Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis
UNITED NATIONS - When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his primary focus was not on the impending global economic recession but on the world’s growing water crisis.
“A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future,” he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and leaders from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations.
“Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon,” he warned.
Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, says the lack of safe drinking water for over 1.0 billion people worldwide, and the lack of safe sanitation for over 2.5 billion, “is an acute and devastating humanitarian crisis.”
“But this is a crisis of management, not a water crisis per se, because it is caused by a chronic lack of funding and inadequate understanding of the need for sanitation and good hygiene at the local level,” Berntell told IPS.
He said: “This can and must be fixed through improved governance and management, and increased funding, and sustained efforts to achieve the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and adequate water and sanitation.
A U.N. study released on the eve of World Water Day Mar. 22 says the lack of safe drinking water is not confined to the world’s poorer nations; it also threatens over 100 million Europeans.
The result: nearly 40 children in Europe, mostly in Eastern Europe, die every day due to a water-related disease: diarrhoea.
In Eastern Europe, about 16 percent of the population still does not have access to drinking water in their homes, while in rural areas, over half of all people suffer from the lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.
“The world water crisis is definitely very bad, particularly because it deals with mismanagement of water and how governments have failed to secure the involvement of local communities in the management of water,” says Sunita Narain, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, and the 2005 winner of the prestigious annual Stockholm Water Prize.
“We, as societies, have failed to use small amounts of water for bringing large productivity gains,” she said.
However, today the world water crisis faces yet another challenge — one of climate change, Narain told IPS.
“And it is this challenge which the world is completely failing to do anything about, and which will jeopardise the water security of large numbers of people, who already live on the margins of survival,” she declared.
Responding to a question, Berntell admitted there is a “world water crisis” judging by the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
And this, he said, “in a world which has the financial wealth and technical wherewithal to solve these twin scandals”.
“We must find better ways to manage water resources, in so far as water pollution is concerned, and to meet the food requirements of a human population which will expand by over 3.0 billion people in 2050.”
“We also must meet the water-climate challenge. Everything could become much more desperate and severe in the future if the proper steps are not taken,” he added.
So, it is important, Berntell argued, to make a distinction between the water resource crisis — which is primarily caused by an overexploitation of water resources for agricultural and industrial use, as well as pollution — and the water service and sanitation crisis.
In a statement released Wednesday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are now polluted to the brink of their collapse.
“The Yangtze, China’s longest river, is cancerous with pollution due to untreated agriculture and industrial waste,” IUCN warned
Meanwhile, arguing that water shortages will drive future conflicts, the U.N. secretary-general says the slaughter in Darfur — described as “genocide” by the United States — was triggered by global climate change.
“It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought,” Ban said. When Darfur’s land was rich, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water.
With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing. “For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out,” he said.
“Water is a classic common property resource. No one really owns the problem. Therefore, no one really owns the solution,” he declared.
Asked if the United Nations and the international community are doing enough to help resolve the problem or even draw attention to it, Narain told IPS: “Definitely there has been an attempt over the last few years to understand both the nature of the crisis as well as to draw attention to it.”
“However, I believe that the international community’s understanding of what needs to be done to resolve the water crisis has been both weak as well as misplaced.”
The reason, she pointed out, “is that the international community does not understand water and how it affects local communities and, therefore, the United Nations and the international community is looking for quick fix technological solutions to what is primarily a governance issue.”
Berntell took a different perspective. “Unquestionably,” he said, “water, and in particular sanitation, remain far too low on the international agenda.”
Access to clean water and sanitation underpin all human development efforts, and water issues are central to climate change adaptation and sustainable development. “But much more needs to be done to address the spectrum of challenges,” he told IPS.
The U.N. system, and the “UN-Water” collaborative effort in particular, works extremely hard and well and is consistently improving its efforts to better coordinate and make more effective its work, he said.
The U.N.’s declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation has catalysed increased action and attention to critical health and hygiene issues this year, Berntell added.
“Still, the U.N. must strengthen its efforts to coordinate its monitoring and reporting. They cannot afford to continue delivering too many reports on overlapping issues at the same time.”
