Water just as important as energy

Holy scary water

I've known for some time that water was quickly becoming the new oil, the new gold, the new most important commodity. Still, I didn't realize just how crazy the situation was until I read SCIAM's Energy versus water: Solving both crises together.

For instance, San Diego needs water resources, but the amount of energy to power a desalinization plant isn't available and it would be terribly expensive. Or, how about the fact that Hoover Dam might soon not be deep enough to power massive amounts of Las Vegas. Or, how close drought was to shutting down numerous nuclear power plants in the SouthEast this summer.

Yet, have you heard either John McCain or Barack Obama talk much about water?

We might talk about the dangers of foreign oil dependency, but how often do we mention the water crisis? It isn't even on the radar of the average American. Or, maybe we talk about global warming and rising sea levels. Instead, maybe we should be discussing how increased temperatures might leave much of the South without drinking water and without power.

Yet, here we sit. Our energy and water resources and infrastructures dwindling and collapsing as America heads into a nasty recession, and all we're hoping for is cheaper gas.