The following submission statement was provided by /u/Goran01:
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Submission statement:
This is collapse related because it just shows a glimpse of what is to come in the near future for major cities.
In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1czbzkk/cities_stare_down_day_zero_as_reservoirs_go_dry/l5fbgwf/
Submission statement:
This is collapse related because it just shows a glimpse of what is to come in the near future for major cities.
In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
What you asking them for, just gtfo, shower with your sister and then gtfo from your home to some water paradise please. Just try harder man.
For real though this is a pretty nightmarish scenario and I do not even want to begin to imagine the implications this all has on health especially... yet sooner or later we will likely all be hit eventually.
Why tf isn’t Cape Town teaching workshops on this? They beat it? How???
Reddit is killing me. Now every time I open this app ‘collapse’ is at or near the top. This is not good for my mental health.
Move into the adaptation space. Those folks are being.much more realistic about how to deal with the future and provide a path forward. Myself, I'm sinking.money into a large, portable solar generator because I live in a hurricane zone. I have a gas generator, but those are very noisy and depend on gas. What I learned from hurricane Sandy is that gas will be the first thing to run out in an emergency. Im still considering solar and a whole house batteries. I also added a nice sized camping water filter to my emergency bag and have a small amount of stored food. Watching and waiting for the future.
Than stop paying attention. I can promise you you can’t do a single thing about the water supply in Mexico City or Bogotá. Go outside and go for a walk. A lot of the people on here are addicted to doom scrolling and it’s clearly fucking with their heads. If this is not good for your mental health watch some tv or go for a walk
Being honest about the true locus of control is a key part of dealing with collapse well. Unless you're a billionaire, minister in Mexico, or ranking member of a large NGO, you're not going to provide significant relief to the water crisis in these areas, you're also not expected to.
I think early on, people view collapse as a problem to be solved. As such, they are *solution* driven. Most people in western nations are conditioned to believe that problems are solved by devoting resources, gaining 'awareness', etc...etc. This is an insane way to view collapse.
Collapse, by definition, is *systematic failure*. Only we're talking about a scope where this likely means our cultural outlook is just, well, not relevant. Collapse is. Learning to deal with it as a set of circumstances and consequences is difficult enough without pretending every facet is a problem that can be solved if only we learn some magic truths.
Yeah I was spending up to an hour a day just in this sub, doom scrolling and terrifying myself. I got majorly depressed, my anxiety had never been so bad (couldn't even leave the house some days, or shower/turn on the sink...like it was BAD bad).
I've started limiting myself to one collapse post per day, and I'm spending wayyy more time in the real world with real people. It's totally fixed me! Collapse is a scary thing, but there's nothing any one of us can do about it. I've got a collection of canned foods and a bit of water. Other than that, some stuff is better left unknown.
It doesn’t help people when there are lots of people in this sub who are constantly saying we’re gonna be in a mad max like movie in the next year or two. The situation is dire, but we aren’t anywhere near that point yet.
I’ve been seeing posts for the last couple years with people saying this and I’m sure if I went back and searched this sub would be full of people saying this since the creation of this sub.
No it’s not. I’ve been part of this sub almost since it started and I’ve been collapse aware for over 10 years. And I can tell you that you HAVE to learn how to compartmentalize and also limit your time spent focusing, talking, reading and/or learning more about collapse.
My personal way of limiting myself is to avoid going on this sub and intentionally searching for new climate news, as that’s most likely to be by far the worst, and most likely final, nail in the coffin. If you choose to acknowledge how bad things are on a daily basis it’s a recipe for anger, sadness and hopelessness.
Not everyone can compartmentalize so easily. The worst part about articles like this one.. is something could be done to at least lesson the suffering. I was working at a recycling plant.. they actually have a department called water destruction. Makes you sick. Hundreds of gallons a day.. of fresh spring water.. just dumped out so some big shot capitalist makes a few extra bucks in tax write off. I stole cases daily. But that was drop in the bucket.. maybe a bit of my own survival instincts to stock pile as much as possible for my family for when shit really gets bad.. sorry for the rambling rant.
If you're still there.. wash all cuts no matter how small they seem.. I developed sepsis and blood poison that came very close to killing me.. open heart surgery and a pacemaker at 47yo was not something I expected.. and to try and receive a couple penny's to help out w the bills is proving to be quite the battle.. they know very well about the nasty shit that comes through there. But I guess it pays better to pretend not to.. be safe
>Reddit is killing me. Now every time I open this app ‘collapse’ is at or near the top. This is not good for my mental health.
1. You could stop opening "collapse.
or
2. You could change sides. I switched from championing humanity to championing biodiversity. Since our high-tech species is the biggest threat to biodiversity, now, I actually enjoy this sub.
Perspective is everything!
From my understanding, losses of 15-25% are pretty normal for small water systems in the US, due to the amount of pressure in water mains, and the difficulty of finding and plugging leaks.
I know it’s pretty bad in Detroit where I am, the water main on my street needs to be replaced, it bursts in a different spot and gets repaired every year, at least once
I remember hearing about them using all their aquifers up, maybe 20 years ago and that they lost a lot of it too. I thought by now they would have fixed it but here we are.
They also said the city is sinking because of the removal of underground water. Will be interesting to see if that causes issues too.
It’s been sinking ever since the Spanish built Mexico City on top of an existing city, on top of an existing lake, but the removal of underground water has definitely drastically increased it. The Mexica built floating islands aka chinampas in Lake Texcoco and built Tenochtitlan on those islands, and then the Spanish filled in over half the the lake and tore down most of the Mexica temples to build their new city on top of the existing one. So, even in colonial times the city was slowly sinking due to its precariously built base, but over time the removal of underground water and the increased weight of the city from urbanization have caused it to sink more quickly. As a result, it’s one of the fastest sinking capitals in the world, despite sitting in a valley in the mountains and also being one of the highest capital cities in the world. This has become a huge problem for infrastructure (you can visibly see how buildings have sunk over time) and the lakebed also intensifies the earthquakes. Mexico City also has a big flooding issue during the rainy season because of continued loss of natural wetlands in the remaining Lake Texcoco and Xochimilco canals due to increased urbanization. There’s nowhere for the rain to go.
It was always ironic to me to experience water shortages in a place that receives so much rainfall (I’d have to calculate when to take poops / shower one month and then the next my apartment would be flooded), and even more ironic considering it’s quite literally built on top of a lake. Unfortunately, there isn’t yet sufficient infrastructure in place to collect/clean the amount of rain needed to offset water scarcity (the rain is somewhat acidic due to pollution and occasional volcanic ash from Popocatépetl). I do have a friend who’s an environmental engineer for the city, though, and she says a better rainwater collection process is one of the current number one goals. The main problem still though is that the pipes are super old and have been damaged by decades of earthquakes and the systems built in the 40s and 70s to pump water in from the Lerma and Cutzamala rivers were never meant to support 22 million people.
I no longer live there, but I never experienced heat or have seen my friends complain about the heat like they are having now. There’s no air conditioning because it’s temperate year round. There’s just a rainy season (now, normally) and a dry season. Seeing 5 days of dry, hot weather predicted in what should be the beginning of the rainy season is absolutely wild.
How far could Mexico City sink given it’s built on elevated ground (one of the higher capital cities in the world) and what effect would that have architecturally?
Will this be the beginning of mass deaths due to heat and evaporation and no water and overpopulation?
If not today or tomorrow, then there will always be "faster than expected."
Summer is looking very spicy for the Northern hemisphere.
Why are there 20 million people in Mexico City? Are there jobs requiring so many workers, in industries that could not relocated elsewhere in the country, where water is more plentiful?
You move the people to places where there is water while shipping it in. It's not that hard to move 20 million people temporarily actually. It won't be pleasant, it would be chaotic and hard to live through, but there's not going to be mass death.
fuckin' hell, no water for hours and even if there's water, it's about as clean as sewer water. This reminds me of what happened in a [city in the southern Philippines](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bxpnzf/lack_of_water_a_public_safety_concern_in/) where the residents stole water from pipelines, leading to police patrolling them. Thankfully, no mass unrests happened after. A coworker who lives in that very city said to me that a month after this report, they're still suffering from unstable water supplies.
Unlike Filipinos, I'm assuming our Mexican hermanos will be more direct as their situation is more dire. I hope you guys over there hold fast and stay hydrated whenever and however you can. There are ways to improvise water filtration devices if you're really at wit's end.
Anybody in Mexico City here willing to share their experiences right now?
I'm from Mexico City, I can share some insights...
So the scarcity has been going on for a while at this point, it's only now that it has reached a critical point, as with everything the distribution of water is not equal, the poorest parts of the city (mostly located to the west and to the north, coincidentally were a massive lake used to be) have been dealing with this problem for decades, is not uncommon for them to have water a couple hours once a week and they had experienced this for years.
