before a race, so we got him one as a joke, and it unironically helped him a lot

[–] moistclump 6 points 6 months ago

As Bo said, “Twenty thousand years of this, seven more to go.”

[–] andrewta 64 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Texas should get ready for a ton of people heading north. Give a person a choice of dying from no water or going where there is water and we all know what will happen.

[–] kamenlady 42 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This will probably happen on a global scale. The southern hemisphere will be too hot at some point.

[–] NewNewAccount 7 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Is the Southern Hemisphere hotter than the North?

[–] captainlezbian 32 points 6 months ago

Yes. Well no, but yes. Hemisphere on the whole? No. Land in the hemisphere? No. Land in the hemisphere that isn’t Antarctica? Yes, it’s much more likely to be located closer to the equator. Of the 6 inhabited continents 3 (North America, Europe, and Asia) are entirely located in the northern hemisphere.

You have some areas like Patagonia that are akin to somewhere like europe, but the equator is lower on every continent it passes through than you probably think. The equator in South America is found in the Amazon basin. In Africa it’s in in the Congo and a bit above Nairobi (Johannesburg is the northernmost major city in Africa below the southern tropics). In the Asian sphere it passes through Indonesia. About half of Australia is tropical.

For another comparison the top of the Tropic of Cancer (northern one) is in the middle of the Sahara, below New Delhi, right above Hong Kong, and about in the middle of Mexico.

[–] redeyejedi 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I assume it has to do with the fact that along the equator it's typically warmer and the equator runs through the northern part of South America. So if temperatures go up they'll go up there first and head north south respectively. I don't think they meant Souther Hemisphere as much as they mean Southern Mexico / South America.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I just watched a whole Astrum video about this. It's less about one being hotter than the other and more about the seasons being more extreme. The orbit of our planet is actually a little egg shaped, and the closest we pass to the sun happens to be in early January. In the north, due to our tilt, it happens during winter, giving us a more mild season. In the south, the opposite is true. They have hotter summers and colder winters than we do.

[–] CheeseNoodle 0 points 6 months ago

The Southern hemisphere gets more extereme seasons. Earths orbit is eliptical and the point where its closest to the sun lines up with southern hemisphere summer making it hotter (and making northern hemisphere winter milder) The same goes for winter with the earth being furthest from the sun roughly during winter in the southern hemisphere. As the earths axis proceeds this effect swaps hemispheres every now and then. (5000 years iirc?)

[–] grue 9 points 6 months ago

They are: haven't you noticed how much of a hard-on they've got for shooting and/or imprisoning border-crossers?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

As a Canadian I am scared shitless for a future when a deranged America threatens us for our fresh water.

The world is fucked. This is just the beginning. Europe is also prepping for an increase in migrants from northern Africa.

People are going to die in the millions and unfortunately a lot of them will be poor and brown which means collectively we won't give a shit.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If Mexico implodes this summer, this could help the presidential candidate who works towards more CO2 emissions. Ironic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I see nothing wrong with this speculation, from a US point of view: A wave of Mexican climate refugees from Mexico City could fuel the Republican propaganda machine tar Biden as being soft on the border, and help Trump. Even though sadly Republicans in the Senate are blocking a bipartisan Senate border security bill.

Although Mexico is having a presidential election too, which makes the statement somewhat ambiguous, although Mexico's election day is really soon on June 2nd, which is well before summer.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The year is 1325. Some Aztecs see a snake getting eaten by an eagle out on an island of a vast lake. They take this as a sign from the gods that they should build their city here.

2025: this once vast lake is now a metropolis with routine water shortages

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago

The aztecs knew how to manage it properly. It was the dumbass Spaniards that fucked everything up and drained all the water away.

[–] FlyingSquid 46 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Ah, I remember back when idiots thought climate change meant the world would be under water. Turns out it actually means a lot less water will be available.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago

Less water where you need it and more where you don't want it.

