Innovating for a water-starved planet

Inspiration, innovation, perspiration and technology can overcome climate challenges

Paul Driessen

More than 3,400 years ago, God told Joshua to lead the Hebrew people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land that is now Israel. If they worked hard and followed his commandments, it would become “a land flowing with milk and honey.”

At least the central, northern and Galilee (Kineret) regions would; they generally received enough rainfall to sustain ancient nomadic and agricultural communities. The south, the Negev Desert around and below Be’er Sheva and Abraham’s famous well, was too parched for much more than camel stops. In 1900 Be’er Sheva was home to just 300 hardy souls, and even today most of the Negev gets a fraction of Arizona’s annual rainfall.

Nevertheless, national founder and first prime minister David Ben Gurion envisioned milk, honey and much more in a prosperous Negev. Today, time-traveling Israelites would be astounded to see a lake and 660,000 people in the bustling modern city of Be’er Sheva – and crops, livestock and small towns transforming the vast desert.

I recently joined other volunteers in the area. We were overcome by emotion at memorials to victims of Hamas’s barbaric massacres last October 7. But we also visited hospitals and schools, and met with grateful, passionate, resolute, resilient people. We painted and spruced up several less devastated kibbutzim and marveled at how fruitful the desert has become.

Endless acres boast fields of wheat, flowers and vegetables; lemon, orange, date, olive, apple and avocado orchards; and huge “hothouses” that actually keep temperatures from getting too hot, while controlling sunshine and insects, enabling farmers to grow tomatoes, eggplants, berries, bananas and other bumper crops to feed Israel and send abroad. 

We got dirty, weeding and pruning tomatoes, planting herbs and picking lemons. Scratches on my forearms still remind me that lemon trees have dastardly thorns. Who knew?

Israelite and Israeli commitments to inspiration, innovation and especially perspiration continue to pay dividends. They’ve fostered new technologies and techniques that turn dry wastelands into bountiful farmlands, using desalination, water recycling, drip irrigation and constant refinements. 

Some Israelis worry that manmade climate change will make the country’s water and agricultural challenges even more daunting. Others point out that abundant rains in recent winters have helped raise Sea of Gallilee water levels to their maximum levels for the first time in decades, and that more atmospheric carbon dioxide spurs crop and natural plant growth. 

Hebrew University astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv says the sun (not CO2) is the control knob for planetary temperatures, anyway. When the sun is more active, he explains, it sends out stronger solar winds, reducing galactic cosmic rays streaming into Earth’s atmosphere. That causes clouds to be less white, less dense and less reflective of sunlight, resulting in a warmer Earth. When solar activity decreases, Earth cools. Graphs of solar activity and ocean temperatures over thousands of years confirm this.

The climate debate matters less and less, of course, when people do what our ancestors did: adapt to climate changes, natural or manmade, by employing our creative talents to devise new tactics and technologies for living and farming in cold, wet, dry and changing climates.

Rely less on nature’s unreliable beneficence and goodwill, become less at the mercy of the elements – and be more self-reliant, resourceful and innovative, in housing designs, heating and cooling systems, more sustainable manufacturing, and beyond. Israel has set a good example in water use and conservation.

Desalination plants use ultra-filtration and reverse-osmosis to remove salts and minerals from seawater and brackish groundwater deposits. The leftover brine goes to the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

Israel’s eight desal plants annually produce 835 million cubic meters of expensive yet affordable safe drinking water for Israelis, Bedouins, and West Bank and Gaza Palestinian. (That’s 835 billion liters; 221 billion gallons.) Over 90% of Israel’s drinking water is desalinated, freeing up Sea of Galilee water that Jordanians can then purchase from Israel.

A vast water recycling system further aids in conquering deserts and droughts. Israel reuses over 85% of its water (with a goal of 95%). Treatment plants purify “graywater” from homes, hospitals, schools and businesses, so that farms can irrigate crops and polluted water stays out of rivers, streams and groundwater. The Shafdan wastewater treatment facility alone provides nearly 140 million cubic meters of clean, recycled irrigation water to Negev Desert farms every year.

