For years, off and on, I've seen scare stories about
running out of water. Broadly, the situation is
really simple: In some parts of the world, water
suitable for humans and/or agriculture is scarce,
but in other parts of the world such water is
plentiful. In simplest terms, if are concerned
about water, then don't live in a desert.

For me, no worries, mate: I live in the US 70 miles
north of Wall Street, and my water comes from a well
in my front yard. There's an electric pump at the
bottom of the well, and everything's fine. I have
no swimming pool, but my neighbors on both sides do,
and they have similar wells. We have no water
shortage at all. Indeed, each spring there's enough
melted snow and rain to totally soak the ground with
the excess water running off into, no doubt, the
Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean.

Is it good water? It seems fine. I have a filter
in the line; the filter is some tube about a foot
long and 2 inches in diameter, sometimes of some
foam and other times a bunch of thread wrapped
tightly. The water flows through the tube, and any
little pits of dirt, gravel, etc. get filtered out.
I have a supply of about a half-dozen new filters,
and I replace a filter about once each two years
whether needed or not.

Yes, the water is totally saturated with CaCO3, that
is, calcium carbonate. No worries, mate.
Everything in my kitchen is nice and clean with no
sign of CaCO3 deposits. Hot water coils? Yup,
since hot water dissolves CaCO3 less well than cold
water, I get CaCO3 deposits in the hot water coils.
So, maybe twice a year I use some HCl, a drill pump,
and two garden hoses to clean out the CaCO3 from the
hot water coils. Of course the reaction generates
CaCL2 and CO2. No biggie.

For the water I use, it's not really lost but
goes to my septic tank. Right, no sewer and just a
backyard septic tank instead. What comes out of the
septic tank goes into a drain field in my backyard
and, then, no doubt helps keep the backyard moist.
Some of that water likely leaks into a stream that
runs past the back of the property, and the stream
no doubt soon ends up in the Hudson River. No
worries, mate.

So, I pay nothing for the drinking water and nothing
for sewer.

Trash? Paper and plastic I burn in the fireplace.
Bottles and cans I accumulate and occasionally, once
each few years, make a midnight deposit in a
dumpster someplace.

Those bottles and cans causing a gigantic pile up of
trash that is covering the globe, as has been
claimed by other alarmists? Nope: Instead what I
dump is a very high grade aluminum mine.

The article is more from the Alarmist Industry.
The theme is: Humans are evil. They are all
sinners. They are greedy, filthy, and wasteful.
They are committing sinful, destructive, dangerous,
short-sighted transgressions against the 100%
pure, pristine, precious, delicate, sensitive,
beautiful natural environment of Mother Nature.
This transgression will led to just horrible
retribution as just payback from injured, angry
Mother Nature. The only course is redemption via
sacrifice, discipline, denial, conservation, and
more in costs, taxes, regulations, etc.

Uh, where have we heard this trilogy, this line,
before? How about 1000 years ago in the English
morality plays? It's called a guilt trip,
exploiting the vulnerability of people to become
afraid of dangers from the unknown. Laying on such
a guilt trip has been a favorite scam of charlatans
for at least 1000 years.

No doubt one of the reasons for The Age of Reason
was to have means to separate truth from
superstitions and fears based on ignorance.

Yes, Virginia, there really are some dangers. And
we need to understand such dangers and do something
effective about them. Dangers? Ebola, if we are
not careful. Polio unless we take vaccines
seriously or just eliminate the virus from the
environment. Similarly for several other diseases
for which we have good vaccines. In some locations,
earthquakes. In some locations, hurricanes. In
some locations, blizzards. In some locations, water
shortages.

And, now, with the media, in all locations, alarmist
charlatans using misleading nonsense to try to grab
us by the gut, make us afraid, create a flim-flam,
fraud scam, and get on our backs and into our
pockets, all as their career. Apparently there is
a big industry for such. And, of course, the media
like such stories -- screaming "danger!" -- to get
eyeballs for ad revenue.

Virginia, it's a scam, exploiting ignorance. Broadly
the solution is knowledge, education, and
rationality.

Here, let's call a scam what it is and try to push
back against such destructive nonsense.

So, this article is from the NYT. Okay, for years
I've concluded that the NYT can't pass up an
opportunity to try to get their (sucker!) readers up
on their hind legs by running scare stories about
the sky is falling. So, I long ago gave up on the
NYT being rational or responsible. Emotional? Yes.
Even paranoid? Yes. Rational? No. If they were
rational and responsible, then many of their stories
with a lot of eyeballs would go away. But, also,
due to their nonsense, I went away. So, back in the
days of paper, I refused to have their trash in the
house, even for free. Now the NYT is running
stories of wide variety, and maybe some of the
stories have some okay, rational, informational
content. Maybe.

But the NYT, from their long standard goal of
grabbing people by the heart, the gut, and below the
belt, always below the shoulders, rarely between the
ears, has left me so pissed off I just can't take
them seriously.

Clearly the NYT understands formula fiction, that
is, sympathetic White Hat protagonists facing
danger, dangerous Black Hats threatening the White
Hats, with strong issues of morality, etc. So, the
NYT takes whatever they can find and presents it
using the techniques of formula fiction. Long ago,
my brother had an English prof who just asserted
that the news is mostly from just the techniques
of formula fiction. Informing the readers is not
the goal. Instead the goal is ad revenue from
eyeballs from grabbing people emotionally by the
heart, gut, and below the belt.

Long ago one of the news anchors on one of the three
major TV networks explained that the evening news
was not healthy for viewers because it got the
viewers highly concerned about things they could do
nothing about. Not a full description of what is
wrong with the media but a description of part of
it.

We gotta push back against this nonsense.

NYT, here's some feedback for you: Your content is
alarmist, wildly overly emotional, irrational,
irresponsible, and frustrating; you just piss me
off; and mostly I just will refuse to pay attention
to your stuff. You can keep writing that nonsense,
but I will rarely read it. And, as a matter of
principle, I will just never pay for that nonsense.
And, as here, in public I will push back against
your nonsense. Did I mention your nonsense? I
don't want to leave out that I regard nearly
everything you write as nonsense or worse. You are
getting this?