In contrast, the richest areas (like the top 1% rich), have water all day everyday, it's very rare that water stops running in those areas. But the situation is so bad now that even in rich neighborhoods (just not as rich) they are having water outages too.
And here in Mexico City almost everyone has storage, whether it is underground storage or rooftop tanks storage must houses/buildings have it. So not having water coming in from the general network is not that bad as long as you're not wasteful.
In my case, I have water coming in only during the weekend (Friday and Saturday) but it lasts long enough and with enough pressure to refill my tanks (I used to have the standard 1500 lts one, but since this whole thing started I got 2 extras, around 6000 liters total).
Protests of organized neighbors are getting more and more common, the hijacking of water trucks has happened but it's not really a common thing and as far as I'm aware, there's also not a lot of stealing from the pipes either.
Sadly, there's no real strategy or commitment to fix the problem, the massive amount of people living here certainly is a cause of the problem, but it's estimated that we waste up to 60% of our water through leaks in the general distribution system, fixing that would cost billions and no political party is even attempting to commit to that.
In addition, the system was originally designed to drain the lake, so most of the water gets discarded and thrown into the sea, there's almost no recycling. And since the city and its concrete surfaces now occupy most of the basin there's almost no routes for rain to refill underground aquifers (there's also a historic drought, so not much rain anyways).
The situation is "fixable" at least improvable, but sadly none of the partial solutions are being done.
I thought it was mainly attributable to the geography of Mexico or in the very least, climate change. It's even more frustrating when it's a governance issue. I hope you and your loved ones hang on. I hope rains come to your country.
It's definitely also due to climate change, this drought has been going on for a decade I think, but in normal conditions, Mexico's basin has levels of rain comparable to London.
But yeah, the government has a lot of blame too...
Thanks brother, I'm very fortunate so the situation is more of a mild inconvenience for me, but I know a lot of people don't have it as good in the city.
Can you speak more to what some of those solutions might look like?
I imagine any sort of international relief effort would be tough given how high up the city is and the challenge to accessibility in terms of logistics.
Mexico City is the capital, it's super accessible, logistics would be fine, but I don't think any international effort is coming haha its gonna be up to Mexico to fix this.
To begin with, the distribution network has to be repaired, close the leaks and such.
Then we need to invest into expanding/modernizing and building new water treatment plants.
Then, a lot can be accomplished in architecture, we need to have stronger regulations in how much area can be covered by concrete (to allow rain to filter to the underground reservoirs) clear and strict guidelines on water pollution. (for example, right now there's no enforcement on how grease/oil gets disposed of in the kitchen, I mean there is but pipes are never checked)
New buildings have to meet harsher water consumption reduction standards, specially public buildings, schools, gyms, libraries, hospitals, office spaces, etc...
We need to expand green areas and maybe even restore the old lake (there're several proposals around it, but even the realistic ones are going to be expensive and controversial), we need more open air water bodies.
And lastly, private companies currently are the number one consumers of water, in the top 3 entities consuming water u have a super expensive hospital, a private park and I think a golf course. They have to start reducing their consumption, currently they pay fractions of cents per liter, they have no reason to save water being so cheap.
Thank you for your response! The regulations sound like they’d be inexpensive to implement but how popular would they be currently in mexicos geopolitical space?
Infrastructure is expensive to maintain, how much money does Mexico put into that currently?
Would you have to increase urban density to restore greenery in other parts of Mexico City? I remember seeing someone propose in a video to build below ground in Mexico City which I’m not even sure how that would work.
There has to be a soft artificial alternative to grass or else something less water intensive for golf courses.
If these are common questions answered elsewhere I’d appreciate a link/if you don’t want to take time out of your day to answer. I know the onus isn’t on you to educate and I appreciate the insight you’re providing.
Sorry, I was at work.
The regulations could be inexpensive to legislate, the problem would be enforcing them, I don't imagine they would be popular but also not a super controversial law, security (as in crime) is a much more discussed topic.
>Infrastructure is expensive to maintain, how much money does Mexico put into that currently?
As far as I know, we allocate little of our budget for that, and after allocation corruption takes its cut so very little actually gets done. We react until after a tragedy do to neglect has happened.
>Would you have to increase urban density to restore greenery in other parts of Mexico City? I remember seeing someone propose in a video to build below ground in Mexico City which I’m not even sure how that would work.
Yes, increasing density for sure is a partial solution, as I mentioned, the eastern part of the city is for the most part the poorest part, it was developed without much planing and u can go a see 1 or 2 level houses as far as the eye can see, with insufficient and neglected roads/infrastructure, u could developed higher, better quality housing that frees up a lot of land for restauration, however not everyone wants to leave their home, whoever precarious or inadequate it might be, it's still a home.
Building underground is not really feasible due to soil composition, ironically, there's a lot of water underground, u would be prone to flooding/sinking, it absolutely can be done, it's just very expensive and there are better options.
Another option is to invest in other cities, right now Mexico the country is more like the empire of Mexico City, most of the investment and development tends to focus the capital and 2 other cities, if there were equal opportunities and services across the country, not as many people would move and stay in Mexico City.
>There has to be a soft artificial alternative to grass or else something less water intensive for golf courses.
I don't really know much about golf lol or the courses
>these are common questions answered elsewhere I’d appreciate a link/if you don’t want to take time out of your day to answer. I know the onus isn’t on you to educate and I appreciate the insight you’re providing.
No problem bro, appreciate the questions, I'm an architect with a (theorical xd) focus on sustainable architecture, I'm very passionate about this subject.
I wish I could give this comment 100 likes. Sure, this historic drought isn’t helping things, but I feel like CDMX’s water crisis is 90% human caused/poor urban planning and only 10% strictly ecological.
I left in 2022, but can confirm that where I lived in la Guerrero and where friends lived in Azcapotzalco and Gustavo A. Madero monthly water cuts were a regular thing for years. Tbh you do get kinda used to only a super quick shower in the morning and filling up your reservoir for the day and not flushing unless it’s absolutely necessary and filling up a sink basin to wash your dishes/clothes, hell I still practice that now sometimes. It is wild to see water shortages happening in even the AirBnBs of Condesa and Santa Fe as well though now.
Lol, bullies trying to take over... You want to be in charge? Want to be the government? Good luck, mobs don't care if you are legitimate or not if you stand in the way of the water.
that is what I wanted to see in the population. driven by desperation, they strike back and hopefully they cut off the serpent's head or in the very least give it a mortal wound.
I experienced that in a way during the peak of the heatwave in Southeast Asia a few weeks ago. Wherever you and whatever time it may be, the weather is always humid and hot. We have air conditioning in only a few rooms in our house and let me tell you, sleeping in that heat in impossible. The stuff the those in Mexico are going through right now is just ungodly. The trifecta is there, the heat, no water and maybe no power
>Anybody in Mexico City here willing to share their experiences right now?
Guatemalan here, where this has been going on for a while
folks will simply do what the article describes: the taps will run dry most of the time, and people with money adapt to it by setting up a cistern (and pump) at home
the rest? they will need to wait for the water to come back on at 6am, and will fill up buckets until it runs out at 12 noon
shitty situation I know, but this is how people have adapted to it
I'm from Manila, Philippines and we face the same situation here during the dry months and the window hours for water in our taps only lasts during a few hours at night. Same here, we just adapt to the situation. I've learned to shower completely with just three 1.5 liter bottles and I've mastered it throughout the years.
From India here. The crisis is far worse than the media shows. Whole of north India is reeling under doomsday heatwave unlike anything the country has witnessed in the past 100 years. Night time temperatures are hovering at 98 degrees farenheit. The southern city of Bangalore literally ran out of water for nearly 60 days, all reservoirs in south India are staring at near zero. Cities like Mumbai and Rajasthan are also running on empty. Power demand in Delhi went at an all time high due to the relentless heat. Human-made climate change has caused widespread chaos and disruption to normal life as we know it. The mountainous states are experiencing unprecedented rise in temperatures as forest fires have become a common place there.
As we know it, most of these metropolises will become inhabitable within 5 years, it is only going to get worse.
Offices and schools were shut. People from affluent societies took to using water from nearby shopping malls and gyms for their daily routine as tanks dried up in their building
Yeah same here. I'm from Delhi and the ac was on nearly the whole day yesterday.
At least, being from Delhi, I'll not face this specific problem anytime soon due to Yamunas water supply.
Thanks for the insight.
Aren’t the water levels low simply from use though? Underground water sources don’t replenish so when people tap into them or become reliant on them they will eventually use it up.
It’s constantly being replenished but used quicker than the replenishment rate which depending on where you are is hundreds of years (lithography depending). So, for all intents and purposes it’s “not being replenished” on a usable time table. There’s also an issue that sometimes as the ground water is no longer present that the pores between the rocks aren’t able to hold as much because the rocks settle. But that’s also dependent on the type of rock layer. So technically, yes. It’s replenishing but in day-to-day situation that climatologists are warning about, it’s really not.
