I know we need to conserve water and such but why? Doesn’t it eventually flow back into the ground or evaporated and rained back down regardless of how it’s consumed, so it’s a cycle? Do we lose a bit per cycle?
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We won’t run out of water. What we can run out of is cheap drinkable water and and cheap irrigation water. You can’t use salty water for irrigation, nor drink it, without a lot of processing that costs money. There is a certain amount of water available from natural cycles that we can use, but if we use more than that we have to spend money processing less suitable water. So just imagine the cost of water doubles. That impacts not only usage at home, but also the cost of nearly all food. So if we can fit our usage into the natural cycle, things are cheaper and easier.
That said, I feel like this ship has sailed. I don’t see mankind fitting within the natural cycle indefinitely. So we’re going to have to get better at water processing. Huge scale desalination is going to be super important over the next 50-100 years.
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