Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot Com? Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things we like to think about. Online fraud shouldn't be one of them, because with every purchase, PISA prevents to texts and resolves online fraud safe Secure Visa. I'm welcome to the podcast. It's Josh and Chuck here, Josh Clark and Charles Bryant. Just a couple of staff writers at how Stuff Works dot Com. That's all we are, that is it, Chuck Um, Chuck. I imagine you're familiar with Dark four, right, Yeah, I am. I keep up with them with the niche you have. You have you heard about the basically the peace agreement fallen apart lately? Yeah? I think you should tell people though, Okay, Well, um, basically uh. In two thousand and six, the the Sudanese government UM had a piece of cord established with this lone rebel faction. And there's a multitude of rebel factions fighting each other and the Sudanese government right now in in Sudan, UM and uh. Basically, one rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, step forward and said, you know what, we'll come up the ceasefire. Let's come up with an accord um or a power sharing agreement, that kind of thing. And everything was going pretty well until apparently the Sudanese army bombed some villages that are under SLM control. This happened like yesterday basically. Um So, now all of a sudden, the SLM leaders accusing the President of Sudan of even further war crimes. The president al Bashir I think is his last name. He is basically about to be indicted by the Hague and um he's in big, big trouble, crimes against humanity, war crimes, the whole shebang. Um So, it sounds like things are falling apart, as if they couldn't get any worse. It's pretty heavy stuffed. But did you know that, um, that one of the reasons why the conflict in Sudan's taking like two hundred thousand lives so far started in two thousand three. Um, it was in large part started over access to um drinking water, right, and that's not unusual, you know, safe drinking or clean drinking water in third world countries and around the world is getting more obsolete, and it's kind of a problem. It definitely is. Uh, As I understand at one point two billion people don't have access to um clean drinking water. That's like of the world population, I know. And sadly, I think six thousand children every year die because they don't have access to safe drinking water. And that's that's a very startling statistic. Yeah, then there's plenty of them. I mean, we could sit here and rattle them off. Basically, all of what they add up to is that we're running out of water and we're beginning to see the effects of that. UM. Africa seems to be kind of the uh, at the cutting edge of all things horrible for some reason. UM. And right now it looks like what we're seeing in Africa as far as water goes, is what the developing world's gonna see in twenty or fifty or a hundred years UM. Largely because we don't value water. It's cheap, right, it's cheap, and people use it like it's uh, like it's free. Yeah, I mean I think it takes like twelve gallons is to stay in a human being every day twild gallons of water and then includes everything bathing and drinking water and cooking, cooking, the whole, the whole shebang. Right. Um, so you've got twelve gallons that you need to stay alive, right, Um, Americans use I think a hundred and fifty eight gallons a day on average. Every single one of us on average uses that much. And true American spirit, it's uh, we don't treat it with much respect right now? So I mean, what, what what will happen if if we start to run out of water? There? Chucker? What happens when we in the developing world, I should say run out of water? Well, there could potentially be you know, worst fault over water. I know that. Uh. The World Bank vice president at one point said that the next wars, uh in the next will be fought over water. Yeah, he said that in and we only had to wait like eight years, three years into the twenty one century when Dark four breaks out. It was the first war fought over water in like years. The last one was among Mesopotamians, I think so, and what happened to them exactly? It's a cautionary tale if I've ever heard one, Right, I think part of the problem is that water is uh, you know, a lot of times the countries and even states share borders with bodies of water, so it's not the kind of thing you can really claim ownership of. So you know, here in Georgia, we had a situation recently where we had uh, well we're still in a drought, but we have a situation with Alabama and Florida and I think Tennessee even where we're kind of all battling for the same water. Well, we drew Tennessee into it by suing to have the Georgia border go into the middle of the Tennessee River all of a sudden, rather than at the banks, based on based on an old survey that they said was incorrect from the hundred and it was you know, no one really cared much until now, and now we kind of need that water. But uh, it's it's not a problem when there's neighboring states and everyone's good friends, were trying to work it out diplomatically. There's no war crimes going on yet, no, but it can be a problem and and developing nations where you know, they're not exactly the best of friends exactly, and it's a little more dire of a circumstance, and so you can't have wars break out over water. Well, even even beyond wars. I mean there's a there's a pretty um I imagine a predictable model of what will begin to happen when you start to run out of water. The first thing um that would go would be crops, right, because I mean, we we need food and much less supply than we need water. But you know, water is the basic essential ingredient of everything we need. We can go like two days without water, but like eight weeks without food, right, Yeah, about sixty days. You can live without food as long as you have water, But three to five days without water, and it's dehydration and death and um ironically though, we need water to raise that food. So even if we have drinking water, we're still gonna need food eventually. So you run out of water, you run out of food. If you run out of food, right, all of a sudden, the farmers who were you know, once raising these crops and livestock, uh, still need money to survive. They still need money to get by and to be able to purchase whatever food is available, right, so they start moving