That sounds absolutely horrible I’m so sorry for you and your countrymen.
How does the BJP portray climate change in India?
Is the government making any efforts to mitigate some of the ecological challenges you are facing or are they employing the classic deny or scapegoat playbook?
My limited surface level understanding of geopolitics in India is that the majority in support of BJP see Modi as infallible/do not tolerate criticism and that Modi has a near iron grip on India in terms of losing the election/there doesn’t seem to be a more attractive alternative.
Would you mind speculating, how do you see things changing in India as the climate gets worse?
How many of the country will be climate refugees and where will they go?
Please pardon any ignorance on my part/if I was incorrect in any of my assessments. Always looking to learn and thank you for this insight into one facet of daily life/considerations in India
I'm glad. Unfortunately, I'll be deemed anti-national if I say anything otherwise, coupled with possible downvotes.
Most Indians for whom I speak, are tired of the Cult of Personality governance by Modi's BJP.
In a country where Pizza comes home quicker than an Ambulance, where the ruling party encourages massive rallies, gatherings during pandemics and heatwaves for elections, where the judicial system is bent by politicians, and super rich super brats, where in the name of Secularism communal tensions are orchestrated through rampant hate speeches, where journalists and free press is supressed, harassed, raided and some even assassinated on grounds of government criticism. Where commoners are shunned by the system, where police brutality is silenced. So yes, climate action and sustainability is the last thing on their bright minds.
As India's major cities get more and more hot, the cost of living will shoot, people will try and settle in the Himalayan states of Himachal and Uttarakhand, and as these mountain states are ravaged by overpopulation, the carbon will warm the atmosphere in these regions leading to the melting of Glaciers giving rise to sea levels and in turn, the rise of extreme weather events like landslides, cloud bursts, deluges and earthquakes.
Sadly, India will be one of those first countries experiencing such catastrophes than any other place in the world. We are on course to beat China in terms of population, and that is more likely heading towards certain death. Apologies for the grim outlook. The collapse is imminent.
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/india/india-bangalore-water-crisis-impact-intl-hnk-dst/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/india/india-bangalore-water-crisis-impact-intl-hnk-dst/index.html)
https://preview.redd.it/y9uyyhcyeb2d1.jpeg?width=1034&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=822478e6ec850d03eb69f7ee529004b49d483474
I am from the southern city Hyderabad, and my community is also reeling.
What's even more crazy is that they could fix the problem with sewage water treating, but people don't believe you could drink treated sewage water
https://m.economictimes.com/news/bengaluru-news/if-bengaluru-stops-saying-yuck-to-treated-waste-water-itll-never-go-thirsty-experts/articleshow/109472586.cms
They should stop using what little water they have to shit into. Composting humanure is a viable option and it yields great compost. Pretty sure it's widely practiced in some areas of India as well.
Before they die of thirst, it will be the poisoned water that kills them.
A rich neighborhood in Mexico city got sick because the the water flow became stagnant. This resulted in the already contaminated water becoming toxic and even gases building up in the pipes that caused a fire.
What's insane is they will die by the masses before the president of mexico admits a water shortage even exists. On the local level, the city is just as corrupt.
No human population deserves to suffer or die this way, especially when their leaders can act now. I pray June indeed is the beginning of rain season for them.
And Mexico City has known this was coming for *decades*. And they just kept kicking the can down the road because dealing with it would be politically uncomfortable and only became more so the longer they failed to deal with it.
Texas has entered the chat with its privatized energy grid. A couple of days ago they were charging people 1600% due to a heat wave. And it breaks in the winter as well.
It’s soul crushing the extent of corruption in Mexico. It’s a such a beautiful country, rich with history and culture. It should be a growing and thriving successful land, but it’s just a playground for cartels and resort investors.
https://cccm.mx/
"Main purpose of the foundation of the Mexico City Country Club, our golf course is in itself a natural attraction for the practice of this sport, thanks to its well-kept grass and the wide variety of trees and plants that surround and beautify it."
Oh, yes. Just here where I live in Las Vegas, you can be sure that while regular people may have to shower together and drink tainted water, the golf courses will *always* be green and watered.
In fact, the collapse of golf courses will be a good harbinger of when shits really about to get real.
I'm sorry, but I can only laugh at the premise that the most populous metro area in North America is on the verge of running out of water and we're supposed to act like there's any fucking hope?
Largest by what measurement? Area?
Edit: oh shit, I had no idea a whopping 21 million people lived in the Mexico City metro area. What is the population density of that area compared to the US?
Second edit: at roughly 7200 people/sq ml Mexico City proper wouldn’t even crack the top 30 in America, but the metro area at large is more dense than any singular metro area in America, from how I read the data.
You're talking about a metro area located in one of the most arid places in North America. I understand places like Mexico City are the canary in the coalmine but given Mexico's geography and natural landscape no one should be surprised that this was not sustainable indefinitely.
Lets acknowledge that some perspective is in order and that this is not as worrisome as if the Colorado River were running dry/some communities will be affected far before others. This will have knock on effects and people will migrate thereby exacerbating resource challenges in other places.
Also, my general impression is that I'm not sure this sub is a place for hope. On a sliding scale TEOTWAWKI is for people who focus on prep/salvaging what quality of life they can in the final stages of collapse. Singularity and futurism are highly optimistic with no margins for dissent. Collapse seems to be dedicated to slowing down collapse and documenting it (very admirable) but also believe that all we can do is buy time at this point and that collapse is already occurring and larger collapse is inevitable, sooner rather than later.
There is less emphasis in Collapse on the preparation than prepper or TEOTWAWKI/Collapse is more journalistic. I really like this sub because I get news here that is difficult to come by anywhere else. There's also a peace of mind that comes with community/validation that others also see what is happening around us ecologically/socially/geopolitically and are also concerned.
EDIT: TEOTWAWKI = The End of the World as We Know It
Not as bad as r/UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG which stands for "Upvoted Not Because Girl, But Because It Is Very Cool; However, I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl"
HA! :) Mea culpa! It's abbreviated in the sub name so in referencing the sub I abbreviated it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/) Sorry for not spelling it out, I have edited my original post to include it.
It's the name of the sub (The End Of The World As We Know It)! I'm sorry, I should have written it out in referencing it for the first time! I have edited my original post to include it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/)
>When the local government warned that residents would have to pick up buckets of water from public collection points managed by the military, consumption plummeted. The effort to stave off a water crisis began to look like a grassroots movement, with residents sharing conservation tricks like flushing the toilet with water captured from the shower.
Reduce consumption or face manually transported rationing. I like it.
>“It won’t work here, because there’s a lack of confidence in the government,” he told Grist. “People don’t believe in most of what the government says, even if it’s the truth.” Mexico is just weeks away from a major election, and the incumbent leaders in Mexico City as well as the federal government have tried to downplay the water issues even as their opponents seize on it for campaign fodder.
The limits of short-term politics.
Canada is just as bad... they let Nestlé drain 3-4 million litres a day in BC for $2.25 per million litres or less than $10 a day for close to a decade. When enough people protested, they tried to charge around $500 per million litres so Nestlé decided to leave,at least in ON rather than pay $2000 a day.
I was nuts that regular households were paying $80+ a month for around 35,000 litres a month while Nestlé guzzled around 5 times that every hour.
I predict eventually these companies will be selling water in the same bottles, with the same labels and prices, but no flavours(adding flavors impacts profits).
Nestle sold their North American water division after bad publicity, but only the North American division.
They sold it to "Blue Triton Brands" which was a Nestle subsidiary. People realized that was still Nestle however so they ended up selling Blue Triton to Metropoulos & Co, who owns Pabst Brewing, Hostess snack foods, and Bumblebee Tuna along with many other food brands.
So today it's a slightly different group of shitheads, but the Blue Triton water brands still have the Nestle branding on them (like Nestle Pure Life water) so feel free to continue hating Nestle in addition to the new group of shitheads. I promise Nestle deserves it.
From a business standpoint the only cure for bad publicity for these multinational corporations is rebranding. They get to continue their inhumane business practices (modern slavery) and profit. It’s vile there’s no accountability.
Water toxicity will kill them before water dehydration does, so in other words, the water is undrinkable, and rainwater is preferable to drink. It is sad. 😞
I remember a story about Natives in Ecuador pouring molten gold down the throat of a corrupt Spanish governor or some such. Maybe some people need melted plastic or boiling oil poured down their throat to get the message.
Billions will die and then the rocks will start fallin from the skies on the remaining billions of starving masses trying to flee to developed nations. We need manpower to save the ecology but the rich won’t deploy it because it would tap into their wealth. It’s a knife fight in a closet where everyone is gonna get clapped.
