Where does water go?

A friend of mine has recently suggested that at least some of the water shortage our civilization experiences may be caused by the fact that our bodies consist mostly of water and, as the population grows, more water gets trapped. Let's see how much water can get statically bonded -- not only in human bodies, but in other civilization-related containers.

Human bodies. With about half of the body weight being water (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_water) and assuming the average person weight of 60kg (with Americans being averaged out with Vietnamese), our mortal shells hold 6*10^9*0.03=1.8*10^8 cubic meters of water in total.

Public Water Supply. If there is a 4cm pipe at least 10m long per each (of the, say, 2 billion) persons who have running water in their homes, then we'll have 2*10^9 * 10 * (2*10^-2)^2 * 3.141592 = ~0.24*10^8 m^3 of water. At least the same amount of water lurks in inter-house pipes, so we get 0.5*10^8 m^3 in total

Toilets. With 4 liters per tank and assuming one toilet per each person of those 2 billion (public/office restrooms may drive this figure even higher), we get 8*10^9*10^-3 =~ 0.1 * 10^8 m^3 [Hmm, not too much. I was expecting a tad more.]

Cattle. 1.3 billion heads (cattle-today.com/), 400kg each, assuming the same water content as humans, and assuming most of the population is a direct product of our civilization, 1.3*10^9*0.2=2.6*10^8 m^3.

Piggies About a billion, say 200kg each, 10^8 m^3 of water.

Pets Say, 200 million dogs, 10 liters each, on average, and same number of cats, 5 liters each: 300*10^6*0.01 = meager 0.03 * 10^8 (less than in toilet tanks!)

Agriculture 14 billion tonnes of "stuff". I assume this includes watermelons/tomatoes/oranges/etc. -- which consist mostly of water. But, being conservative let's assume it is still a half, so 7*10^9 = 70 * 10^8 (aha!)

Beverages Beer, ~120*10^6 m^3 per year, so, assuming there's always a 10-day supply in storage, 120*10^6 / 36 =~ 3 * 10^6. Juices and wine being included in Agriculture, let's suppose consumption is the same for carbonated non-alcoholic drinks (Coca/Pepsi-Colas, etc.) -- another 3*10^6. Milk -- 300*10^6 annual production, under the same assumption as for beer/sodas, 10*10^6 m^3 of static water. In total, about 0.2 * 10^8 m^3 of water is kept in beverages.

Cars [fetched the manual] About 7 liters of coolant + a liter or two for windshield washing. 6*10^8 cars, 0.06 * 10^8 m^3. meh

Other containers: Blood donation in the US are 15*10^6 of half-liter units annually, so it isn't that much static water. Ice rings or pools (especially the Olympic-sized ones) -- may be quite a bit of water, but they aren't many. What else... poultry? Well, doubtfully more than in pigs.

Lots of water is used in paper production, but I would assume not much of it ends up in paper. Paint and Perfume may be worth looking into, but I doubt there's more water in paint than in beverages. Potentially, a lot of water may be held in bodies of domestic cockroaches, miscellaneous agricultural pests, lab mice, etc., but doubtfully it will increase the final figure by more than twice.

In conclusion, the amount of water held by the civilization statically is about 10 cubic kilometers. Which could power the Amazon river for about a day!

On the other hand, lake Baikal holds 23.5 thousand cubic kilometers of fresh water (20% of world supply). Must. Grow. More. Pigs!

How to save resources -- election vouchers.

I have received a request for money recently -- I receive lots of them because apparently some database somewhere thinks I am rich and generous -- but this one was from the Democratic National Committee, no less.

The most interesting part was the return "paid-by-addressee" envelope, which contained a note: "Although this is a prepaid envelope, please attach a stamp anyway, so we'll save our valuable resources". Pretty greedy, huh -- send us not just $100, but $100.37 (39?).

I wonder how many resources were wasted for printing the envelope and the letter, paying for the message writers' labor and moving the letter from the printer to my mailbox. Then some not very valuable, but dear to me my own time was wasted for reading all that stuff and carefully examining the envelope. And to think that all that time and money could have been used for researching the consciousness to machine transfer!

I believe that all political advertisement and discussion should be prohibited -- except for one specially designated federally funded web site. Nothing at all, including the date and place of the next elections should be available anywhere but on that web site. After all, only people who are interested in taking control of their lives politics actually vote, so why waste resources bombarding the non-voting public with political ads?

Steering onto a more realistic road, I doubt the saved money and labor would be used for seeking eternal life in electronic form. Probably it can work as some form of vouchers: after each election everyone is issued a voucher worth, say $5000, which one can immediately exchange for a super-duper wide-screen TV. There is a catch, however: in order to participate in the next elections one needs to surrender this voucher at the polling place.

This way the money that does not have to be wasted on "political process" in its current form gets distributed directly to the people. And by not cashing your voucher you support that one website where the new politics is. No more ugly interruptions of the regular TV programming for debates, no sleazy negative ads -- everyone is happy!

/Or you can use those vouchers to pay for college.

Speaking in tongues shuts down brain.

I've been rearranging stuff on my desk and dug up an issue of the Discover magazine, which I haven't read yet. Otherwise I would've known that "speaking in tongues shuts down brain areas responsible for executive function and thought control". But that wouldn't do me any good since, being a poorly educated person I didn't know what "speaking in tongues" meant. I thought it meant speaking aloud, like when talking on the cell phone, which would explain why trolls some people drive erratically.

Turns out, though, it is just a fancy way to call glossolalia, but, listening to some people who talk a lot -- like politicians ;) -- I think my original idea has some merit.