Over half of Israel’s farm irrigation water is recycled graywater. Much of it is combined with urban and highway stormwater runoff and stored in hundreds of underground reservoirs, which local and regional communities also utilize.

Recurring droughts, growing populations and expanding agricultural needs underscore the imperative to build more desalination plants, treatment facilities and reservoirs in Israel and neighboring countries.

Drip irrigation delivers water slowly and directly to plant roots via a revolutionary network of hoses, valves and drip nozzles. That’s a monumental improvement over systems that spray water onto plant leaves and stems, resulting in significant loss through evaporation, especially in arid regions. Simcha and Yeshayahu Blass began developing the water-saving technology 65 years ago and established the Netafim irrigation products and services company to market their technologies and educate people worldwide.

Today, drip irrigation waters over three-fourths of Israel’s crops. However, only 5% of farms globally use the technology, due to a reluctance to change longstanding practices and the costs of replacing existing systems with initially expensive drip technologies.

Cutting-edge research continues apace in these and other water-related arenas, to further improve technologies, reduce their costs, decrease recycled water sediments that can eventually clog irrigated soils, optimize equipment efficiencies and crops’ water uptake, and promote the use of water-saving technologies in the United States and around the world.

Israel’s Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in the eastern Negev’s Kibbutz Ketura conducts research and teaches Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, African and Asian students how to utilize water and agricultural technologies and best practices. Led by Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, it also teaches them to live and work together with other future scientists, farmers and leaders of different cultures, ethnicities and religions.

The institute understands that “in the hyper-arid, drought-stricken Middle East, one resource is more precious than water: Trust.” Since 1996, it has brought together more than 2,000 students to do research and engage in university-accredited programs. I’ve met some of them.

In a further testament to how far back these agricultural challenges go, Ketura is also home to a date tree called Methuselah because it was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found in King Herod the Great’s palace and fortress at Masada, near the Dead Sea.

Perhaps instead of spending countless trillion of dollars trying to replace fossil fuels with wind, solar and battery technologies, we should focus on adapting to whatever climates we live in or encounter -- especially since China is building hundreds of coal-fired power plants to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, EVs, grid-scale batteries and transformers to sell to Western nations for that “energy transition.”

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor to the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)  and author of books and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

 

Everything is About the "Basics"

By Rich Kozlovich

I've stated in the past when trying to understand geopolitics you need to understand three things.  Geographics, demographics and economics.   I need to add one more thing.  You need to pay attention to "the basics". 

When you think of the Middle East and the issues those nations what comes to mind as their most significant problem?  Terrorism, Islamic sectarian conflict, oil, Israel, America, or is it something more basic?   

Geopolitical Futures is a pay to read subscription site, and I think is well worth it. Great writers who stick to "the basics", because the "basics" are what churn events in the world's history, and Hilal Khashan, who I think is brilliant, and an absolute expert on the Middle East,is one of their writers, and he has the answer to that question.  It's Water!

While I'm linking his article, "Water Scarcity in the Arab World, It’s a problem with no solution in sight", you can't see the entire piece without subscribing, so I will cover some highlights.  

Western Asia and North Africa are among the most water scarce areas of the world, with a projected 2050 population of 670 million people.  Both Ethiopia with it's Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Israel's diversion of Jordan River tributaries and Turkey's "siphoning" water from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers represent problems for Middle East nations, and unless it really starts raining, a lot, there's no answer in sight.  

These nations make up about ten percent of the world's land mass, but one percent of the world's water surface runoff and about two percent of the total rainfall, and have no doubt, that impacts their economic potentials, and worse, growing sufficient food for their people.  They're already having to import food, and I want to emphasis the word, "having" to import food.  All of which is becoming more and more costly due to all the economic problems caused by this false pandemic folly. 