to the cities, and then the city experiences this big population boom that strange the infrastructure system for which eventually is broken and becomes polluted, which takes out even more of the water supply. So it really is a trickle down effect, and it's excuse upon there, but it affects everything all the way on down and and it's wide reaching. Yeah. So basically this is a kind of the nightmare scenario that we're facing. Um. And one of the things that I questioned when I was looking into this for this article, exactly what happens if we run out of water? UM? Was Okay, well, we've got climate change going on right now. Clearly there's some climate skeptics also an article on how stuff works dot com. But um, for the most part, most people can see quite clearly that you know, some eighteen thousand year old glaciers around the world that have sustained humans for as long as humans have lived near them are suddenly losing six of their mass and like the last twenty years, right, So why don't we just drink all that? It sounds like a good idea to me. It is. The problem is is we rely on these glaciers, which support billions of people in like Asia, UM, South America, Central America UM. They rely on them for their drinking supplied to kind of melt in a predictable rate each year and then be replenished by snow. Well, if it's too warm to support like a snow peak or a glacier any longer it's not being replenished, it becomes part of the rain cycle and eventually becomes salinated water. And we have water water everywhere, right, so most of the Earth's water is either shan or locked in ice right now for the time being. It will eventually be mostly ocean, right right, which we can't drink we can't or can we Well, I know that if you drink plain salt water it will dehydrate you even more. But I think you might be talking about removing the salt from the water. Yeah, desalination, right, and that's actually in in progress right now. There's some desalination plants around the world that are that are providing fresh water from saltwater. But it's like super super expensive technology right now. Yeah, that's one of the problems. I know. Another one of the cool ideas that they're working on. Bioengineers are trying to produce crops that need less water or that can live through artificial irrigation, which I know a lot of people against us think it's kind of creepy to eat this bioengineered food, But um, it might be a good solution if it will save us water. I think everybody will just kind of you know, tongue exactly right. And you know, um, agriculture as it stands is uh, basically one of the biggest users, actually the biggest user of water. I think it uses seventy of the global water consumption goes to agriculture. The problem is is our irrigation technology is just so terrible. We lose like of that water. It's not it's not a very efficient system. Problem. That would definitely help as well in addition to creating those hybridized crops that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, drip irrigation is I think, uh effective or efficient the wave of the future in my opinion, I think you're right. So check. Do you know anything about carrying capacities? I know a little bit, but I think you might be the man in this round. I did study anthropology at the dear Old University of Georgia, and that's why I first learned about. Carrying capacity is basically the total number of people that any any kind of um anything can sustain, especially with food, water, that kind of thing. Before we overtext the planet to the limit, So we used to run around as hunter gatherers. Right, some of us still it, right, that's true, but for the at one time, all of us did, and we're that can sustain like twenty million people. Then all of a sudden we come up with agriculture ten twelve thousand years ago, and all of a sudden, we can sustain twelve billion people with that, right, Right, that switch from hunter hunting, hunting and gathering to agriculture give some people hope that technology is going to be able to stay ahead of this curve and that we will never actually reach the caring capacity, will have moved on to something else, and you know, the day will be saved and we will create statues for scientists. Right, That's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, me too, Chuck, because the alternative is kind of kind of scary, yeah and thirsty. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna drink my out of date fresca and really enjoy it for once. Um, thanks, Chuck. If you want to learn more about water and exactly what will happen uh if we run out of it? Type in exactly what happens if we run out of water on how stuff works dot com and stick around for Chuck's recipe for a water free breakfast smovie right after this. It's good stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things to think about, like say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera. But thankfully we don't need to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make, Visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe secure Visa? So Chuck, give up your secret. Tell us this a great recipe. It's really good, Josh, and good for you. What I do is I prep ahead of time and make them kind of throughout the week. So I'll get a bunch of strawberries and some of my raspberries and blueberries, and I'll chop them. We'll chop up the strawberries and I'll freeze it. And that's one of the keys that everything's gonna be frozen. I hadn't heard that one before. Oh yeah, it's good. That's why my smoothies are terrible. I guess right. Well, it keeps you from having to add ice with all the just frozen. So you put all that in a blender or a food processor with a banana, and then you add some orange juice, and then you add the secret ingredient is vanilla protein powder, which you get at your health health food store. I can eat that stuff dry right out of the canister, and I know it's good. So you blend that all up. It gets nice and thick, and you've got a delicious breakfast smoothie on your hand. That's fantastic show. Now you can find all sorts of great recipes, not necessarily Chuck's water free breakfast smoothie recipe, but it's some other really great ones on the food channel on how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com, let us know what you did. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camray. It's ready, Are you

