I say blame the neanderthals

http://www.coastal.ca.gov/desalrpt/dchap1.html

This is a sight about the desalination of water, basically, taking the salt out of sea water to make it drinkable. Personally, I feel this would be the best strategy to solve world water shortages. This would allow the 97.5 percent of water that is unsafe to drink to become accessible to the struggling populations. The process seems easy, though it could be costly to produce it quickly. These methods could also be used to clean up lakes that are heavily polluted. Some of the pollutants and other things removed from the water could be used somehow as a fuel source to create energy for the whole process. Surely some of the nasties in the water can be burned for fuel, or at least catalyzed to burn. Though I haven't researched this idea much, I believe it would be very possible to put plants up around Africa and other needy continents that could produce and distribute healthy water. Also, some of the consumption of developed nations is ridiculous. I don't say stop or drastically change this, but what is a few extra gallons saved and sent to undeveloped nations. Take a quick shower, or smell bad for 1 day a week, but save the lives of children and ailing people that do not have the luxury of water.

Now for the Greenhouse issue and the changing climate. At the bottom of the second paragraph on pg. 341, the pro technology side of the argument was introduced, though not nearly talked enough about. I support these ideas because we need to look at the whole picture when it comes to worldly issues. As far as blaming the changing climate solely on the pollution of our earth, that is a load of crock. There are way too many factors that affect the climate for someone to be able to say that this is the one cause. There is a cycle that this planet has been on for many many years where the climate changes.
Look at the ice age... did the neanderthals drive their cars too much? Or maybe the woolly mammoths were so gaseous that they caused the world to change. This earth is going to change, and there is nothing we can do about it. Instead of focusing on how to stop our consumption, let us put our energy into fixing the damage, whether it is our fault or not. I recently watched a TV show on the Discovery channel that had "Green" ideas being tested. One in particular was very effective. There was some kind of chemical, a safe one I might add, that scientists were dropping into the ocean. They had a ship-load of that stuff dropped at the same time, which caused the water to evaporate instantly. The result was a giant cloud. Even ideas so simple as making more clouds to cool and hide the earth from more UV rays could save mankind for hundreds or thousands of years until the Earth takes its full course in change.