[–] kamenlady 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It will be either too much water or no water.

Edit: i just went to check how my country is doing water wise:

Germany is one of the regions with the highest water loss worldwide. Since 2000, the country has lost 2.5 cubic kilometres of water per year. In the years 2019 to 2021, record low groundwater levels below the long-term lowest groundwater levels were recorded at the measuring points in many places.

Seems we already know

Source

[–] sturlabragason 13 points 6 months ago

Here’s data for other contries for those interested; https://www.wri.org/data/aqueduct-40-country-rankings

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago

Oh, places will be underwater.

It will be salt water.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They forgot the difference between drinking and non-drinking water.

[–] FlyingSquid 15 points 6 months ago

It's all drinking water. You just don't get to drink one type for very long if you keep it up.

[–] JJROKCZ 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Some areas will be under more saltwater than now, like Florida and the Netherlands. Some areas will be inhospitable due to consistent heat and lack of FRESHwater like Mexico, Northern Africa, India, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

There is also a mix: salty water that won't submerge land permanently, but that will reach more and more inland across rivers during high tides. River Mekong comes to mind, along which rice is cultivated and that already now suffers from this phenomenon. Salty water on land means you will not grow anything there anymore. The Mekong delta produces rice that is used to feed an incredibly high number of people in Asia.

[–] Linnce 2 points 6 months ago

In Brazil there was a mega flooding in the south recently, I knew some people there and they said it felt very apocalyptic. This is most definitely not normal climate.

Also they found some arid (like desert arid) zones recently in Brazil for the first time. It used to be semi-arid.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'd have been scrambling to build desalination plants and asking for help from the US.

Thirsty Thursday will take on a whole new meaning on June 27th.

[–] FlyingSquid 24 points 6 months ago

Desalination on a small scale is fine.

Desalination on a large scale would be its own form of environmental catastrophe.

https://archive.ph/V64Cq

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

TBH transporting the water uphill from the sea would take an ungodly amount of power.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe instead of powering AI with nuclear power, we power desalination plants and pumping infrastructure.

All AI will give is recipes made with glue and poop knives.

Water stops thirsty hordes from breaking down your gates.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Oh for sure, I've been advocating AI have to cover their own power as if it weren't subsidized by the government. We could just turn it off and that would be cool with me. I want it to be well known that this was my stance long before the water issues.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't know what covering their own power is supposed to mean.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

They "foot the bill" capische? The cost goes to them. They pay money equivalent to the true cost of the goods they consume, above the rate at which a regular citizen pays for a good produced under a system of government subsidy and/or control.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 6 points 6 months ago

Nuclear power has been declared double plus ungood by Greenpeace so if you try it they will sue you until you give up.

[–] BassTurd 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

However, of all of the places, sunny Mexico wouldn't be the worst option.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

wut?

It's actually pretty high on the list of worst opions, Mexico City has an elevation over 2,000 meters, surrounded by mountains over 3,000 meters tall above sea level. Access to the sun doesn't make this any more or less of a monumental task, it's assumed if they had that kind of energy infrastructure then they would already be using it.

[–] BassTurd 4 points 6 months ago

I thought solar would be abundant. That's it.

[–] Boiglenoight 7 points 6 months ago

So this is the Warning from Mexico I’ve been hearing about.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Experts say that Mexico City could run out of drinking water by the end of June, an event locals call "Day Zero."

Mexico City has long struggled to bring water to its millions of residents, but three consecutive years of low rainfall and high temperatures have created a serious emergency.

Conditions are so bad that the North American Drought Monitor classified the federal district containing Mexico City as "severe" on April 30.

The system normally moves about 15 cubic meters of water a second and provides service to about 22 million people.

About 40% of Mexico City's water is lost due to leaky pipes and other issues, the Post reported.

But rainfall might cause a "false sense of security," Christina Boyes, a professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City, told the Post.


The original article contains 438 words, the summary contains 137 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Those poor axolotls.