Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
I've never been as afraid of fresh water shortage as a lot of other people seem to be precisely because it is exactly the kind of shortage that is solved by market forces.  Freshwater getting scarce?  OK, so the price goes up.  Now there's more incentive to conserve water by replacing fixtures for low-flow variants, letting your lawn die (why do you really need one in a desert anyway), and using more efficient irrigation methods in agriculture.  The price of water still keeps going up?  Then the price of meat goes up because growing crops to feed animals become more expensive, and people eat less meat.  Meanwhile, increased price makes desalination more profitable, and more plants come online.I don't see it as anything rising close to a civilization-ending threat.  Seawater is abundant.  Freshwater can be made cheaply enough.  We are extravagantly wasteful with water as it is, and that can be fixed easily enough as it becomes more expensive.