Many billionaire CEOs are psychopaths.
Psychopaths don’t feel empathy for others or guilt for any harm they cause (though they can put on a good performance of remorse when needed to manipulate others).
Psychopaths are motivated by obtaining power and admiration rather than love and affection. This is why they devote all of their waking hours to planning and strategizing ways to make money, get promoted, obtain positions of power and influence and they have no issues with lying, cheating or stealing to get the power they seek.
They operate from their ID (immediate, base, selfish desires) rather than from their conscience. Think of their emotional development like an infant who wails to be fed, held, entertained or who will have a meltdown if someone takes away a toy they want. Whereas emotionally mature people understand that their needs aren’t more important than the needs of others and they understand that they can’t and shouldn’t always act on their every desire.
On the more antisocial end of the spectrum, psychopaths will easily fly into uncontrollable rages (again, like babies and toddlers do when they don’t get their way) and often abuse their children, spouses, or even random strangers.
Psychopaths are pathological liars who lie just for the fun of lying. It makes them feel powerful when they get away with lying so they’ll lie about anything and everything and sometimes they will even convince themselves that their lies are true.
They absolutely cannot accept fault or blame for anything. Everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility. Other people are lying and out to get them. They are completely incapable of accepting and admitting that they’ve done something wrong, bad, devious, etc…
They are also delusional and they believe that they are smarter than normal people (they see human kindness and generosity as stupidity so they would likely believe that Jesus was a complete moron for allowing himself to be nailed to the cross for instance). They also think that they are incredibly charming, lucky, and that everything will always work out for them. They don’t actually believe that they will ever get caught, punished, or suffer for their actions.
Bottom line: Their brains are wired differently thanks to either genetics or childhood trauma that impacted their brain development. As a result, they enjoy taking what isn’t theirs. Some enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others. They will never admit that though. They also believe that nothing bad will ever happen to them no matter what they do.
Society has allowed psychopaths (also referred to as sociopaths and currently are referred to as having Antisocial Personality Disorder) to thrive and obtain unchecked power and wealth. These people might actually WANT to see billions of people die. Some of them who earn billions from exploiting the planet’s natural resources might believe that the collapse they are causing isn’t their fault or responsibility to fix. Some of them might believe that they’ll be fine no matter what because their wealth can protect them from anything.
They won’t stop unless the people and governments MAKE them stop. We aren’t dealing with people who think logically or who have any interest in anyone other than themselves.
*Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning,*
*I sit around trying to smile, but the air is so heavy and dry*
*Strange voices are saying things I can't understand*
*It's too close for comfort, this heat has got right out of hand*
*It's a cruel, cruel summer*
*Leaving me here on my own*
Cruel Summer - Bananarama(1983)
I know people in Honduras, and they're starting to cook. It's way hotter than it usually is this time of year. Multiple days already above 105F/40C.
And their power interruptions are becoming more frequent. So less mitigation of the heat.
I'm afraid for them. Talk to them often about how to get them into the US. Met them on a work visa in New Orleans. I remind them that it is a sanctuary city and they won't be harassed by local law enforcement about citizenship status. But they want to do it legally.
New Orleans certainly isn't the best climate refuge, but the risk of hurricanes is about equali in either place, and at least we have more air conditioning. It seems at least better for their short term survival.
I'm just really worried about equatorial areas this summer.
>In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
Coming soon enough to cities in the US
>Only in early 2018, when officials started talking in increasingly apocalyptic terms about a collapse of the municipal water system, did residents — and international media outlets — start to pay attention.
Hey, look, there it is.
Stop dishing out hopiun and flowery language. Start using reality describing language.
The family that showers together stays alive together. 😌
Anyone else watch 90 Day Fiance and remember when Rose was hosing off Big Ed and her father in the “shower” together, and the biggest, sickest rat you’d ever seen scurried across the floor?
The rats in the Philippines are terrifying.
Ya'll, there is some great info in this thread for how to get your water cleaned when without power. Obviously having the water first is a must, but it is well worth reading/watching through what a few people have linked here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CollapsePrep/s/Xt1PXNWCkX
It is very much times like these that I feel fortunate to be in the woods, on a very full well surrounded by lakes. Getting solar panels next year. Used Plug-in hybrid vehicle just purchased. My plan for self sufficiency is coming together nicely. But this is horrifying, and a whole city dealing with it.. isn’t there always a back up plan to the back up plan in government?
Where are the people likely to go? If they come to the US, I can’t see that going well. But they’ll need to go somewhere. 21 million is a lot of people to be displaced if it gets bad enough.
More wars have started over water than anything else, but it rarely is recognized. Like the way civil war in Syria broke out because of the tensions in cities from a bad drought that had farmers looking for work in the cities, and tensions rose until a kid selling fruit was killed, and the ethnic and economic tensions grew out of control. that was the spark, the fuel was the drought.
"Should we stop having so many kids?"
Gosh, no! how would that help right this instant?
Humanity is killing itself and won't even bother confronting the problem that underlies all other problems.
Maybe out of context but why would you not share the original Grist source and decided to instead share the ad-heavy Gizmodo version?
If there's one thing that we all in this sub must certainly be sure of is that the current situation is in large part caused by corporations, but supported by the public's apparently harmless or unconscious actions.
I think if we really care about this, let's at least not be that supportive of corporations and care about the smaller orgs, small biz, and root causes or sources.
Ps.
Not a personal attack, perhaps it was a mistake. And if not, maybe consider this next time?
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Goran01: --- Submission statement: This is collapse related because it just shows a glimpse of what is to come in the near future for major cities. In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1czbzkk/cities_stare_down_day_zero_as_reservoirs_go_dry/l5fbgwf/
Submission statement: This is collapse related because it just shows a glimpse of what is to come in the near future for major cities. In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
>The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage. Where are they supposed to go?
You didn’t know? Everyone in Bogota has a seaside cottage or mountain chalet for their weekends.
My father immigrated from bogota back in the mid 70s and I remember him telling me how messed up the city was even back then.
What you asking them for, just gtfo, shower with your sister and then gtfo from your home to some water paradise please. Just try harder man. For real though this is a pretty nightmarish scenario and I do not even want to begin to imagine the implications this all has on health especially... yet sooner or later we will likely all be hit eventually.
It's only going to keep getting worse and it's going keep being faster than expected
To a planet where water is more plentiful
The term comes from Cape Towns water crisis in 2017. Any lessons learned? Different climate, but still.
Why tf isn’t Cape Town teaching workshops on this? They beat it? How??? Reddit is killing me. Now every time I open this app ‘collapse’ is at or near the top. This is not good for my mental health.
Move into the adaptation space. Those folks are being.much more realistic about how to deal with the future and provide a path forward. Myself, I'm sinking.money into a large, portable solar generator because I live in a hurricane zone. I have a gas generator, but those are very noisy and depend on gas. What I learned from hurricane Sandy is that gas will be the first thing to run out in an emergency. Im still considering solar and a whole house batteries. I also added a nice sized camping water filter to my emergency bag and have a small amount of stored food. Watching and waiting for the future.
Than stop paying attention. I can promise you you can’t do a single thing about the water supply in Mexico City or Bogotá. Go outside and go for a walk. A lot of the people on here are addicted to doom scrolling and it’s clearly fucking with their heads. If this is not good for your mental health watch some tv or go for a walk
Not paying attention is what got us here but +1 on taking care of mental health.
Being honest about the true locus of control is a key part of dealing with collapse well. Unless you're a billionaire, minister in Mexico, or ranking member of a large NGO, you're not going to provide significant relief to the water crisis in these areas, you're also not expected to. I think early on, people view collapse as a problem to be solved. As such, they are *solution* driven. Most people in western nations are conditioned to believe that problems are solved by devoting resources, gaining 'awareness', etc...etc. This is an insane way to view collapse. Collapse, by definition, is *systematic failure*. Only we're talking about a scope where this likely means our cultural outlook is just, well, not relevant. Collapse is. Learning to deal with it as a set of circumstances and consequences is difficult enough without pretending every facet is a problem that can be solved if only we learn some magic truths.
Yeah I was spending up to an hour a day just in this sub, doom scrolling and terrifying myself. I got majorly depressed, my anxiety had never been so bad (couldn't even leave the house some days, or shower/turn on the sink...like it was BAD bad). I've started limiting myself to one collapse post per day, and I'm spending wayyy more time in the real world with real people. It's totally fixed me! Collapse is a scary thing, but there's nothing any one of us can do about it. I've got a collection of canned foods and a bit of water. Other than that, some stuff is better left unknown.
It doesn’t help people when there are lots of people in this sub who are constantly saying we’re gonna be in a mad max like movie in the next year or two. The situation is dire, but we aren’t anywhere near that point yet. I’ve been seeing posts for the last couple years with people saying this and I’m sure if I went back and searched this sub would be full of people saying this since the creation of this sub.
