Free Republic

CommentaryAs I write this, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is committing cultural genocide in Tibet. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has demanded a “new modern socialist” Tibet, as well as the “sinicization” of the Tibetan people.To ensure mass compliance, the CCP has implemented a string of new policies in the supposedly autonomous region. In Tibet, banned activities and practices now include visiting temples and the use of rosary beads, or any other religious objects.According to the Policy Research Group (POREG), Beijing “has appointed special agents in each office and community to report on Tibetan cadres and officials who break these laws.”...

American researcher David Johnson has advanced a theory that Nasca Lines may be related to water. He thinks that the geoglyphs may be a giant map of the underground water sources traced on the land. The Nasca Lines are located in the Peruvian desert, about 200 miles south of Lima. The assortment of perfectly-straight lines lies in an area measuring 37 miles long and 1-mile wide... While looking for sources of water, he noticed that ancient aqueducts, called puquios, seemed to be connected with some of the lines... Johnson gave each figure a meaning: the trapezoids always point to a...

The process of coastal groundwater discharge makes it possible for humans to collect drinkable freshwater directly where it emerges at the coast of the island... "The porous volcanic soils quickly absorb rain, resulting in a lack of streams and rivers," Lipo said. "Fortunately, water beneath the ground flows downhill and ultimately exits the ground directly at the point at which the porous subterranean rock meets the ocean. When tides are low, this results in the flow of freshwater directly into the sea. Humans can thus take advantage of these sources of freshwater by capturing the water at these points." ...He...

In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Known as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle -- one that could only be solved from space. The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru -- an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society. What adds to the intrigue in the native ancient people of Nasca is how they were able to survive in...

Aboriginal people built water tunnels Judy Skatssoon ABC Science Online Wednesday, 15 March 2006 The rainbow serpent, a key Aboriginal Dreamtime creation symbol, is closely connected with Indigenous knowledge of groundwater systems (Image: Reuters) Indigenous Australians dug underground water reservoirs that helped them live on one of the world's driest continents for tens of thousands of years, new research shows. The study, which is the first of its kind, indicates Aboriginal people had extensive knowledge of the groundwater system, says hydrogeologist Brad Moggridge, knowledge that is still held today. Some 70% of the continent is covered by desert or semi-arid...

"The farms aren't just owned. They were created." The track record is that irrigation technology transfer hasn't worked; and transferred land mostly ends up lying fallow. "Let's say 15,000 farmers decide to stop farming in South Africa. That's 30,000,000 fewer meals every day."

One of the world’s largest ocean circulation systems may not be as stable as today’s weather models predict, according to a new study. In fact, changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — the same deep-water ocean current featured in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” — could occur quite abruptly, in geologic terms, the study says. The research appears in the Jan. 4 online edition of the journal Science Advances.

Progressives and the U.N. are obsessed with water, among many other things, as a way to control what people do “The water you drink today has likely been around in one form or another since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, hundreds of millions of years ago.”– National Geographic “Water which is too pure has no fish.” - Anonymous Water is life and it is recyclable, covering 70 percent of our planet; 2.5 percent is fresh water and “only 1 percent is easily accessible, the rest is trapped in glaciers and snowfields.” National Geographic noted that freshwater is in crisis because levels...

Shocking statistics surfacing about record busting, low water levels in America’s Great Lakes make no mention of the sale of fresh water supplies by private companies to China, or of President Obama’s executive order and the legal loophole which is allowing these sales. “Two of the Great Lakes have hit their lowest water levels EVER RECORDED” the US Army Corps of Engineers reported early this year. (1) Corps measurements taken in January of 2013 “show Lake Huron and Lake Michigan have reached their lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918.” The chief watershed hydrology expert warns Americans, “We’re in...

Scientists Discover Massive Freshwater Reserves Underneath The Ocean Floor Agence France Presse Dec. 5, 2013, 7:22 AM Australian researchers said Thursday they had established the existence of vast freshwater reserves trapped beneath the ocean floor which could sustain future generations as current sources dwindle. Lead author Vincent Post, from Australia's Flinders University, said that an estimated 500,000 cubic kilometres (120,000 cubic miles) of low-salinity water had been found buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa. "The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we've extracted from...

