Guys, on a serious note though : the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa (where I currently reside) is literally on the brink of what has officially been dubbed as "
Day Zero".
Needless to say that the first thought that ran through my mind when I heard the statement was ... to see whether the ccTLD domain name has been taken yet
! Crazy what domaining does to one right? I bet that when the proverbial Jesus Christ descends from the heavens in real-time one day, domainers will rush to register a fitting domain name (and I'll bet money on that).
I did however manage to find the EMD in an appropriate domain extension after missing the .co.za extension by a mere seventeen years. I'm planning to build something practical and useful on it, so stay tuned for that.
But back to the topic at hand ...
Global warming is crazy Right! While many countries across the globe fall victim to natural disasters on an almost regular basis (not to mention how the ice caps are melting in the North) most of South Africa has not. I recall brief talks about earthquakes during my minor years but no first-hand accounts come to mind.
Now, following
electricity shortages,
tropical cyclones,
floods in towns across the continent,
and more, Cape Town has begun it's countdown to Day Zero. The date:
April 16th, 2018. Due to the droughts in recent years (despite
warnings from experts advising the authorities to adequately prepare for it) our taps will be shut off! You heard that right, no water! Imagine turning on your faucet and nothing comes out. I don't know about you, but that seems like an apocalypse of sorts.
SPOILER ALERT* I know that many believe South Africa to be a place where animals roam around freely and woman hardly wear any clothing - but that couldn't be any further from the truth. Similar cultures to first world countries, same access to the internet, clothing trends, movies, music & news, technology and such. So we have become accustomed to many of the pleasures that humans take for granted these days.
Our dam levels are practically just above 10%, with water barely being safe for drinking. So as a short-term plan National Government plans to set up around 200 collection points for the entire city to collect water from. It's a bring-your-own-container buffet, limited at 100 liters per person. And if that's not crazy enough, Capetonians are required to do this on a daily basis! That's "every...single...day" people! Aside from the time and monetary impact this will have on many, it gets even worse. There is said to be another dry year (or two) ahead with little to no hope in sight. All this while
KZN and
Johannesburg (on the other side of the continent) is experiencing floods.
Temporary plans (two years to be exact) have been set in place to
desalinate water from the ocean and distribute it via the existing infrastructure. This is how the 200 collection points will be supplied with water. But
the quality of the end product as a result of man-made pollution is of high concern. It's kinda like the plagues talked about in many religious books right? There's gotta be at least a few deaths in there somewhere [I'm referring to the current water crisis by the way].
Now for the absolute scariest part ... what is better known in the US and across the world as "
Marshal Law" will be in full swing
before Day Zero arrives. Now even though I can't quite imagine what kind of torture it'll be like standing in a line aside fellow humans, 100lt container in hand, waiting to be filled-up with a necessary means to survive (H²O), I'm even more anxious about the whole "marshal law" concept.
Exciting times we're living in I guess.