I suspect water is a local resource because it is not transported. Consequently, I feel saving water in an area with enough won't change much in the present because of that. Clearly using water wastefully is a disaster in somewhere like sub Saharan Africa because it is already short for the existing population, but in many other areas water is not the critical factor ... yet and that's part of what's missing in the original. It will still boil down to the same choice eventually: restrict population to allow a higher quality of life or restrict quality of life (including water usage) to allow a higher population and, as you say because of continually rising population, that will apply sooner or later on both a local and a global scale wherever you are. I would rather be given the choice of where that balance lies than just sit back and find out where it falls through inaction.
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