As Barcelona Is Now Discovering, Money Alone Not Enough To Handle Record Drought - Independent

[hatrack]

Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere.

Its fountains and beach showers are dry, its ornamental lakes and private swimming pools drained and hosepipes banned. Children are now being taught how to save water as part of their school day. This iconic, avant-garde city is in the grip of the worst drought since records began and is bringing the climate crisis that has blighted cities in Australia and throughout the Third World to Europe. A resource that most Europeans have grown up taking for granted now dominates conversation. Nearly half of Catalans say water is the region's main problem, more worrying than terrorism, economic slowdown or even the populists' favourite – immigration.

The political battles now breaking out here could be a foretaste of the water wars that scientists and policymakers have warned us will be commonplace in the coming decades. The emergency water-saving measures Barcelona adopted after winter rains failed for a second year running have not been enough. The city has had to set up a "water bridge" and is shipping in water for the first time in the history of this great maritime city. A tanker from Marseilles with 36 million litres of drinking water unloaded its first cargo this week, one of a mini-fleet contracted to bring water from the Rhone every few days for at least the next three months. So humbled was Barcelona when prolonged drought forced it to ship in domestic water from Tarragona, 50 miles south along the Catalan coast, 12 days ago, that city hall almost delayed shipment and considered an upbeat publicity campaign to lift morale and international prestige.

The whole country is suffering from its worst drought in 40 years and the shipments from Tarragona prompted an outcry from regions who insist they need it more. For now the clashes are being soothed by intervention from Madrid, and plans to ship water from desalination plants in parched Almeria in Andalusia are shelved until October. But there is little indication of a strategy to deal not just with an immediate emergency but an ongoing crisis. Buying water on an epic scale from France has given the controversy an international aspect as French environmentalists question whether such a scarce natural resource should be sold as a commodity to another country. "It would be a mistake to consider this water bridge between Marseilles and Catalonia as simply an operation of solidarity," said a group of ecologists calling themselves Robin des Bois (Robin Hood). They said the commercial deal struck between private contractors failed to consider the environmental impact on France. The organisation blamed Barcelona's water shortage on "wasted resources and ... lack of foresight by Catalan and Spanish authorities".

EDIT

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/spains-drought-a-glimpse-of-our-future-833587.html

[dkf]

1. Wow that is scary.

[marmar]

2. Cautionary and frightening.....

Barcelona's an awesome city. Best of luck to them.

[NNadir]

3. Spain set an all time record for dumping dangerous fossil fuel waste in the atmosphere in 2005.

As of 2005 - and who can imagine it is not worse in 2008, unrestricted dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping in Spain is 156% of what it was in 1995.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls

Spain is an official "wind and solar will save us" country, with a "no new nukes" policy, although it did allow upgrade of the steam generators at two of its reactors.

In general "wind and solar will save us" countries are dependent in reality on dangerous natural gas and dangerous natural gas waste dumping for the their electricity.


http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh3co2.xls

Spain dumps 377% of the dangerous natural gas waste into the atmosphere as it did in 1995.

Every once in a while some delusional fundie anti-nuke posts a thread here saying that "Spain briefly obtains 40% of it's electricity from wind," or some other misleading crap in "percent talk."

It happens that 400 seconds of 40% doesn't count for much, since there are more than 31.5 million seconds in a year.

Now the Sahara is jumping the Strait of Gibraltar.

Maybe France can sell Spain some clean electricity to try to help out. I do understand why France would like to keep its water.

[pscot]

4. How sad

I expect it's being loved to death. An essentially arid region has been vastly over developed. It was a lovely place.