Egypt is expecting to see their population to grow to over 175 million by 2050 and gets almost all of it's water from the Nile.  That's a problem since the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be reducing Egypt's share by 20 billion....that's billion....cubic meters.  This has been a bone of contention for some time, throughout the region, so what's the solution? Will Egypt declare war? Egypt invaded Ethiopia twice in the last quarter of the 19th century and were mauled by the Ethiopians, so does it seem likely they'll do it again?  Those were different times, different capabilities, different social and governmental structures, and what happens when things become truly desperate? Desperation obviates caution.

Groundwater is being pumped extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but that's not an easily renewable source.  Oil rich nations can desalinate sea water for their needs, and have done so, but that's not a solution for non-oil producing nations, they can't afford it.  

The problem of incompetent water management doesn't help either, but In the Western Sahara they're having a three year drought, how can that be fixed?  Population control? Or, population control via immigration!  

I think this will become a major impetus for mass migration out of the Middle East and into Europe, and possibly Eastern Asian nations.  The difference is Eastern Asian nations are not going to be readily agreeable to that.  They have their own population issues, and unlike Western nations, aren't going to buy into the diversity is our strength clabber.  That leaves Europe, North America, and potentially South American nations, but South America nations are not going to play this suicidal immigration diversity is our strength horsepucky either.  

At some point Western nations will either end this immigration insanity, or cease to exist.  Then what happens to the people of the Middle East?  That's not our problem, nor is it our responsibility.  Over population is problem, and its their problem!  A problem they export to the nations they migrate to disrupting the stability of those nations. They created this problem with their foundational Islamic societal social paradigms of lots of wives and lots of children, so let them fix it, or not. 

Will they?  They can't, because they won't.  That leaves asking Allah, the "most gracious and most merciful" to make it rain.  A lot. 

The Marxist Revolution in California Threatens Its Very Existence

By Dr. Jay Lehr | Jun 27, 2022 @ America Out Loud

Andy Caldwell heads a non-profit Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business (COLAB) which acts as both a government watchdog and promoter of business, agriculture, and labor in Santa Barbara County. As a strong conservative in a very liberal county, he came close to winning the district’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020. He has a daily talk radio show on which this author has been proud to appear.

His monthly newsletter COLAB MAGAZINE has been the source of much of this article, where he outlines the growing problems of his once wealthy and beautiful state. They used to call it The Golden State, but no more. Its troubles mount daily with a loss of sanitation in cities and energy across its land. Yet its citizens continue to elect a monolithic liberal government led by Governor Gavin Newsom regardless of his complete ineptitude in managing a once great economy. However, that economy is still rated the 5th largest in the world. Last year Governor Newsom fought off a recall election because the state feared a conservative republican government more than the continued degradation of their once beautiful state.

Andy quoted theologian Paul Tilloch in one of his newsletters who asked,” Is its patriotism or confidence in one’s people, its institutions and its way of life, to be silent when the foundations are shaking? Is the expression of optimism more important than the expression of truth?”

The state is tumbling over three critical issues. First, the human-caused climate change fraud promotes the end of life as we know it if we continue to burn fossil fuels and emit life-giving carbon dioxide, the only reason mankind can inhabit Earth. The governor and the state legislature are impeding further development of oil and gas, closed all coal mines, and left but one nuclear power plant running for a few more years. Second, the Critical Race Theory that is turning citizen against citizen as either oppressed or oppressors, and third is the covid China virus that has disrupted all normal life and many freedoms.

The threat crisis presented by each of these to our social-economic and body politic is being exaggerated for nefarious reasons by the liberal establishment throughout this near monolithic political state.  

The remedies prescribed for these state issues are damaging and unnecessary. They do not need to abandon conventional forms of energy, but they are, and they are abandoning constitutional freedoms in order to promote critical race theory and control its citizenry against a poorly understood pandemic. As a result of all this, the once gigantic movement of new folks into California has slowed and then reversed as more and more people. Companies leave the state for sounder economic opportunities, human rights, and personal freedom.

In his Vol 9 Issue 8 newsletter, Caldwell says America is mortally threatened by these issues due to a death of critical thinking skills, abandoned historic values, our compromised institutions of church and state, and an atrophied spirit of faith and freedom.”