A good starting point, he said, would be the “five ones” identified by Britain: one annual global monitoring report; one high-level global ministerial meeting on water; at country level, one national plan for water and sanitation; one coordinating body; and activities of U.N. agencies on water and sanitation to be coordinated by one lead body under the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and its country plan.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
this is not news………..they’ve been saying this for aeons.
Hi ~CoCo~, good to see you are still kicking. You may correctly spell “aeon” __ “eon” also. Of course Aeon is more intellectual.
There are far too many articles being published here at CD now to get a decent thread going and learn from one another and here it’s Thursday and last Thursday’s thru Sunday’s threads are not even in the archives, they just disappeared. This site is not the same as it was three months ago.
Climate change and global warming are two seperate subjects, however the dramatic climate changes which will continue, are due to global warming.
Will we humans correct it? I don’t believe we will, so therefore eat drink and be merry because we don’t have a lot of time left here to smell the roses. As many have noted on other such, almost ignored threads, the Arctic methane gas will “burp” out into the atmosphere and when it does we are finished.
That disaster may occur in less than five years, or it may not occur for twenty or more, either time limit is not long, so have fun and be as nice as possible to your children.
I’ve said this many times at CD: Wars will be fought over fresh water before 2050. The US is now conducting extensive military planning and preparation for this.
The water wars will make the energy wars seem small.
KEM PATRICK
well, i have been wondering where you got to too………..
and speaking of methane, did you see they have discovered methane in a very distant part of the universe? but they added there was no life there and the temperatures were very, very, very hot with no water to boot. and yes, there are so many articles now (some in the same vein) that it becomes difficult to follow. maybe it’s a communist plot………
Maybe the Lizard is doing it Coco?
2050? We won’t even be here by 2050, I give us ten years max, based upon what I have read about the Arctic methane gas.
KEM PATRICK
i agree with you on 2050. it will take a miracle to put the water back the way it used to be. already people have killed each other over water rights in remote places in asia. and all around the world millions of gallons is wasted every day on stupid golf courses………….
KEM and coco - glad to hear from you. I’ve been off too for awhile but back on again. But please don’t knock CD too much - it’s all we’ve got. Sure it’s over-loaded - but that’s good news, not bad. Means more and more people (especially people who write articles) are seeing the light.
About water, the world is already in a crisis. And since nothing will really be done about it your prediction about 2050 is probably way too optimistic.
A TIME FOR EVERY SEASON
A Climate of Fear
First let me say that unless George W. Bush and his fascist regime are eliminated, the issue of global climate change, and many others crucial to human survival, will remain unresolved. Because of his corporate loyalty, emission of greenhouse gases will only increase. If Bush is not expelled now we will be stuck with him as dictator for many years to come. I do not believe he will surrender power in 2008. In fact, I seriously doubt there will be an election.
For those of you who believe that global environmental issues are something you don’t need to think about, I have a small experiment you can try that might serve to enlighten you.
Hop in your 10-mpg SUV and motor on down to that most magnificent monster of monuments to capitalism, your local WalMart, and buy yourself a fishbowl. Not an aquarium, just a regular, little old goldfish bowl.
Then, so you’ll have a reason for owning a fishbowl, purchase 5 or 6 of the least expensive goldfish you can find there. Get a little fish food while you’re at it. You won’t need much.
Take it all home, fill the bowl with water and toss in the fish. Feed them as often as required. That’s all. Don’t do anything else. Don’t clean or replace the water. Don’t use any pumps or filters. Just leave the fish, whatever waste they produce and the water.
Watch what happens to your new finny friends. Before too long they’ll all be floating belly up in the stinking, poisonous mess their fishbowl environment has become. This planet we live on, Earth in case you’re unsure, is our fishbowl. It’s just as finite and just as easily poisoned as that bowl of dead goldfish.
Even if the radical changes to global climate, which we’re already beginning to see, weren’t an issue at all, the destruction of the environment that allows us to exist would still have to be stopped!
If you couldn’t connect with the poor dead goldfish try this.
If I put you in a closed room, pump out the air and replace it with poison gases, you will die! This should be a simple enough concept for most to grasp. Should be.