I totally agree. I can handle pretty much all of r/collapse but the guy who does the weekly newsletter - that's too much for me, I don't read that.
No it’s not. I’ve been part of this sub almost since it started and I’ve been collapse aware for over 10 years. And I can tell you that you HAVE to learn how to compartmentalize and also limit your time spent focusing, talking, reading and/or learning more about collapse. My personal way of limiting myself is to avoid going on this sub and intentionally searching for new climate news, as that’s most likely to be by far the worst, and most likely final, nail in the coffin. If you choose to acknowledge how bad things are on a daily basis it’s a recipe for anger, sadness and hopelessness.
Not everyone can compartmentalize so easily. The worst part about articles like this one.. is something could be done to at least lesson the suffering. I was working at a recycling plant.. they actually have a department called water destruction. Makes you sick. Hundreds of gallons a day.. of fresh spring water.. just dumped out so some big shot capitalist makes a few extra bucks in tax write off. I stole cases daily. But that was drop in the bucket.. maybe a bit of my own survival instincts to stock pile as much as possible for my family for when shit really gets bad.. sorry for the rambling rant.
I’m a garbage/recycle worker. Believe me, I’m intimately aware of how little our “conservation efforts” actually do.
If you're still there.. wash all cuts no matter how small they seem.. I developed sepsis and blood poison that came very close to killing me.. open heart surgery and a pacemaker at 47yo was not something I expected.. and to try and receive a couple penny's to help out w the bills is proving to be quite the battle.. they know very well about the nasty shit that comes through there. But I guess it pays better to pretend not to.. be safe
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/05/12/decision-brownouts/
>Reddit is killing me. Now every time I open this app ‘collapse’ is at or near the top. This is not good for my mental health. 1. You could stop opening "collapse. or 2. You could change sides. I switched from championing humanity to championing biodiversity. Since our high-tech species is the biggest threat to biodiversity, now, I actually enjoy this sub. Perspective is everything!
Stop whining
>But Mexico City loses almost 40 percent of its municipal water to leakage from pipes and canals, one of the highest rates in the world Good lord.
Holy shit. This is bonkers.
From my understanding, losses of 15-25% are pretty normal for small water systems in the US, due to the amount of pressure in water mains, and the difficulty of finding and plugging leaks.
I know it’s pretty bad in Detroit where I am, the water main on my street needs to be replaced, it bursts in a different spot and gets repaired every year, at least once
I remember hearing about them using all their aquifers up, maybe 20 years ago and that they lost a lot of it too. I thought by now they would have fixed it but here we are. They also said the city is sinking because of the removal of underground water. Will be interesting to see if that causes issues too.
It’s been sinking ever since the Spanish built Mexico City on top of an existing city, on top of an existing lake, but the removal of underground water has definitely drastically increased it. The Mexica built floating islands aka chinampas in Lake Texcoco and built Tenochtitlan on those islands, and then the Spanish filled in over half the the lake and tore down most of the Mexica temples to build their new city on top of the existing one. So, even in colonial times the city was slowly sinking due to its precariously built base, but over time the removal of underground water and the increased weight of the city from urbanization have caused it to sink more quickly. As a result, it’s one of the fastest sinking capitals in the world, despite sitting in a valley in the mountains and also being one of the highest capital cities in the world. This has become a huge problem for infrastructure (you can visibly see how buildings have sunk over time) and the lakebed also intensifies the earthquakes. Mexico City also has a big flooding issue during the rainy season because of continued loss of natural wetlands in the remaining Lake Texcoco and Xochimilco canals due to increased urbanization. There’s nowhere for the rain to go. It was always ironic to me to experience water shortages in a place that receives so much rainfall (I’d have to calculate when to take poops / shower one month and then the next my apartment would be flooded), and even more ironic considering it’s quite literally built on top of a lake. Unfortunately, there isn’t yet sufficient infrastructure in place to collect/clean the amount of rain needed to offset water scarcity (the rain is somewhat acidic due to pollution and occasional volcanic ash from Popocatépetl). I do have a friend who’s an environmental engineer for the city, though, and she says a better rainwater collection process is one of the current number one goals. The main problem still though is that the pipes are super old and have been damaged by decades of earthquakes and the systems built in the 40s and 70s to pump water in from the Lerma and Cutzamala rivers were never meant to support 22 million people. I no longer live there, but I never experienced heat or have seen my friends complain about the heat like they are having now. There’s no air conditioning because it’s temperate year round. There’s just a rainy season (now, normally) and a dry season. Seeing 5 days of dry, hot weather predicted in what should be the beginning of the rainy season is absolutely wild.
How far could Mexico City sink given it’s built on elevated ground (one of the higher capital cities in the world) and what effect would that have architecturally?
Will this be the beginning of mass deaths due to heat and evaporation and no water and overpopulation? If not today or tomorrow, then there will always be "faster than expected." Summer is looking very spicy for the Northern hemisphere.
There won't be any mass deaths for sure. Other countries would help with disaster relief if it actually came to that. But these are the warning signs.
There's 20 million people in Mexico City, if they run out of water there's not a simple solution to just get more.
Why are there 20 million people in Mexico City? Are there jobs requiring so many workers, in industries that could not relocated elsewhere in the country, where water is more plentiful?
You move the people to places where there is water while shipping it in. It's not that hard to move 20 million people temporarily actually. It won't be pleasant, it would be chaotic and hard to live through, but there's not going to be mass death.
> It's not that hard to move 20 million people temporarily actually. Wat?
Idk feels nice here in Europe
That's not what ya'll said last summer. It's only May, give it some time.
More people died in Europe than in US from heat in the last years
Where in Europe tho? Buddy of my in Spain is walking me through his concerns and they seem pretty on point.
We’ve got all the water here in Scotland this week. Too much of the stuff again
For now. Wait until the mass migration starts.
Until AMOC collapses
You're foolish
fuckin' hell, no water for hours and even if there's water, it's about as clean as sewer water. This reminds me of what happened in a [city in the southern Philippines](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bxpnzf/lack_of_water_a_public_safety_concern_in/) where the residents stole water from pipelines, leading to police patrolling them. Thankfully, no mass unrests happened after. A coworker who lives in that very city said to me that a month after this report, they're still suffering from unstable water supplies. Unlike Filipinos, I'm assuming our Mexican hermanos will be more direct as their situation is more dire. I hope you guys over there hold fast and stay hydrated whenever and however you can. There are ways to improvise water filtration devices if you're really at wit's end. Anybody in Mexico City here willing to share their experiences right now?
I'm from Mexico City, I can share some insights... So the scarcity has been going on for a while at this point, it's only now that it has reached a critical point, as with everything the distribution of water is not equal, the poorest parts of the city (mostly located to the west and to the north, coincidentally were a massive lake used to be) have been dealing with this problem for decades, is not uncommon for them to have water a couple hours once a week and they had experienced this for years. In contrast, the richest areas (like the top 1% rich), have water all day everyday, it's very rare that water stops running in those areas. But the situation is so bad now that even in rich neighborhoods (just not as rich) they are having water outages too. And here in Mexico City almost everyone has storage, whether it is underground storage or rooftop tanks storage must houses/buildings have it. So not having water coming in from the general network is not that bad as long as you're not wasteful. In my case, I have water coming in only during the weekend (Friday and Saturday) but it lasts long enough and with enough pressure to refill my tanks (I used to have the standard 1500 lts one, but since this whole thing started I got 2 extras, around 6000 liters total). Protests of organized neighbors are getting more and more common, the hijacking of water trucks has happened but it's not really a common thing and as far as I'm aware, there's also not a lot of stealing from the pipes either. Sadly, there's no real strategy or commitment to fix the problem, the massive amount of people living here certainly is a cause of the problem, but it's estimated that we waste up to 60% of our water through leaks in the general distribution system, fixing that would cost billions and no political party is even attempting to commit to that. In addition, the system was originally designed to drain the lake, so most of the water gets discarded and thrown into the sea, there's almost no recycling. And since the city and its concrete surfaces now occupy most of the basin there's almost no routes for rain to refill underground aquifers (there's also a historic drought, so not much rain anyways). The situation is "fixable" at least improvable, but sadly none of the partial solutions are being done.
I thought it was mainly attributable to the geography of Mexico or in the very least, climate change. It's even more frustrating when it's a governance issue. I hope you and your loved ones hang on. I hope rains come to your country.
It's definitely also due to climate change, this drought has been going on for a decade I think, but in normal conditions, Mexico's basin has levels of rain comparable to London. But yeah, the government has a lot of blame too... Thanks brother, I'm very fortunate so the situation is more of a mild inconvenience for me, but I know a lot of people don't have it as good in the city.
