What is Drying up the World's Rivers?

A recent CNN article titled “The World's Rivers are Drying Up from Extreme Weather. See How 6 Look from Space” purports to argue that rivers -- for example, the Colorado, Yangtze, Rhine, Po, Loire, and Danube -- are dwindling due to “a painful lack of rain and relentless heat waves.” The article concludes that “the human-caused climate crisis is fueling extreme weather across the globe,” which is responsible for making these rivers shrink in both length and breadth and, potentially, become virtually impassable.

While it is true that these rivers are indeed in low-flow conditions, it has long been argued that floods, droughts, and streamflow are driven by several factors in addition to precipitation. Yes, a lack of precipitation over an extended period of time will likely cause low flows in the area’s rivers. But it is not necessarily true that the existence of low flows indicates that a lack of precipitation was the culprit. Humans need water not just to survive, but to carry out a variety of water-intensive industries including paint and coating manufacturing, paper mills, wineries, and pesticide and other agricultural chemical manufacturing, for example. Agriculture too has a high demand for water, and the simple increase in population may tax existing water supplies.

So, it is unrealistic to simply assume that low flows in the six rivers upon which the CNN article focuses are caused by a lack of rainfall and the “relentless heat waves” that have supposedly swept the planet. In fact, the usual mantra from the climate alarmists is that rainfall will increase, not decrease.

“There is as much air and water on this planet and in our atmosphere as there was on the day God created it.”

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

I had great-great grandparents that homesteaded in NM in the 20’s, and great-grandparents that were doing well in Montana who decided, out of family solidarity, to join them.

Family lore notes that NM is very good for growing sand (eventually most of the family packed it in for Oregon), and that it is very difficult to build a soddy using sand. The experience brings to mind the line from Monty Python’s “The Four Yorkshiremen”: “We were evicted from our hole in the ground.”

Unfortunately Oregon is even more infested with leftists of the California variety.

Semantics. It also says the springs of the earth burst forth meaning that water also came up out of the ground which is weird.

But, that reminds me that there is probly just as much water right under our feet in underground aquifers and whatnot that there is in our rivers and lakes.

That's where we get our water. We have a well in our back yard. And it's not even all that deep. 50 or 60 feet.

Even with this so-called drought we are supposedly in here in Northern Commiefornia, our water table is still at 98%. It fluctuates but not by very much.

“Semantics.”

—————————Water did not come sky-———————

7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.

8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

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