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot Com? Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things we like to think about. Online fraud shouldn't be one of them, because with every purchase, PISA prevents to texts and resolves online fraud safe Secure Visa. I'm welcome to the podcast. It's Josh and Chuck here, Josh Clark and Charles Bryant. Just a couple of staff writers at how Stuff Works dot Com. That's all we are, that is it, Chuck Um, Chuck. I imagine you're familiar with Dark four, right, Yeah, I am. I keep up with them with the niche you have. You have you heard about the basically the peace agreement fallen apart lately? Yeah? I think you should tell people though, Okay, Well, um, basically uh. In two thousand and six, the the Sudanese government UM had a piece of cord established with this lone rebel faction. And there's a multitude of rebel factions fighting each other and the Sudanese government right now in in Sudan, UM and uh. Basically, one rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, step forward and said, you know what, we'll come up the ceasefire. Let's come up with an accord um or a power sharing agreement, that kind of thing. And everything was going pretty well until apparently the Sudanese army bombed some villages that are under SLM control. This happened like yesterday basically. Um So, now all of a sudden, the SLM leaders accusing the President of Sudan of even further war crimes. The president al Bashir I think is his last name. He is basically about to be indicted by the Hague and um he's in big, big trouble, crimes against humanity, war crimes, the whole shebang. Um So, it sounds like things are falling apart, as if they couldn't get any worse. It's pretty heavy stuffed. But did you know that, um, that one of the reasons why the conflict in Sudan's taking like two hundred thousand lives so far started in two thousand three. Um, it was in large part started over access to um drinking water, right, and that's not unusual, you know, safe drinking or clean drinking water in third world countries and around the world is getting more obsolete, and it's kind of a problem. It definitely is. Uh, As I understand at one point two billion people don't have access to um clean drinking water. That's like of the world population, I know. And sadly, I think six thousand children every year die because they don't have access to safe drinking water. And that's that's a very startling statistic. Yeah, then there's plenty of them. I mean, we could sit here and rattle them off. Basically, all of what they add up to is that we're running out of water and we're beginning to see the effects of that. UM. Africa seems to be kind of the uh, at the cutting edge of all things horrible for some reason. UM. And right now it looks like what we're seeing in Africa as far as water goes, is what the developing world's gonna see in twenty or fifty or a hundred years UM. Largely because we don't value water. It's cheap, right, it's cheap, and people use it like it's uh, like it's free. Yeah, I mean I think it takes like twelve gallons is to stay in a human being every day twild gallons of water and then includes everything bathing and drinking water and cooking, cooking, the whole, the whole shebang. Right. Um, so you've got twelve gallons that you need to stay alive, right, Um, Americans use I think a hundred and fifty eight gallons a day on average. Every single one of us on average uses that much. And true American spirit, it's uh, we don't treat it with much respect right now? So I mean, what, what what will happen if if we start to run out of water? There? Chucker? What happens when we in the developing world, I should say run out of water? Well, there could potentially be you know, worst fault over water. I know that. Uh. The World Bank vice president at one point said that the next wars, uh in the next will be fought over water. Yeah, he said that in and we only had to wait like eight years, three years into the twenty one century when Dark four breaks out. It was the first war fought over water in like years. The last one was among Mesopotamians, I think so, and what happened to them exactly? It's a cautionary tale if I've ever heard one, Right, I think part of the problem is that water is uh, you know, a lot of times the countries and even states share borders with bodies of water, so it's not the kind of thing you can really claim ownership of. So you know, here in Georgia, we had a situation recently where we had uh, well we're still in a drought, but we have a situation with Alabama and Florida and I think Tennessee even where we're kind of all battling for the same water. Well, we drew Tennessee into it by suing to have the Georgia border go into the middle of the Tennessee River all of a sudden, rather than at the banks, based on based on an old survey that they said was incorrect from the hundred and it was you know, no one really cared much until now, and now we kind of need that water. But uh, it's it's not a problem when there's neighboring states and everyone's good friends, were trying to work it out diplomatically. There's no war crimes going on yet, no, but it can be a problem and and developing nations where you know, they're not exactly the best of friends exactly, and it's a little more dire of a circumstance, and so you can't have wars break out over water. Well, even even beyond wars. I mean there's a there's a pretty um I imagine a predictable model of what will begin to happen when you start to run out of water. The first thing um that would go would be crops, right, because I mean, we we need food and much less supply than we need water. But you know, water is the basic essential ingredient of everything we need. We can go like two days without water, but like eight weeks without food, right, Yeah, about sixty days. You can live without food as long as you have water, But three to five days without water, and it's dehydration and death and um ironically though, we need water to raise that food. So even if we have drinking water, we're still gonna need food eventually. So you run out of water, you run out of food. If you run out of food, right, all of a sudden, the farmers who were you know, once raising these crops and livestock, uh, still need money to survive. They still need money to get by and to be able to purchase whatever food is available, right, so they start moving