David Bowman
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Remember how the pandemic proved that people will work from home if you trust them to work from home?
Next up: the 4-day work week:
Funny thing: people on a 4-day work week are more productive and happier.
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Bring it, I’m ready for the 32 hour week.
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I’m assuming it’s four 10-hr days, not 32 hrs.
4 10’s are pretty common in the wine industry, especially between the end of Harvest and beginning of the growing season.
No. It’s four 8-hour days, not the nine-80 thing.
Hopefully the US is catching up to most of the first world who know that there are huge benefits to having employees who aren’t frazzled to fuck by a wholly unhealthy work/life balance.
I used to work for a company in London that gave all employees a minimum of 4 weeks vacation, and required everyone to take a 2-week vacation every year. The benefit to the employee was clear, but the company also got an audit benefit, in that any shenanigans were likely to surface with the miscreant out of the office for two weeks.
There is strong, enduring evidence to the contrary.
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Not the 9/80 thing, the 4/10 thing. That’s the option I’m seeing becoming available. We do the 9/80, and I wish we had the option of the 4/10. I don’t ever see a 32-hour work week going mainstream in the US, at least not in our lifetimes. I do get more vacation than I know what to do with, though.
One might say there’s a metric ton of evidence.
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Has anybody else read this?
For years I’ve been a graywater skeptic owing to the simplistic notion that there’s just as much water on Earth today as there was about three billion years ago. This (my skepticism) in spite of having read a deeply affecting essay in Harper’s a long time ago about the depletion of the Ogalalla aquifer. But now I’ve gone and got the shit scared out of me. I’m remembering that the somewhat autistic hedge fund manager Christian Bale played in The Big Short–according to the book and movie’s afterword on that guy–went on, after successfully predicting the demolition of the U.S. housing market, to shorting water.
Gulp.
I would flat love it if some of you smarty pants could make me feel better about this.
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Piece of cake. Just watch Mad Max.
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Question: is there just as much freshwater, or is it more tilted towards saltwater?
I blame the Evian/Dasani industrial complex.
I can’t read the article, it’s behind a paywall, but…in the scientific sense, you are correct, the number of water molecules on earth essentially doesn’t change. So are we running out of water? In the elemental sense, no. But what you’re really concerned about is the availability of that water in a usable form, so in the practical sense…yeah, sort of. Fresh water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource, especially in areas where historic groundwater usage has depleted existing fresh-water aquifers. The aforementioned Ogallala aquifer in West Texas alone has dropped nearly 100 ft in the last 80 years, and that’s with avoiding T. Boone Pickens’ hairbrained “windmill scam”. Since the recharge for that aquifer is up in Kansas and Nebraska, if they stopped pumping now it would take several thousand years to recharge. Areas of New Mexico and Arizona, for example, which have limited surface water and rely almost exclusively on groundwater as a fresh-water resource, are running on fumes, so to speak. Even in areas like Houston, which typically gets more than its share of rainfall, excessive groundwater withdrawal has led to major issues with ground subsidence, and we’ve been mandated to get off of groundwater. Then there is contamination of fresh water from industrial activity. We’re dealing with a lot of shit. There is, of course, the ability to treat both contaminated water and sea water, plus grey water recycling is an option. But those options are comparatively expensive, and we’d have to get past the idea of using treated sewage in the drinking fountain. So while the idea of trading water as a commodity is not as crazy as it sounds, it’s also not like there are no options. They’re just expensive options. That will rely on electricity. Where that comes from is a whole nuther discussion. I’m not sure that made you feel any better.
It didn’t. You basically recapitulated the article.
I thank you all the same for your thoughtful and comprehensive response.
Like I said, I couldn’t read the article. But it appears it’s mostly accurate. What is giving you heartburn, exactly?
The idea of people running out of drinking water. Of the economic ramifications of housing collapses brought about by the ruination of water tables. Of interstate refugee crises as rural townships’ wells run dry. Of the world dealing with the fallout of running into a hard cap on human population.
Those kinds of things.
But maybe we attain fusion power before all that stuff happens and mass desalination becomes available / affordable?
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in my view, the most important thing in the world is vast amounts of clean electricity. So much that it’s economic to do anything. Industrial rates at $0.02 / KWH or less. With enough electricity, you can do anything. You can make food from air with enough electricity, you can make gasoline or diesel from air with enough electricity, and you can get all the water necessary with enough electricity.
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I wouldn’t worry about running out in general, just the cost, but as energy gets cheaper, even that worry should abate. However, areas dependent on groundwater will be in more trouble, as it will cost more to transport it to them, as they run out.
Also, we waste so much, and there’s a huge amount of potential savings in changing the ways we use it.
You basically nailed it. Cheap enough energy, and we could theoretically turn West Texas into an agriculture hub.