Earth is, in effect, our closed room.
Forests produce 40% of the oxygen for our room. 50% comes from the oceans via phytoplankton photosynthesis. That’s 90% of what we need to breath, to stay alive in our room.
We are clear-cutting forests and killing phytoplankton like there’s no tomorrow. There may not be. There are no alternative sources for the oxygen we’re losing. This in not an opinion or a theory, it is a fact.
We are pumping the air out of our room.
We are driving millions upon millions of vehicles spewing millions and millions of tons of poison gases into our room. We are burning billions of barrels of oil and billions of tons of coal, spewing more millions of tons of poison gases into our room.
We are filling our room with poison gases.
Now remember how this works. We are in a closed room. We are pumping out the air and filling the room with poison gases. Remember what will happen if we do this? We will die!
Air goes out, poison gases come in and humans die. It’s a no-brainer.
What part of this don’t you understand?
So, even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about global warming, you still need to breathe!
But, really, if you asked all the climatologists, and scientists in related fields, if global climate change was being caused or profoundly exacerbated by human activity and 99.5% said “absolutely, unequivocally yes” and the rest said “no, we don’t think so”, what would you honestly believe? By the way, would it matter that the .5% who said no all took money from oil companies? I didn’t think so.
The irrefutable scientific data is very nice and all but, come on, this is just simple common sense. If you can see, if your nose still works at all, if your ears are still receiving any sound and you are capable of anything that requires more critical thinking than watching American Idol, you know that we’ve really screwed up the global climate. Even the Media Propaganda Machine has to go with exciting disaster stories. It sells copy. If it bleeds it leads. Hypocrisy never stopped them anyway. It’s a little funny listening to them sensationalize the suffering caused by the effects of climate change out of one side of their mouth and then denying it exists out of the other.
There are so many crucial environmental issues to be addressed that I wouldn’t even try to list them all here. The levels of poisons in the air, oceans, soil and water are overwhelming. There are probably mountains of books that have been written. Just do a search for pollution, or environmental destruction or anything like that. You’ll get about 87 zillion hits. Of the 87 zillion maybe 10 will say that pollution is not a problem.
Foods that were once the healthiest are now unsafe for human consumption. There are virtual epidemics in children of autism, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders greatly exacerbated, more likely directly caused, by the introduction of high levels of mercury through contaminated food sources and even the injection of vaccines with mercury preservatives.
The bodies of average Americans are contaminated with 100 or more separate pollutants that are linked to immune system degradation, disease initiation, neural damage and more.
There is a smorgasbord of cancers to choose from; at least one for every tissue and organ in the body. Brain, blood, stomach, liver, lungs, bones, colon, you name it we’ve got it! These cancers are rampant in modern humans but intensive studies of ancient remains dating from 5,300 B.C. to the mid-19th century show little or no evidence of indicators common in modern skeletal remains.
There’s a list of food additives, dyes and preservatives, longer than the list of cancers, which are poisoning everyone who isn’t starving.
The production and distribution of these poisons rely on the destruction of forest for agriculture, mining, and infrastructure, plus the burning of hydrocarbons. Wheels within wheels. These are the two paramount causes for the extended period of global warming we are currently experiencing. It has actually been going on for around eight thousand years, when some of us stopped living as nomads. Gosh, that’s longer than some of you believe the Earth has existed! Go figure. Nevertheless, a preponderance of evidence indicates that the beginning of the agricultural era, which required the clearing of large forested tracts, was also the beginning of the steadily increasing, human induced greenhouse effect that may well end our meddlesome existence. Earth naturally experiences cycles of heating and cooling. All evidence available tells us we should now be cooling. Our “contribution” to our environment has broken the normal cycle and has us locked in the warming mode.
As a species, we are committing suicide plain and simple. Why? Because that’s generally what any addict is doing. We Americans are seriously addicted and I don’t mean to oil. That’s just a symptom of our technology jones. Making our techno gadgets, powering them, delivering them, all depend on fossil fuel, oil, hydrocarbons. We’re like a heroin addict who’s also an alcoholic.