Janet Levy, writing in the American Thinker, has outlined how the Marxist revolution in America has manipulated the nation’s culture, especially in sinking California. It is pitifully simple and effective for a population with little critical thinking. 

1- Remove principle leadership
2- Encourage the questioning of values and convictions of America
3- Present a revision of past history
4- Cloud the distinction between right and wrong
5- Extoll consensus and collectivism while declaring individualism is dangerous
6- Focus on emotions over facts
7- Foster anxiety, confusion. and social turbulence
8- Conceal the ultimate agenda
9- Use trusted individuals to enhance credibility if they can be conned
10- Use informants to spy on those who do not comply
11- Reward compliance and punish dissent
12- Win public trust by manufacturing chaos

This has been going on in California for decades. In light of it all, it should be surprising that Gavin Newsom held on to the governorship in the recall election last September. A fortune came in from liberal interests all across the country to support his ability to hang on.

In one of Caldwell’s newsletters prior to the recall, he outlined the details of the once but no longer great state in hopes of bringing more voters to their senses. He asked if citizens remembered:

1- when the state had ample water supplies
2- when the state had the best schools
3- when the state had the most wealth
4- when the state had the most beautiful parks, beaches, and downtowns
5- when neighborhoods were widely safe to live in
6- when the state had the best paying jobs
7- when the state had affordable housing
8- when gasoline was affordable
9- when forest fires were under control
10- when all businesses were considered essential
11- when church attendance was promoted, and strip clubs were frowned upon

California, long a leading agriculture state for unknown reasons, now inhibits opportunities for agriculture to expand. Rules against any ag-lands being converted to other use have been implemented. One such absurdity is that the ability to process grapes into wine and sell it on the farm has been restricted.

California ranch lands can only handle so many cows per acre due to recurring droughts, causing a need for outside farm income. The fortunate ones have oil and gas mineral leases, while much of the state is doing everything to shut down these leases. At the same time, industrial-sized solar farms are being allowed on farmland.

Under the new Biden administration, the state has taken a huge inflation hit. According to Americans for Tax REFORM, a Washington DC think tank, in the past 12 months, gasoline has increased 45%, energy 24%, bacon 8%, seafood 6%, milk 7%, fresh fruit 8%, major appliances 14%, furniture, and bedding 9% and a collection of other commodities also 9%.

The one good thing about all the California degradation may be that in every way, it is a negative model for our other 49 states to avoid.

As America transforms back to its roots over these next few elections, we hope California follows suit and once again embraces its golden state status.

Dr. Jay Lehr

Dr. Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland Institute. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author, and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government and many foreign countries. After graduating from Princeton University at the age of 20 with a degree in Geological Engineering, he received the nation’s first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona. He later became executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers.

In Case San Francisco Doesn’t Disgust You Enough, Human Sewage Runoff Causes Mass Fish Kill in the Bay

By Mary Villareal September 10, 2022

 

It will cost the San Francisco government around $14 billion to upgrade their aging wastewater facilities that are dumping nutrients from treated human sewage into the Bay Area. Currently, wastewater is feeding a giant algae bloom, which has lingered for two months and has killed tens of thousands of fish.  The algae bloom started appearing in late July but have since grown due to the number of nutrients from the urine and feces of the eight million Bay Area residents that are released into the water daily. One plant alone dumps 85 million gallons a day containing around 5.5 tons of nitrogen.

Scientists say the bloom was triggered by climate change, but its size, amount of organisms and how long it has lasted so far are due to human waste. It has resulted in the death of up to 10,000 fish that were suffocated by the algae covering the bay.  No sewage leaks had been found from the 37 plants in the area................To Read More......

 My Take - This is the state that forced farmers out of business by diverting water they needed in order to save the delta smelt.  Imagine that! 

