Shortage of water does not mean you have nothing to drink - drinking water is a tiny fraction of water use, only the poorest run out of drinking water. It's a solved problem in rich countries.
What you don't get is that water shortage = famine.
The problem is agriculture. Desalination is far too expensive to use for irrigation, irrigation requires insane quantities of water.
Agriculture is so cost sensitive, and the amounts of water they need are so vast, that most crops are not irrigated even when water is free - the cost of fuel that you'd have to use to pump water from a nearby river to a field is too high.
You know what would make a difference? Water infrastructure, like giant pipelines from north of Canada to dry areas of US, like we have for oil. Giant reservoirs to store flood water.
Shortage of water does not mean you have nothing to drink - drinking water is a tiny fraction of water use, only the poorest run out of drinking water. It's a solved problem in rich countries.
What you don't get is that water shortage = famine.
The problem is agriculture. Desalination is far too expensive to use for irrigation, irrigation requires insane quantities of water.
Agriculture is so cost sensitive, and the amounts of water they need are so vast, that most crops are not irrigated even when water is free - the cost of fuel that you'd have to use to pump water from a nearby river to a field is too high.
You know what would make a difference? Water infrastructure, like giant pipelines from north of Canada to dry areas of US, like we have for oil. Giant reservoirs to store flood water.
You know who builds them? Governments.