So, we’re fouling our fishbowl, gassing our room, poisoning our bodies and assuring our extinction as a species because we’re junkies. Like most addicts we’re also deniers. If it were learned tomorrow, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that our ipods, cell phones, or whatever, were killing us, we’d simply ignore that bothersome bit of information and get on with our mindless quest for self-extermination. If we were told we’d have to give up any of these goodies we’d go totally ballistic. We’d put up much more of a fight over losing our gadgets than we did over losing the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus and the Constitution!
How do people become addicts? Well, there’s usually another player involved. A term that’s been commonly used for many decades is Pusher. This is a form of parasite masquerading as a human. The Pusher usually coaxes the user with a sales pitch promising great things. If you think about it though, the pusher/parasite is just another kind of addict hooked on the wealth and power provided by the host/victim. Who is the Pusher for America’s technology fix? Free Market Capitalism. The parasitic corporations that suck their life from the body of the masses. A parasite is something that is dependent on a substance it gets from its host to survive.
Par•a•site
n.
1. Biology An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
An addict and a parasite actually have a lot in common. Both rely on another “organism” to provide what they need. Both are assuring their own destruction through mutual enabling.
Now this begins to be interesting. We have two groups of addicts, each one dependent on the other for what it needs to satisfy the unsatisfiable. Consumers hooked on corporate poisons, corporate parasites dependant on the wealth/power fix they get from consumers. It almost seems like poetic justice. It’s actually a form of Mutually Assured Destruction without “nookuler” weapons. It’s a negative biomechanical feedback loop, helluva thing! I just made that up but it sounds pretty good doesn’t it? You can see however that, taking this mutual addiction to its logical extreme, the two groups will eventually cancel each other out. The parasite kills its host thereby killing itself. It’s a zero sum game for both participants. Nobody wins.
It has to stop. It will kill us all eventually. Our planet will have to adopt a new paradigm; Earth without people. It will probably be a much more balanced, functional and beautiful place.
Renewable, environmentally sane, alternative energy sources must be put into use immediately on a global scale. Things that don’t have to be burned to produce power. Not in five years or ten years or sometime this century but RIGHT NOW! If this means that stock markets will crash then so be it. If this means that rapacious, criminal, multi-national corporations that profit from death must die themselves, by all means, make it so. If this means an end to the invisible hand of the market, the complete and utter destruction of “Free Market Capitalism” then what the hell are we waiting for? This fictitious “tide that lifts all ships” of “free” market economics is the single most significant cause of the crises we face.
If we trashed this system today, following some sort of global epiphany and spontaneous social revolution, there would be great chaos and suffering, but we would survive. If we continue on our present, suicidal course the human race will become extinct. Which do you think will come first?
The human race, if it is to survive, must consciously take the next step in it’s own evolution. We must grow up, abandon our lust for wealth and power, and become civilized for the first time. We must do it NOW! This is not a subject for debate, it is an evolutionary imperative.
Unfortunately, unless the corporatized fascist propaganda machine of the mainstream media can be nationalized and turned to public service, it is unlikely that the needed changes will come in time. There must be a MASSIVE information explosion and it has to be aimed at “markets” just as all “selling” is done today. Society has been trained over generations to respond to such advertising and, sadly it seems, people won’t consume anything that hasn’t been “sold” to them. The problem is that those who own the means to get the message out are the ones who would rather shoot the messenger. Their own personal wealth and power, in the here and now, are more important than the survival of the human race.
Documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth or The 11th Hour are obvious examples of trying to make positive use of commercial media. The problem is, they’re one-shot deals and they require the viewer to have an attention span of more than fifteen minutes. American consumers need to be pounded over the head, every quarter hour, with short, sloganeered advertisements. They need to see the same hype repeatedly for weeks or months and then they need to see the same hype delivered in a slightly different package. They’ve been brainwashed in this manner for so long they don’t respond to any other method.
What’s really needed are glaring headlines in major newspapers and thirty-second spots during Monday Night Football. We need movie, pop and sports superstar endorsements, documentary infomercials and mandatory classes in public schools and universities. World leaders must make much-publicized announcements confirming the urgency of the problems and their commitment to work together to solve them. Without world peace and international cooperation no meaningful progress can be made.