Can you speak more to what some of those solutions might look like? I imagine any sort of international relief effort would be tough given how high up the city is and the challenge to accessibility in terms of logistics.
Mexico City is the capital, it's super accessible, logistics would be fine, but I don't think any international effort is coming haha its gonna be up to Mexico to fix this. To begin with, the distribution network has to be repaired, close the leaks and such. Then we need to invest into expanding/modernizing and building new water treatment plants. Then, a lot can be accomplished in architecture, we need to have stronger regulations in how much area can be covered by concrete (to allow rain to filter to the underground reservoirs) clear and strict guidelines on water pollution. (for example, right now there's no enforcement on how grease/oil gets disposed of in the kitchen, I mean there is but pipes are never checked) New buildings have to meet harsher water consumption reduction standards, specially public buildings, schools, gyms, libraries, hospitals, office spaces, etc... We need to expand green areas and maybe even restore the old lake (there're several proposals around it, but even the realistic ones are going to be expensive and controversial), we need more open air water bodies. And lastly, private companies currently are the number one consumers of water, in the top 3 entities consuming water u have a super expensive hospital, a private park and I think a golf course. They have to start reducing their consumption, currently they pay fractions of cents per liter, they have no reason to save water being so cheap.
Thank you for your response! The regulations sound like they’d be inexpensive to implement but how popular would they be currently in mexicos geopolitical space? Infrastructure is expensive to maintain, how much money does Mexico put into that currently? Would you have to increase urban density to restore greenery in other parts of Mexico City? I remember seeing someone propose in a video to build below ground in Mexico City which I’m not even sure how that would work. There has to be a soft artificial alternative to grass or else something less water intensive for golf courses. If these are common questions answered elsewhere I’d appreciate a link/if you don’t want to take time out of your day to answer. I know the onus isn’t on you to educate and I appreciate the insight you’re providing.
Sorry, I was at work. The regulations could be inexpensive to legislate, the problem would be enforcing them, I don't imagine they would be popular but also not a super controversial law, security (as in crime) is a much more discussed topic. >Infrastructure is expensive to maintain, how much money does Mexico put into that currently? As far as I know, we allocate little of our budget for that, and after allocation corruption takes its cut so very little actually gets done. We react until after a tragedy do to neglect has happened. >Would you have to increase urban density to restore greenery in other parts of Mexico City? I remember seeing someone propose in a video to build below ground in Mexico City which I’m not even sure how that would work. Yes, increasing density for sure is a partial solution, as I mentioned, the eastern part of the city is for the most part the poorest part, it was developed without much planing and u can go a see 1 or 2 level houses as far as the eye can see, with insufficient and neglected roads/infrastructure, u could developed higher, better quality housing that frees up a lot of land for restauration, however not everyone wants to leave their home, whoever precarious or inadequate it might be, it's still a home. Building underground is not really feasible due to soil composition, ironically, there's a lot of water underground, u would be prone to flooding/sinking, it absolutely can be done, it's just very expensive and there are better options. Another option is to invest in other cities, right now Mexico the country is more like the empire of Mexico City, most of the investment and development tends to focus the capital and 2 other cities, if there were equal opportunities and services across the country, not as many people would move and stay in Mexico City. >There has to be a soft artificial alternative to grass or else something less water intensive for golf courses. I don't really know much about golf lol or the courses >these are common questions answered elsewhere I’d appreciate a link/if you don’t want to take time out of your day to answer. I know the onus isn’t on you to educate and I appreciate the insight you’re providing. No problem bro, appreciate the questions, I'm an architect with a (theorical xd) focus on sustainable architecture, I'm very passionate about this subject.
I wish I could give this comment 100 likes. Sure, this historic drought isn’t helping things, but I feel like CDMX’s water crisis is 90% human caused/poor urban planning and only 10% strictly ecological.
I left in 2022, but can confirm that where I lived in la Guerrero and where friends lived in Azcapotzalco and Gustavo A. Madero monthly water cuts were a regular thing for years. Tbh you do get kinda used to only a super quick shower in the morning and filling up your reservoir for the day and not flushing unless it’s absolutely necessary and filling up a sink basin to wash your dishes/clothes, hell I still practice that now sometimes. It is wild to see water shortages happening in even the AirBnBs of Condesa and Santa Fe as well though now.
When the cartels start selling water…
You misspelled Nestle.
Need to start calling water bottle companies a “cartel” in the same way we talk about oil cartels
I read in this sub as well that locals were stealing water from the cartels. I could see that happening though, maybe 5 dollars pero 500 ml of water
Lol, bullies trying to take over... You want to be in charge? Want to be the government? Good luck, mobs don't care if you are legitimate or not if you stand in the way of the water.
that is what I wanted to see in the population. driven by desperation, they strike back and hopefully they cut off the serpent's head or in the very least give it a mortal wound.
it must be worse to know while waiting that there is no water, a psychological element to it
I experienced that in a way during the peak of the heatwave in Southeast Asia a few weeks ago. Wherever you and whatever time it may be, the weather is always humid and hot. We have air conditioning in only a few rooms in our house and let me tell you, sleeping in that heat in impossible. The stuff the those in Mexico are going through right now is just ungodly. The trifecta is there, the heat, no water and maybe no power
>Anybody in Mexico City here willing to share their experiences right now? Guatemalan here, where this has been going on for a while folks will simply do what the article describes: the taps will run dry most of the time, and people with money adapt to it by setting up a cistern (and pump) at home the rest? they will need to wait for the water to come back on at 6am, and will fill up buckets until it runs out at 12 noon shitty situation I know, but this is how people have adapted to it
I'm from Manila, Philippines and we face the same situation here during the dry months and the window hours for water in our taps only lasts during a few hours at night. Same here, we just adapt to the situation. I've learned to shower completely with just three 1.5 liter bottles and I've mastered it throughout the years.
From India here. The crisis is far worse than the media shows. Whole of north India is reeling under doomsday heatwave unlike anything the country has witnessed in the past 100 years. Night time temperatures are hovering at 98 degrees farenheit. The southern city of Bangalore literally ran out of water for nearly 60 days, all reservoirs in south India are staring at near zero. Cities like Mumbai and Rajasthan are also running on empty. Power demand in Delhi went at an all time high due to the relentless heat. Human-made climate change has caused widespread chaos and disruption to normal life as we know it. The mountainous states are experiencing unprecedented rise in temperatures as forest fires have become a common place there. As we know it, most of these metropolises will become inhabitable within 5 years, it is only going to get worse.
Offices and schools were shut. People from affluent societies took to using water from nearby shopping malls and gyms for their daily routine as tanks dried up in their building
That sounds like being trapped in a nightmare.
Yeah same here. I'm from Delhi and the ac was on nearly the whole day yesterday. At least, being from Delhi, I'll not face this specific problem anytime soon due to Yamunas water supply.
I guess there are limits to growth, who knew?!
What a narrative! It's absolutely overwhelming. Sorry for the inhabitants of India, sorry for the humankind. Greedy capitalism. I get really scared
Already is uninhabitable
Thanks for the insight. Aren’t the water levels low simply from use though? Underground water sources don’t replenish so when people tap into them or become reliant on them they will eventually use it up.
This is incorrect. Groundwater is constantly replenished by rain and purified as it percolates through sail, sediment and rock.
It’s constantly being replenished but used quicker than the replenishment rate which depending on where you are is hundreds of years (lithography depending). So, for all intents and purposes it’s “not being replenished” on a usable time table. There’s also an issue that sometimes as the ground water is no longer present that the pores between the rocks aren’t able to hold as much because the rocks settle. But that’s also dependent on the type of rock layer. So technically, yes. It’s replenishing but in day-to-day situation that climatologists are warning about, it’s really not.
What is the rate of replenishment?
You’d have to look up the areas you want to know about. It’s localized based on climate, weather and geology.