to the cities, and then the city experiences this big population boom that strange the infrastructure system for which eventually is broken and becomes polluted, which takes out even more of the water supply. So it really is a trickle down effect, and it's excuse upon there, but it affects everything all the way on down and and it's wide reaching. Yeah. So basically this is a kind of the nightmare scenario that we're facing. Um. And one of the things that I questioned when I was looking into this for this article, exactly what happens if we run out of water? UM? Was Okay, well, we've got climate change going on right now. Clearly there's some climate skeptics also an article on how stuff works dot com. But um, for the most part, most people can see quite clearly that you know, some eighteen thousand year old glaciers around the world that have sustained humans for as long as humans have lived near them are suddenly losing six of their mass and like the last twenty years, right, So why don't we just drink all that? It sounds like a good idea to me. It is. The problem is is we rely on these glaciers, which support billions of people in like Asia, UM, South America, Central America UM. They rely on them for their drinking supplied to kind of melt in a predictable rate each year and then be replenished by snow. Well, if it's too warm to support like a snow peak or a glacier any longer it's not being replenished, it becomes part of the rain cycle and eventually becomes salinated water. And we have water water everywhere, right, so most of the Earth's water is either shan or locked in ice right now for the time being. It will eventually be mostly ocean, right right, which we can't drink we can't or can we Well, I know that if you drink plain salt water it will dehydrate you even more. But I think you might be talking about removing the salt from the water. Yeah, desalination, right, and that's actually in in progress right now. There's some desalination plants around the world that are that are providing fresh water from saltwater. But it's like super super expensive technology right now. Yeah, that's one of the problems. I know. Another one of the cool ideas that they're working on. Bioengineers are trying to produce crops that need less water or that can live through artificial irrigation, which I know a lot of people against us think it's kind of creepy to eat this bioengineered food, But um, it might be a good solution if it will save us water. I think everybody will just kind of you know, tongue exactly right. And you know, um, agriculture as it stands is uh, basically one of the biggest users, actually the biggest user of water. I think it uses seventy of the global water consumption goes to agriculture. The problem is is our irrigation technology is just so terrible. We lose like of that water. It's not it's not a very efficient system. Problem. That would definitely help as well in addition to creating those hybridized crops that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, drip irrigation is I think, uh effective or efficient the wave of the future in my opinion, I think you're right. So check. Do you know anything about carrying capacities? I know a little bit, but I think you might be the man in this round. I did study anthropology at the dear Old University of Georgia, and that's why I first learned about. Carrying capacity is basically the total number of people that any any kind of um anything can sustain, especially with food, water, that kind of thing. Before we overtext the planet to the limit, So we used to run around as hunter gatherers. Right, some of us still it, right, that's true, but for the at one time, all of us did, and we're that can sustain like twenty million people. Then all of a sudden we come up with agriculture ten twelve thousand years ago, and all of a sudden, we can sustain twelve billion people with that, right, Right, that switch from hunter hunting, hunting and gathering to agriculture give some people hope that technology is going to be able to stay ahead of this curve and that we will never actually reach the caring capacity, will have moved on to something else, and you know, the day will be saved and we will create statues for scientists. Right, That's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, me too, Chuck, because the alternative is kind of kind of scary, yeah and thirsty. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna drink my out of date fresca and really enjoy it for once. Um, thanks, Chuck. If you want to learn more about water and exactly what will happen uh if we run out of it? Type in exactly what happens if we run out of water on how stuff works dot com and stick around for Chuck's recipe for a water free breakfast smovie right after this. It's good stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things to think about, like say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera. But thankfully we don't need to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make, Visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe secure Visa? So Chuck, give up your secret. Tell us this a great recipe. It's really good, Josh, and good for you. What I do is I prep ahead of time and make them kind of throughout the week. So I'll get a bunch of strawberries and some of my raspberries and blueberries, and I'll chop them. We'll chop up the strawberries and I'll freeze it. And that's one of the keys that everything's gonna be frozen. I hadn't heard that one before. Oh yeah, it's good. That's why my smoothies are terrible. I guess right. Well, it keeps you from having to add ice with all the just frozen. So you put all that in a blender or a food processor with a banana, and then you add some orange juice, and then you add the secret ingredient is vanilla protein powder, which you get at your health health food store. I can eat that stuff dry right out of the canister, and I know it's good. So you blend that all up. It gets nice and thick, and you've got a delicious breakfast smoothie on your hand. That's fantastic show. Now you can find all sorts of great recipes, not necessarily Chuck's water free breakfast smoothie recipe, but it's some other really great ones on the food channel on how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com, let us know what you did. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camray. It's ready, Are you