One thing that Americans in particular need to have pounded into their heads; it is NOT the earth we are trying to save. Nor spotted owls, poison dart frogs, coral reefs, whales, Amazonian rain forests or any other exotic fauna or flora they may or may not ever see. What we are trying to preserve is the lives of their children, grandchildren and the human race itself. Given the speed at which the environment is collapsing, they may even be saving their own selfish lives.
Unless the Main Stream Propaganda Machine can be converted to The Global Truth Machine, there is no chance that enough can be done in time to avoid a global extinction event.
Of course there are always those members of the scientific community who prefer obfuscation, for a fee, as opposed to scientific method. It’s a relief to know there are a few experts left who haven’t simply lost their minds like the 99% of climatologists and scientists from related fields.
A wide majority of specialists, through years of diligence and scientific study, have reached a conclusion that makes a certain small group of obscenely wealthy individuals unhappy. These corporate robber barons want to continue the rape of our world without interference. It’s an activity they believe to be of the highest priority regardless of consequence. Apparently there are a small number of scientific experts who, for the right price, are more than willing to share that belief.
Even to an informed layman it’s fairly obvious that what’s happening to our climate now is not comparable to any natural event that has occurred in the past. This is simply a matter of common sense. Sadly that seems to be a commodity that people who worship money don’t possess in any significant quantity. There are elements in the equation now that have never existed before. The science of the global warming deniers is reminiscent of some claims that prove oil is actually abiotic and will never, ever run out no matter how much we use. Anything is acceptable as long as it keeps the money flowing. I’m sure, if there was enough profit in it, you could find a group of scientists who would provide proof that the world is flat, that cigarettes are actually good for you or that we really don’t need oxygen in order to breathe.
I’m sick of money worshippers in denial. You can lie on the tracks if you want to and insist there ain’t no train a-cummin. You can twist and cherry-pick all kinds of alleged facts and produce reams of seemingly scholarly pseudo- evidence that no train exists and there’s no reason to be concerned. You won’t be any less dead after the train kills you, no matter how convincingly you argue against the possibility of it happening.
Perhaps the majority of the scientific community is wrong. Maybe they have greatly underestimated the time to the coming catastrophe.
Don’t you think it would be interesting to see Manhattan up to its penthouses in seawater?
Hi Grandma, how ya doin? Welcme back. Yes indeed, I think 2050 is very optomistic also. I think we have about ten years or less.
~ColdWarBaby47~ You nailed it. Of course nothing of substance is going to be done RIGHT NOW, or any time in the forseeable future. It’s a world wide problem and will require world wide action. Many here at CD realize that truth.
Funny, when Albert Einstein wrote a letter to president Roosevelt, telling him the danger of Germany and or Japan producing an atomic bomb, our president took firm, horribly expensive and immediate action and we had the Manhatten Project. Of course that was not to save mankind, it was to insure we had the bomb first.
When Racheal Carson wrote and published Silent Spring, our government took action and that was perhaps the beginning of enviromental protection, which has now fallen to a level of being a damn joke since Reagon and now under Bush.
Many listened and understood the scientists and Al Gore, who explained quite well what the scientists are warning us of. But still, there are few public protests or outcrys from the majority about the pollution of our atmosphere and ocean. Few likely wish to believe it, sort of like a person has all of the symptoms of lung or prostate cancer, but ignores the symptoms hoping it will go away.___ It never does.
A good example of that is, this MOST important issue and this article, will be buried in the CD archives by Saturday and if ten people blog on it, not counting any denyers, I will be quite surprised. People don’t want to hear it.
P/S thank you for mentioning the phytoplankton, one of my favorite subjects. Very few undestand the importance of that microscopic plant life. Without them, you have no atmosphere and eventually another dead planet like Mars. As you stated, we are killing them off at an alarming rate.
