A Water Crisis You Say?

According to a the Harvard Business Review (Scorched Earth, June 2007):

“International standards define a serious water shortage as the availability of 2,000 cubic meters or less of water per capita per year; 1,000 cubic meters per year is considered the minimum for existence. Currently in Northern China – which stretches from Shanghai to Beijing and contains nearly 40% of China’s total population – the average amount of available water is only 1,100 cubic meters per capita per year, and the water table for the entire region is dropping precipitously.”

I have an idea that might help: stop hosing down the damn trees!

It’s been humid and pouring rain for the last few weeks and yet… someone on city council feels that spraying high powered jets of water into the air is a good idea. Please allow this photo and video to elaborate on a particularly wasteful, sonically atrocious, likely toxic and generally ludicrous Shanghainese activity.

We assume it’s a pesticide dispersal system of sorts. The same truck has been patrolling up and down the French Concession neighborhood for several days warning off pedestrians with fairground tunes and leaving a soaked path of mystery in its wake.