That sounds absolutely horrible I’m so sorry for you and your countrymen. How does the BJP portray climate change in India? Is the government making any efforts to mitigate some of the ecological challenges you are facing or are they employing the classic deny or scapegoat playbook? My limited surface level understanding of geopolitics in India is that the majority in support of BJP see Modi as infallible/do not tolerate criticism and that Modi has a near iron grip on India in terms of losing the election/there doesn’t seem to be a more attractive alternative. Would you mind speculating, how do you see things changing in India as the climate gets worse? How many of the country will be climate refugees and where will they go? Please pardon any ignorance on my part/if I was incorrect in any of my assessments. Always looking to learn and thank you for this insight into one facet of daily life/considerations in India
I'm glad. Unfortunately, I'll be deemed anti-national if I say anything otherwise, coupled with possible downvotes. Most Indians for whom I speak, are tired of the Cult of Personality governance by Modi's BJP. In a country where Pizza comes home quicker than an Ambulance, where the ruling party encourages massive rallies, gatherings during pandemics and heatwaves for elections, where the judicial system is bent by politicians, and super rich super brats, where in the name of Secularism communal tensions are orchestrated through rampant hate speeches, where journalists and free press is supressed, harassed, raided and some even assassinated on grounds of government criticism. Where commoners are shunned by the system, where police brutality is silenced. So yes, climate action and sustainability is the last thing on their bright minds. As India's major cities get more and more hot, the cost of living will shoot, people will try and settle in the Himalayan states of Himachal and Uttarakhand, and as these mountain states are ravaged by overpopulation, the carbon will warm the atmosphere in these regions leading to the melting of Glaciers giving rise to sea levels and in turn, the rise of extreme weather events like landslides, cloud bursts, deluges and earthquakes. Sadly, India will be one of those first countries experiencing such catastrophes than any other place in the world. We are on course to beat China in terms of population, and that is more likely heading towards certain death. Apologies for the grim outlook. The collapse is imminent.
Are there couples in India deciding not to have children due to the deteriorating climate situation?
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[https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/india/india-bangalore-water-crisis-impact-intl-hnk-dst/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/india/india-bangalore-water-crisis-impact-intl-hnk-dst/index.html) https://preview.redd.it/y9uyyhcyeb2d1.jpeg?width=1034&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=822478e6ec850d03eb69f7ee529004b49d483474 I am from the southern city Hyderabad, and my community is also reeling.
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What's even more crazy is that they could fix the problem with sewage water treating, but people don't believe you could drink treated sewage water https://m.economictimes.com/news/bengaluru-news/if-bengaluru-stops-saying-yuck-to-treated-waste-water-itll-never-go-thirsty-experts/articleshow/109472586.cms
They should stop using what little water they have to shit into. Composting humanure is a viable option and it yields great compost. Pretty sure it's widely practiced in some areas of India as well.
Before they die of thirst, it will be the poisoned water that kills them. A rich neighborhood in Mexico city got sick because the the water flow became stagnant. This resulted in the already contaminated water becoming toxic and even gases building up in the pipes that caused a fire. What's insane is they will die by the masses before the president of mexico admits a water shortage even exists. On the local level, the city is just as corrupt. No human population deserves to suffer or die this way, especially when their leaders can act now. I pray June indeed is the beginning of rain season for them.
And Mexico City has known this was coming for *decades*. And they just kept kicking the can down the road because dealing with it would be politically uncomfortable and only became more so the longer they failed to deal with it.
Same way most countries in the world are kicking things down the road in regard to climate change.
Look at the US!!! Florida literally banned the words 'climate change'! It's human nature and corrupt political systems created by humans😝
It is the same in the UK. It turns out that privatising a vital resource for profit does not lead to improved services.
Texas has entered the chat with its privatized energy grid. A couple of days ago they were charging people 1600% due to a heat wave. And it breaks in the winter as well.
That set up in Texas is horrible! That would keep me from ever wanting to move there.
The whole of the United States entered the chat with health care but yeah, Texas is particularly bad in terms of the energy grid.
In Britain. NI water is still owned soley by the department of infrastructure.
*Cries in Housing Crisis*
It’s soul crushing the extent of corruption in Mexico. It’s a such a beautiful country, rich with history and culture. It should be a growing and thriving successful land, but it’s just a playground for cartels and resort investors.
Please return to the office though
It’s ok. Can we drink money?
I hear gold comes in liquid form. Or maybe melt down some pennies.
Would be nice to see some billionaires drink their money in liquid gold form
I know you can't eat it.. https://spotify.link/MOMhEoWeRJb
I thought that's what bottled water actually was.
The line will go high enough to block out the sun and we'll be cool in the shade.
Well shit. Are the golf courses watered at least?
https://cccm.mx/ "Main purpose of the foundation of the Mexico City Country Club, our golf course is in itself a natural attraction for the practice of this sport, thanks to its well-kept grass and the wide variety of trees and plants that surround and beautify it." Oh, yes. Just here where I live in Las Vegas, you can be sure that while regular people may have to shower together and drink tainted water, the golf courses will *always* be green and watered. In fact, the collapse of golf courses will be a good harbinger of when shits really about to get real.
They could at least use treated graywater for that. Or agri water not necessarily potable.
The water is toxic, so the golf courses are probably dead unless maybe they have their own water tanks to feed the poor grasses and animals.
A lot of golf courses own water shares, which entitles them to an enormous amount of water that regular people have no claim to. At least in America.
I'm sorry, but I can only laugh at the premise that the most populous metro area in North America is on the verge of running out of water and we're supposed to act like there's any fucking hope?
Largest by what measurement? Area? Edit: oh shit, I had no idea a whopping 21 million people lived in the Mexico City metro area. What is the population density of that area compared to the US? Second edit: at roughly 7200 people/sq ml Mexico City proper wouldn’t even crack the top 30 in America, but the metro area at large is more dense than any singular metro area in America, from how I read the data.
Man I live in Canada and 21 million people in a city is unfathomable to me. That's more than half the population of Canada (just shy of 39 million).
fuck that
Literally, where I live now, there's 1000 people in a 1034 km2 area and that's perfect.
Yeah to us the GTA seems huge and it's only around 5.5 million spread out over several cities.
Read their second edit
Your number is out of date. We cracked 41 million a few months ago.
Really?? Jesus
If we get either a Liberal or PC government im the next election it’ll happen faster than you think
You're talking about a metro area located in one of the most arid places in North America. I understand places like Mexico City are the canary in the coalmine but given Mexico's geography and natural landscape no one should be surprised that this was not sustainable indefinitely. Lets acknowledge that some perspective is in order and that this is not as worrisome as if the Colorado River were running dry/some communities will be affected far before others. This will have knock on effects and people will migrate thereby exacerbating resource challenges in other places. Also, my general impression is that I'm not sure this sub is a place for hope. On a sliding scale TEOTWAWKI is for people who focus on prep/salvaging what quality of life they can in the final stages of collapse. Singularity and futurism are highly optimistic with no margins for dissent. Collapse seems to be dedicated to slowing down collapse and documenting it (very admirable) but also believe that all we can do is buy time at this point and that collapse is already occurring and larger collapse is inevitable, sooner rather than later. There is less emphasis in Collapse on the preparation than prepper or TEOTWAWKI/Collapse is more journalistic. I really like this sub because I get news here that is difficult to come by anywhere else. There's also a peace of mind that comes with community/validation that others also see what is happening around us ecologically/socially/geopolitically and are also concerned. EDIT: TEOTWAWKI = The End of the World as We Know It
What the hell is TEOTWAWKI and how could you expect anyone to remember that acronym LOL
The End Of The World As We Know It You'll get used to that one :)
The End Of The World As I Know It
Not as bad as r/UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG which stands for "Upvoted Not Because Girl, But Because It Is Very Cool; However, I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl"
SUPER common in the r/prepper.
Well, IRSEAEKATA. (Sorry, it's Reddit so everyone assumes everyone knows all the acronyms).
HA! :) Mea culpa! It's abbreviated in the sub name so in referencing the sub I abbreviated it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/) Sorry for not spelling it out, I have edited my original post to include it.
It's the name of the sub (The End Of The World As We Know It)! I'm sorry, I should have written it out in referencing it for the first time! I have edited my original post to include it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TEOTWAWKI/)
TANSTAAFL
I parsed it as "The end of the world as we know it", but agree with you -- dumb acronym, and I only was able to figure it based on context.
>When the local government warned that residents would have to pick up buckets of water from public collection points managed by the military, consumption plummeted. The effort to stave off a water crisis began to look like a grassroots movement, with residents sharing conservation tricks like flushing the toilet with water captured from the shower. Reduce consumption or face manually transported rationing. I like it. >“It won’t work here, because there’s a lack of confidence in the government,” he told Grist. “People don’t believe in most of what the government says, even if it’s the truth.” Mexico is just weeks away from a major election, and the incumbent leaders in Mexico City as well as the federal government have tried to downplay the water issues even as their opponents seize on it for campaign fodder. The limits of short-term politics.
Isn't Nestlé getting all their water for its bottled water business?
Coca Cola is the Nestle of Mexico.
Coca cola is also taking groundwater from Perth in Australia. It's so bad it's hysterical.
It’s fucking ridiculous, can see this being Perth’s future with our heatwaves and drought and the Coca Cola crap.
I should have said it's hysterically bad. And the government and councils just let it happen.
So grateful to be a part of the human species!
I thought Australian politicians were of a better nature, that they cared for the people.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I know, for as old as I am, still I am naive. :-(
Canada is just as bad... they let Nestlé drain 3-4 million litres a day in BC for $2.25 per million litres or less than $10 a day for close to a decade. When enough people protested, they tried to charge around $500 per million litres so Nestlé decided to leave,at least in ON rather than pay $2000 a day. I was nuts that regular households were paying $80+ a month for around 35,000 litres a month while Nestlé guzzled around 5 times that every hour.
