Braulio - 8-8-2003 at 10:10 AM
Hola -
I've always thought that desalination technology is one of the things that would eventually change Baja drastically - probably for the worse - because
it would only increase the development of tourism and not other industries like agriculture.
Anyway the California Coastal Commision has come out with some thoughts on what effects this new technology will have on the CA coastline. I'm not
enamored with the source here but I think the mesage is an important one for Baja.
I understand the City of Oceanside is getting about 40% of it's water from desalination - maybe Dr. Agua would have some comments here.
Here's a link:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=718...
Chau muchachos.
Braulio
The future is HERE and it's gettin' scarey
Stephanie Jackter - 8-8-2003 at 05:32 PM
Desalinization is but one of the many technologies that seem to hold lots of promise for the salvation of mankind, but have a potential downside that
could destroy us.
We have gotten so used to the idea of economic growth being the whole reaon for our being, that we are accepting new technologies such as genetically
modified agricultural products with no regard whatsoever as to what the long term effects of those productts will be three generations from now.
I don't fear for the planet, as it will eventually right itself no matter what mistakes we make in the short term, but I fear for all the living
creatures that currently live here, especially my own kind. Instead of using the resources our planet provides conservatively, we are peeing them
away and laying the burden on the next genration to try to fix it all with technology. It's a bet that I don't want to make.
Forgive the pessimism, but I think realism more describes it. I've bee going to all of my favorite beaches the last couple of months in La Paz and
they are all degraded in just the couple of years since I last saw them. Crap on the beaches(literally), garbage floating up to the shore on a scale
I've never seen, and a fishing stock that has been depleted so much that snorkelling is becoming more of a depressing activity than the total joy it
was in the past. People are harvesting the sea at breakneck speed and leaving little behind in their wake.
The earth wan't built in a century but I strongly believe it may take less time than that for us to destroy that aspect of it that keeps us alive.
Technologies like desalinization will turn out to be a quick fix which serves to artificially augment populations where they have reached their
natural limits but will leave those same populations "high and dry" in the wake of the environmental toll they take in the long run.- Stephanie