3M More Atlantans By 2050 Would Push Us To The Brink. Oh Yeah, And Where’s The Water?
Prepare to get really, really, cozy in Metro Atlanta.
The Atlanta Regional Commission predicts an addition 2.9 million people could move to Atlanta by 2050. That’s the equivalent population of Denver.
We’ll also have a substantially less white metropolitan area (47.5% now down to 31% if the forecasts are correct) with a total population of 8.9 million. So maybe this year isn’t as do-or-die as some idiotic pundits have written.
But here’s the rub for me: where’s the water going to come from for all those people? Until we finish the Tennessee invasion, there’s not really enough sources of freshwater (that life-giving substance).
Consider the lack of water when The AJC reports:
This amount of quick growth is usually only seen in places where people are being displaced by things like drought or war, said Joseph F. Hacker, a public management professor in Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.
“It’s going to press Atlanta for everything it’s worth,” he said. “This is enormously unusual, which means that the usual solutions will not make sense. And we may not be able to get out ahead of it.”
Yet another reason to be thankful I’m not in public office: I don’t have a clue how to guide the city and state with these existential challenges.
Good luck to us all.
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We are sorry Dade County is at the Exit 111 festival right now. At the tone please leave a message and we will gladly tap into the Tennessee River and pump the water uphill to Atlanta when we return.
Climate change deniers cite anecdotal past incorrect depleting resource prognostications ad nauseam as evidence of no worries.
By 2050, Atlanta won’t be the only place in need of water. Atlanta relies on surface waters so the existing supply is more or less assured. Not the case where aquifers are being pumped down.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/groundwater-decline-and-depletion?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects
Maybe the Ross Ice shelf will have broken loose and can be towed to Savannah Halloween being less than three weeks away is license for grim humor.
I’m sure the climate deniers can chime in with several solutions:
Keep those pesky immigrants out including most Yankees.
Just drink wine.
Use Brawndo® instead of water cuz its got electrolytes…