Gotta love corporate handouts
LMAAAAOOOWWWW LMAAAOOOWWW
I predict eventually these companies will be selling water in the same bottles, with the same labels and prices, but no flavours(adding flavors impacts profits).
Nestle sold their water division after all the bad publicity
Nestle sold their North American water division after bad publicity, but only the North American division. They sold it to "Blue Triton Brands" which was a Nestle subsidiary. People realized that was still Nestle however so they ended up selling Blue Triton to Metropoulos & Co, who owns Pabst Brewing, Hostess snack foods, and Bumblebee Tuna along with many other food brands. So today it's a slightly different group of shitheads, but the Blue Triton water brands still have the Nestle branding on them (like Nestle Pure Life water) so feel free to continue hating Nestle in addition to the new group of shitheads. I promise Nestle deserves it.
They truly are one of the worst companies, ethics-wise.
From a business standpoint the only cure for bad publicity for these multinational corporations is rebranding. They get to continue their inhumane business practices (modern slavery) and profit. It’s vile there’s no accountability.
Water toxicity will kill them before water dehydration does, so in other words, the water is undrinkable, and rainwater is preferable to drink. It is sad. 😞
What rainwater?
From raining.
What rain?
freaking mind boggling the braindead people in r/travel and r/digitalnomad hyping up travel to Mexico City, completely clueless.
Is there a trend going?
i dunno but people who*just* recently discovered mexico at all feel a need to post about it as if they were the first people to have ever been
This is the worst summer so far, but the nicest summer we will ever have again. Just had that hit me at work.
That's it exactly.
I remember a story about Natives in Ecuador pouring molten gold down the throat of a corrupt Spanish governor or some such. Maybe some people need melted plastic or boiling oil poured down their throat to get the message.
Nah the gold sends better message, we cant drink money but that's all the government cares about.
Billions will die and then the rocks will start fallin from the skies on the remaining billions of starving masses trying to flee to developed nations. We need manpower to save the ecology but the rich won’t deploy it because it would tap into their wealth. It’s a knife fight in a closet where everyone is gonna get clapped.
And what good is money if you can't spend it? I cannot comprehend the thinking of really rich folks.
>I cannot comprehend the thinking of really rich folks. Whoever dies with the most toys wins?
I guess that's one way to look at it; glad that's not my thinking.
Many billionaire CEOs are psychopaths. Psychopaths don’t feel empathy for others or guilt for any harm they cause (though they can put on a good performance of remorse when needed to manipulate others). Psychopaths are motivated by obtaining power and admiration rather than love and affection. This is why they devote all of their waking hours to planning and strategizing ways to make money, get promoted, obtain positions of power and influence and they have no issues with lying, cheating or stealing to get the power they seek. They operate from their ID (immediate, base, selfish desires) rather than from their conscience. Think of their emotional development like an infant who wails to be fed, held, entertained or who will have a meltdown if someone takes away a toy they want. Whereas emotionally mature people understand that their needs aren’t more important than the needs of others and they understand that they can’t and shouldn’t always act on their every desire. On the more antisocial end of the spectrum, psychopaths will easily fly into uncontrollable rages (again, like babies and toddlers do when they don’t get their way) and often abuse their children, spouses, or even random strangers. Psychopaths are pathological liars who lie just for the fun of lying. It makes them feel powerful when they get away with lying so they’ll lie about anything and everything and sometimes they will even convince themselves that their lies are true. They absolutely cannot accept fault or blame for anything. Everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility. Other people are lying and out to get them. They are completely incapable of accepting and admitting that they’ve done something wrong, bad, devious, etc… They are also delusional and they believe that they are smarter than normal people (they see human kindness and generosity as stupidity so they would likely believe that Jesus was a complete moron for allowing himself to be nailed to the cross for instance). They also think that they are incredibly charming, lucky, and that everything will always work out for them. They don’t actually believe that they will ever get caught, punished, or suffer for their actions. Bottom line: Their brains are wired differently thanks to either genetics or childhood trauma that impacted their brain development. As a result, they enjoy taking what isn’t theirs. Some enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others. They will never admit that though. They also believe that nothing bad will ever happen to them no matter what they do. Society has allowed psychopaths (also referred to as sociopaths and currently are referred to as having Antisocial Personality Disorder) to thrive and obtain unchecked power and wealth. These people might actually WANT to see billions of people die. Some of them who earn billions from exploiting the planet’s natural resources might believe that the collapse they are causing isn’t their fault or responsibility to fix. Some of them might believe that they’ll be fine no matter what because their wealth can protect them from anything. They won’t stop unless the people and governments MAKE them stop. We aren’t dealing with people who think logically or who have any interest in anyone other than themselves.
Thank you for all that you wrote!
It's incredibly sad, could be an awful summer (to say the least)
*Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning,* *I sit around trying to smile, but the air is so heavy and dry* *Strange voices are saying things I can't understand* *It's too close for comfort, this heat has got right out of hand* *It's a cruel, cruel summer* *Leaving me here on my own* Cruel Summer - Bananarama(1983)
https://preview.redd.it/f18bp6xy9e2d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=654c3e7b099affe976cba37acedc67ea98302f63
Bet they're still watering golf courses and running bottling plants for exports I n these places.
I know people in Honduras, and they're starting to cook. It's way hotter than it usually is this time of year. Multiple days already above 105F/40C. And their power interruptions are becoming more frequent. So less mitigation of the heat. I'm afraid for them. Talk to them often about how to get them into the US. Met them on a work visa in New Orleans. I remind them that it is a sanctuary city and they won't be harassed by local law enforcement about citizenship status. But they want to do it legally. New Orleans certainly isn't the best climate refuge, but the risk of hurricanes is about equali in either place, and at least we have more air conditioning. It seems at least better for their short term survival. I'm just really worried about equatorial areas this summer.
Anyone from Mexico City able to comment?
Mass migration begins! Ifynyk!
> Ifynyk 🤔😒
If you know...you know!
Thx!
Already begun
wdysotiwiojutil?
"why do you say other than in world if other justice under then i live?" ??
What did you say over there, I wish I only just understood today’s internet lingo
wdysotiwiojutil? Why did you spell out the initial word instead of just using the initial letter. It's an older code, but it checks out.
>In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage. Coming soon enough to cities in the US
>Only in early 2018, when officials started talking in increasingly apocalyptic terms about a collapse of the municipal water system, did residents — and international media outlets — start to pay attention. Hey, look, there it is. Stop dishing out hopiun and flowery language. Start using reality describing language.
How the fuck they want family to shower together?
Not good, terrible.
The family that showers together stays alive together. 😌 Anyone else watch 90 Day Fiance and remember when Rose was hosing off Big Ed and her father in the “shower” together, and the biggest, sickest rat you’d ever seen scurried across the floor? The rats in the Philippines are terrifying.
Ya'll, there is some great info in this thread for how to get your water cleaned when without power. Obviously having the water first is a must, but it is well worth reading/watching through what a few people have linked here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CollapsePrep/s/Xt1PXNWCkX
It is very much times like these that I feel fortunate to be in the woods, on a very full well surrounded by lakes. Getting solar panels next year. Used Plug-in hybrid vehicle just purchased. My plan for self sufficiency is coming together nicely. But this is horrifying, and a whole city dealing with it.. isn’t there always a back up plan to the back up plan in government?
Where are the people likely to go? If they come to the US, I can’t see that going well. But they’ll need to go somewhere. 21 million is a lot of people to be displaced if it gets bad enough.
More wars have started over water than anything else, but it rarely is recognized. Like the way civil war in Syria broke out because of the tensions in cities from a bad drought that had farmers looking for work in the cities, and tensions rose until a kid selling fruit was killed, and the ethnic and economic tensions grew out of control. that was the spark, the fuel was the drought.
"Should we stop having so many kids?" Gosh, no! how would that help right this instant? Humanity is killing itself and won't even bother confronting the problem that underlies all other problems.
Maybe out of context but why would you not share the original Grist source and decided to instead share the ad-heavy Gizmodo version? If there's one thing that we all in this sub must certainly be sure of is that the current situation is in large part caused by corporations, but supported by the public's apparently harmless or unconscious actions. I think if we really care about this, let's at least not be that supportive of corporations and care about the smaller orgs, small biz, and root causes or sources. Ps. Not a personal attack, perhaps it was a mistake. And if not, maybe consider this next time?
Starting to sound like the latter chapters of the book *Make Room! Make Room!* by Harry Harrison, which the movie Soylent Green was based upon.
This is whack-a-doodle
Just seed clouds like UaE did lmao
I dont know why no one is recognizing your sarcasm