Global Warming Affects World's Largest Freshwater LakeThis well-known landmark, Shaman Rock on Lake Baikal in Russia, stands guard over an ancient lake whose pristine condition is changing quickly. (Credit: Nicholas Rodenhouse) ScienceDaily (May 1, 2008) — Russian and American scientists have discovered that the rising temperature of the world's largest lake, located in frigid Siberia, shows that this region is responding strongly to global warming. Consensus of scientists regarding global warming Drawing on 60 years of long-term studies of Russia's Lake Baikal, Stephanie Hampton, an ecologist and deputy director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in...

Windmill With A Twist Can Provide Fresh Water From Seawater DirectlyThe first prototype has been built and is already working at a location near the A13 motorway near Delft. This prototype is to be dismantled and transported to Curaçao the first week of March. There the concept will be tested on seawater. (Credit: Image courtesy of Delft University of Technology) ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2008) — A traditional windmill which drives a pump: that is the simple concept behind the combination of windmill/reverse osmosis developed by the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands. In this case, it involves...

State governments looking for ways to cope with severe drought in the Southeast should consider using nuclear power to desalinate seawater. This is a safe and proven technology that the U.S. Navy has been using for more than a half-century to provide drinking water for the crews of its nuclear-powered submarines. Until a few years ago, the water debate here in Georgia was conducted in an almost surreal atmosphere. We appeared to have sufficient supplies of water to meet our needs, and most of us seemed to feel that this state of affairs would continue indefinitely. By definition, miracles do...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Mada'in Qada Mayor Abu Bahar and al-Huda village's Sheik Shanno cut a ribbon, marking the opening of a new fresh-water well pumping station in al-Huda Sept. 23. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, along with the Nahia council, members of local Iraqi Security Forces, the Qada mayor and members of the village, attended the ceremony. The project started in July and ended with the pumping station opening 72 days later. The well system is comprised of a gated building, a 40-meter well, four 5,000-gallon water storage tanks, a water...

Locating desalination facilities next to coastal power generators could extend the use of intakes that kill marine life, environmentalists say. Standing tall on the seashore, the AES power plant, with its naked steel frame, has long been a generator of electricity in Huntington Beach and a killer of marine life. For decades, environmentalists have looked forward to the day when AES and other aging coastal power plants would close, eliminating the cooling water pipes that suck in and destroy tons of fish, seals, crustaceans, larvae and microorganisms every year. But a renewed interest in using old generating stations as bases...

Three Gorges Dam, Chinese Pollution Threatens to Turn West Sea into ‘Dead Sea’ With China’s construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangzi River and rapid construction of industrial complexes in China’s eastern regions, some are pointing out that the West Sea (Yellow Sea) could soon become a “Dead Sea” as contaminated materials flow into the body of water. When construction on the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009, the amount of fresh water emptying into the West Sea from the Yangzi River would diminish and raise the salinity of the sea, bringing about changes in ecology. With...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The new socialist government in Spain has renounced a bitterly contested project to divert water from the country's largest river basin in the north to the parched south-east, saying it would build desalination plants instead. The country's most important ecological group, Ecologistas En Accion, welcomed the scrapping of what it called the "pharaonic" water plan, a pet project of the previous conservative government that was strongly supported by the construction industry. The group said the government still had not learned that what the dry Mediterranean coast of Spain needs is not...

UN Embarks on International Year of Freshwater 2003 NEW YORK, New York, December 12, 2002 (ENS) – Today, four out of every 10 people worldwide live in areas experiencing water scarcity. By 2025, as much as two thirds of the world’s population – an estimated 5.5 billion people - may be living in countries that face a water shortage. To address this crucial issue, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2003 the International Year of Freshwater. “Lack of access to water – for drinking, hygiene and food security – inflicts enormous hardship on more than a billion members...

Watchdog says Great Lakes cleanup going too slow MONTREAL - Canada and the United States are moving too slowly to clean up the five Great Lakes to ensure that the vast freshwater system remains safe for drinking, swimming and fishing, an international watchdog agency said. In its biennial report, the International Joint Commission, an independent body formed to make policy recommendations to Ottawa and Washington, said the two countries are making only slow progress on their pledge to restore and maintain the chemical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin. Herb Gray, former Canadian deputy prime minister and...

Please note: The Silver City Daily Press apparently doesn't create titles for Mr. Miller's column. So to convey some indication of the topic of this thread, I had to make up my own title.For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SANTA FE — "Whiskey's fer drinkin'; water's fer fightin'." Those words are as true today as they were in the Old West. And it's not just in the arid West that we fight over water. It happens throughout most of the world. Forty percent of the Earth's population is faced with severe shortages of safe, fresh water. That...