Stop Wasting Australia's Dam Water

By Viv Forbes (This appeared in Greenie Watch and was sent to John Ray via e-mail)

The Saltbush Club today accused state and federal governments of wasting water often desperately needed everywhere west of Australia’s Great Dividing Range. The “Saltbush Water Watch” has been established to monitor government action and inaction and report on priorities.

The Executive Director of the new and growing Saltbush Club, Mr Viv Forbes, said “From Adelaide to Longreach we have allowed green subversives to prevent new dam construction and to dictate the waste of water caught in existing dams.”

“Without water conservation the Murray River would turn back into a string of disconnected waterholes every big drought. More reliable fresh water has benefitted humans and nature all along the river.

“Luckily (and predictably), Tim Flannery’s climate alarm forecasts of endless drought has proved wrong, or this area of Australia would now be depopulated.

“The green activists behind the water waste are not pro-environment – they are anti-human. Humans are part of the environment.

“The Saltbush Club is in the process of setting up several “Watch Groups” to investigate, monitor and report on this political war on human activity. It has appointed Mr Ron Pike, “A Bushie from the Back of Barellan” to lead the Saltbush Water Watch.

“Ron has a lifetime of experience of farming, irrigation and politics in the Murray Darling Basin. He was the first farmer to use water from the Snowy Scheme to irrigate his farm in 1961.

Ron says:

“The food we eat, the water we drink and the power we use for most of our endeavours, are available only because previous generations invested their know-how and money for the future. “It is time this generation did the same.”

Permanent Water Rationing is Coming to California

January 17, 2018  by Edward Ring

Have you experienced water faucets that spray tiny jets of water onto your hands? You know, those eight tiny jets of water, each about 1.0 millimeter in diameter, that are emitted with so much pressure that the paltry quantity of water bounces off your skin before you can get it wet enough to apply soap, and makes rinsing the soap off nearly impossible? You can find these water faucets in airports and other public places, where they constitute a minor annoyance. But wait. Thanks to California’s state legislature, they’re on their way into your home.

You’ll just love your personal space filled up with these expensive gadgets. For example, these faucets will probably require voice-activation, turn off after ten seconds, and send a report to your utility in order to help you manage your usage patterns. Smart faucets. Smart washers. Smart dish washers. Smart shower heads and smart toilets – all coming your way, thanks to the California State Legislature and their partners, the scarcity profiteers of Silicon Valley..........But how much water would actually be saved, for $47 billion? According to the most authoritative study available on current indoor water consumption, the average Californians uses 62 gallons per day. (ref. California Water Plan Update 2013 Chapter 3, page 12, 1st paragraph “Indoor Residential.”) This means that if California’s 40 million residents got their indoor water use down to 50 gallons per day from 62 gallons per day, it would save 537 thousand acre feet per year (0.54 million acre feet). This is a minute fraction, less than 1%, of California’s total water diversions for environmental, agricultural, and urban uses.

AB 1668 is not about saving water. It’s about control......To Read More....

The Latest Health Crazy: Raw Water

By Josh Bloom — January 2, 2018 @ American Council on Science and Health

Let's start off the New Year with some pure madness. Raw milk, a silly fad that my colleague Dr. Julianna Lemieux has written about, (1) is plenty stupid enough. But a company called Live Water, based in (where else?) Los Angeles, has taken suckerdom to a new level. The company is selling "raw water," (2) and if there ever were a topic put up on an American Council batting tee, this is it.

What is it? Mukhande Singh, aka Christopher Sanborn, who founded the company is a strong believer in the power of raw water (we'll have a few things to say about that below) is either completely out of his gourd or the world's best snake water salesman. There is ample evidence to support both. For example...

Blasting water with ozone changes it's molecular structure. (a)
Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation uses synthetic ultraviolet light, different from our natural environment UV (b), to kill or inactivate micro-organisms by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA. A hard fact to swallow, but your drinking water might be considered a genetically modified organism (c).
Live Water founder Mukhande Singh aka Christopher Sanborn

(a) I must have missed chemistry class that day. Even so, I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
(b) This is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
(c) Until this.

