Is anyone around Atlanta asking these questions?
And then what exactly can we expect? If the southeastern drought is already off the charts in Georgia, then, whether it's 80 days or 800 days, isn't there a possibility that Atlanta may one day in the not-so-distant future be without water? And what then?
Okay, they're trucking water into waterless Orme, Tennessee, but the town's mayor, Tony Reames, put the matter well, worrying about Atlanta. "We can survive. We're 145 people but you've got 4.5 million there. What are they going to do?"
What indeed? Has water ever been trucked in to so many people before? And what about industry including, in the case of Atlanta, Coca Cola, which is, after all, a business based on water? What about restaurants that need to wash their plates or doctors in hospitals who need to wash their hands?
Let's face it, with water, you're down to the basics. And if, as some say, we've passed the point not of "peak oil," but of "peak water" (and cheap water) on significant parts of the planet… well, what then?
1 comment:
After reading your post I wrote a friend living near Atlanta, and inquired about his welfare. After describing the brown landscape and the economic effects that the drought is having he concluded with this paragraph:
"All of this is the byproduct of a low-tax, “live for the moment” government. We’ve known for 20 years that two man-made lakes weren’t enough for the growth that Atlanta has enjoyed, but looking forward isn’t valued in a political environment where government is viewed as the problem, not the solution. Thanks, Mr. Reagan."
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