Is Our Civilization Destined to Collapse Like Maya?

A major drought occurred about the time the Maya began to disappear. And at the time of their collapse, the Maya had cut down most of the trees across large swaths of the land to clear fields for growing corn to feed their burgeoning population. They also cut trees for firewood and for making building materials.

“We modeled the worst and best case scenarios: 100 percent deforestation in the Maya area and no deforestation,” says Sever. “The results were eye opening. Loss of all the trees caused a 3-5 degree rise in temperature and a 20-30 percent decrease in rainfall.”

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It’s year four of the California drought. Remote communities have already run out of water. The governor just announced aggressive water restrictions. But what will happen to the state if the drought doesn’t end?

The possibility of a megadrough, lasting 25 years or longer, is actually more than likely in California. The last 150 years have been unusually wet, and at a few earlier points in history, the state had droughts lasting more than a century. NASA predicts that a decades-long drought will be even more likely to happen this century thanks to climate change.

It’s no big secret that the availability of potable water is becoming a huge issue on our planet. If you want to put it into perspective, less than 1 percent of the water on the planet is drinkable by humans.

It’s estimated that per-person water use is about 100 gallons of water per day when you consider drinking, bathing, cleaning, watering plants, etc. So water shortage is a real concern, especially if something were to happen to the public water supply.
I recently read a guide titled World War Water and it was packed with useful information. The guide begins by explaining exactly why we should be concerned about depending upon public utilities for our water. Most of our public water systems were only built to last about 50 years and we’re at the end of that lifecycle.

Related: The Hunger Wars In Our Future: Heat, Drought, Rising Food Costs, Global Unrest

Related: NASA: World Is Running Out of Water