That Sucking Sound

In the future, our most urgent searches might be for natural resources. We talk a lot about hitting peak oil. At the rate we’re sucking H2O out of the ground, we may have hit peak water. NYT (Gift Article): America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow. “Groundwater loss is hurting breadbasket states like Kansas, where the major aquifer beneath 2.6 million acres of land can no longer support industrial-scale agriculture. Corn yields have plummeted. If that decline were to spread, it could threaten America’s status as a food superpower. Fifteen hundred miles to the east, in New York State, overpumping is threatening drinking-water wells on Long Island, birthplace of the modern American suburb and home to working class towns as well as the Hamptons and their beachfront mansions. Around Phoenix, one of America’s fastest growing cities, the crisis is severe enough that the state has said there’s not enough groundwater in parts of the county to build new houses that rely on aquifers.” I drink your milkshake (because I ran out of other things to drink…)