Instead of Oil Pipelines We Need Water Pipelines
by John Lawrence
The east and midwest have too much water. The west has too little. As part of an infrastructure plan, we need to build one or more pipelines to transport water west. This might require more reservoirs in the east and midwest to collect the water. If we can transport oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, we can transport water from east to west. It's a worthy infrastructure project. Another one: underground utilities so that storms don't knock out power and communications infrastructure. Besides it's more esthetically appealing when all the telephone and power poles are out of sight. There is so much work to be done with infrastructure not to mention all the green infrastructure that needs to be planned and built.
What's more building green infrastructure needs to be a global effort. If one country succeeds and others fail, planet earth will average out the totality. We share a cpmmon atmosphere with every country on earth. Just as the virus knows no limits and no bounds, the attempt to rein in global warming can know no limits and no bounds. Solving things in one country is not enough. There have to be global solutions and that means that rich developed countries have to help poor and undeveloped countries. Patriotism can't any longer be defined as allegiance to one country. Our allegiance has to be to planet earth if we want earth to be a habitable planet for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The planet Venus once had flowing water, but now is waterless as all the water has turned to vapor, a greenhouse gas, which compounds its runaway greenhouse effect. It's atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Earth could soon follow Venus and become an uninhabitable waterless planet. The sun is getting warmer which contributes to atmospheric temperature rises on earth as it did on Venus. As surface temperatures go up, more water evaporates changing from liquid to gaseous form. The more water evaporates the more greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere and the more surface temperatures go up in a never ending positive feedback loop. This is what happened to Venus, and it will eventually happen to earth. Human beings are just hastening the day when earth emulates Venus and becomes engulfed in greenhouse gasses. When water disappears so does life. Some day, billions of years off, our sun will become a red giant. This means that planets near the sun will become uninhabitable. However, planets and moons in the outer atmosphere could become habitable as their frigid surface temperatures become more moderate. Titan is a planet size moon of Saturn which has flowing methane and methane lakes since surface temperatures are so cold right now that methane can exist in liquid form. As temperatures on Titan become warmer, some day water may be able to go from solid form to liquid form and Titan may be able to support life. At that point the methane will change from liquid to gaseous and water will change from solid to liquid. Flowing water is thought to be the hallmark of a habitable planet.