Nature is and always has been our most fearsome enemy. Why not have squads of water bombers, giant earth movers, numerous rescue teams, fleets of evacuation boats, and countless projects to generate electricity? It breaks my heart to see how we ignore the good we could do for people in catastrophes. Vaccination, education, universally available health care. imagine the wealthy US with a Cuban attitude. Instead, we waste our money on war and pollute the earth with noxious fumes. We could be so advanced! But we are being left behind as other countries take the step forward and we don’t.
coco
Use Google Earth and count the golf courses just in Phoenix and Tucson.
I have noticed that some people can really type. Some of these posts are much longer than the articles.
Vegetaranism should be encouraged especcially in developing nations because eating plants uses less water, land and money while causing less pollution then eating animals. Its also alot more humane and creates less health problems.
You certainly added some good information on a serious subject ~Shakker~. ___ Excellent.
Vegetaranism??? Yeah, swell. That will stop the methane gas from burping out of the Arctic perma frost.
Wake up, we have to stop burning fossil fuels, and do it now. Once the atmosphere is cleaned up we can stop eating cats, chickens and pigs.
Once when I was a teenager I went door to door for a charity called “Wells for India”. I mentioned that to an Indian co-worker about ten years later. His replied a project like that was a waste. You build a waterworks and sanitation system for 2 million people in India and 10 years later there are 5 million people living there!
The US southwest is similar as we continue to develop and populate there as the aquifers are being drained. Once water there becomes too expensive and rationed, those folks could eventually relocate (again)to upstate NY, PA, OH, MI… where its a little colder but water is sustained by nature and adequate. (Some Mexican-Americans are already doing this.)
There have been programs on PBS about shrinking mountain glaciers all over the world. The melt from these glaciers provides water during dry seasons and they are replenished during the rainy season or winter. If these disappear over the next few decades, hundreds of millions of people will be effected. Even river navigation and hydroelectric power would be effected. I guess they would put in wells, build coal fired plants and pump down the groundwater.
I get David Suzuki’s newsletters, he’s a Canadian evironmentalist. He wrote March 22 is Earth Day and this article says it’s World Water Day. Well, either way there’s no difference. What I feel is a real shame is how for 5 years concerned people have gathered over the Illegal occupation of Iraq and for 2 years now I have commented to my fellow demonstrators, hopefully next year we can gather for our environment.
Hi ~BBR 101~ Good post there, but I fear the word “decades” is not accurate, it’s more like two years when the mountain glaciers will be gone.
Have you seen the recent photos of Greenland and Glacier National Park for just two examples? ___ Wow, un-be-leavible!! The major and most serious problem is the thawing Arctic and Siberian perma-frost, which has secured billions of tons of methane gas for the past 50 million years. When that gas is relesed, and it is already doing so, we are screwed.
And south of Tucson in Green Valley are several more COCO. And one on I-10, between Tucson and Pheonix. Then some rich English land owners pump millions of gallons of deep and pure ground water, to grow pecans and cotton. Pima Cotton is the best in the world, it goes to China to make the T shirts and sox we purchase at Wal-Mart.
Meanwhile the cities treated waste water, which is rich in nutrients, is allowed to flow out into the desert and evaporate, instead of using that for the water hungry pecan trees.
Kem Patrick:
Methane certainly is a concern. Methane in the atmosphere increased continuously until the late 1990s when it started flattening out. I haven’t been able to find any methane data since March 2007 when Csiro (Australia) last updated their GHG and ozone depleter graphs. Someone at Scrips Mauna Loa updates a CO2 spreadsheet every month, but not methame.
If its declining, the deniers will jump all over it. If its spiking, well maybe we don’t want to know.
GULIPER AND KEM PATRICK
i looked at google earth but all i could find was a landfill. i’m not very good at google earth. but anyway, i can imagine the stupid golf courses. spain is another country pandering to the stupid rich and their stupid golf. and they estimate that in 50 years, spain will be two thirds desert……………so everyone will have to live on the golf courses.
Google arctic methane gas and there are at least a thousand articles. Scroll down on the first screen to, “Methane Burps a Ticking Time Bomb”.
Recently I thought about moving from Maine to the Woodstock NY area - it’s so beautiful and I have a friend there. But my partner said, “nope, it’s only one tank of gas from NY, NJ to upstate NY, not far enough to get away from the advancing hordes when the shit hits the fan”. And I had to agree.