Why stop here? It just gets worse.

“Chloramine, and on top of that they’re putting in fluoride. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.”

OK, you're a conspiracy theorist.



Photo: DogChannel

Fluoride is a mind-control drug which doesn't help your teeth? The American Dental Association feels differently. Based on more than a half a century's research, the ADA concludes that fluoride, at the optimal concentration, will reduce cavities in children by 25%. The level is 0.7 parts-per-million, which is equivalent to 0.7 mg/liter, roughly 0.2 mg per glass of water.

A lethal dose of sodium fluoride in humans is 5-10 grams - the equivalent of 25,000-50,000 glasses of water. But perhaps it takes a lower dose to control your mind without killing you. Perhaps to the point where you are delusional enough to buy this: “Tap water? You’re drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them."  So? Sparky doesn't seem to mind.

But does it work? Maybe so, according to this little video on the company's website. Let's summarize.
Regarding the chloramine "issue," self-proclaimed toxicologist Erin Brockovich weighs in:

The fact of the matter is chloramines are a terrible mistake. While utility companies often use chloramines as a matter of convenience, there are far safer alternatives. As a world-leading nation, we have to stop cutting corners where our health and safety are at stake...

Well, Erin, who does not have the wildest idea of what she's talking about,  needs to stay out of swimming pools because when people pee in them (which is true 100% of the time See: Does a Bear Pee in the Pool?) there is sure a whole lot more chloramine in there than in drinking water. Even the EPA isn't concerned: "Switching to monochloramine is one approach that utilities can use to meet new EPA drinking water regulations...[m]onochloramine produces lower concentrations of regulated disinfection byproducts because it is less reactive than chlorine with natural organic matter."

Finally, let's take a look at Live Water's claims and see how they hold up to science. Not so well.

Conclusion: If you're thirsty, water will make you less thirsty. Duh.

Aside from throwing away money, there's a pretty good chance that "raw water" will make you sick.
Which is most likely what will happen. Here is what the Washington Post's Laura Helmuth has to say:

Bottoms up!

• 1/4 Addendum - A note from an ACSH friend  (and a dentist) explains the seemingly small benefit of fluoride: "Today the difference between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas is only 25%  because most of our country is fluoridated, and fluoride is now ubiquitous in our country's environment, even in areas that are not fluoridated. Every time one has a processed food or drink fluoridated water was likely to have been used in its production." 

NOTES:

(1) See: Drinking Raw Milk? Let Us Hurl Some Information At You
(2) From Wikipedia: "Raw water is natural water found in the environment and has not been treated, nor have any minerals, ions, particles or living organisms been removed. Raw water includes rainwater, groundwater, water from infiltration wells, and water from bodies like lakes and rivers.

Why California environmentalists hate water

Environmentalists don’t really care about an endangered bait fish. California’s war over water is about population control

By Steven Greenhut

Until the 1970s, when Jerry Brown first became California’s governor, state policy makers were unflinching in their mission to build infrastructure that would meet the demands of a rapidly growing state. Building great public works projects was a source of pride. It was costly, but viewed as a small price to pay to live in this verdant paradise.
The California Water Plan, a 1957 state planning document, said, “Today, the future agricultural, urban and industrial growth of California hinges on a highly important decision, which is well within the power of the people to make. We can move forward with a thriving economy by pursuing a vigorous and progressive water development and planning construction program; or we can allow our economy to stagnate, perhaps even retrogress by adopting a complacent attitude….”......Current state policies include emptying reservoirs to protect a dozen or so fish, demolishing dams to restore an area’s ecology, and slowing a desalination plant over concerns about plankton. ....To Read More....

Outrage of the Day!

______

Man Sentenced to 30 Days for Catching Rain Water on Own Property Enters Jail
By Kendra Alleyne

Gary Harrington reports to Jackson County (Ore.) Jail to begin serving a 30-day term for collecting rainwater on his property.  Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore. “I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jai. Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail....."They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies, Harrington said in an interview two weeks ago with CNSNews.com.


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