Yesterday I
read the BLOGFODDRE post Remembering the Farm: Water, Wells and Dugouts. He wrote of the difficulty of obtaining
water on his family’s farm in Saskatchewan, Canada.
His post
brought to mind my memories of water in the small delta town of Rolling Fork,
Mississippi during the 1950’s. I was
always told that Rolling Fork got its water from an artesian well – I know
absolutely nothing of the source. I do
remember when I took a bath, the water in the tub was piss yellow. There was a swimming pool in town and the pool
water looked like tea. The deep end of
the pool was eight feet and the water was so dark you could not see the bottom at
that depth. We drank that water and
never thought anything about it.
Of course,
the world population in 1950 is estimated at 2.5 billion, now we are approaching
a world population of eight billion. Water consumption, water waste and water
pollution are exponentially greater than the mid twentieth century.
If anyone
had considered selling a bottle of water back then, they would have been
laughed at. Water was free: it came from
the sky, and rivers and lakes were full of it, you could dig a well and hit
water.
That was
then, this is now. Water is now a critical
commodity. Cities have been built in the
deserts, people water their lawns, mega-farms irrigate crops; costal marshes
have been decimated, rivers are running low, lakes are drying up. Humans have squandered water sources
thinking the supply unlimited.
California
is now in the process of converting sewer water into drinking water. There are many areas in the United States
where water conservation is a pressing issue, and repurposing sewerage may
become an accepted solution.
Climate
change will acerbate this problem, and it is quite feasible that in the not-too-distant
future wars could be fought over water sources.
the Ol’Buzzard
Wars over water are already happening. They're just not reported that way. A lot of the conflict in Africa is rooted in drought forcing farmers and pastoralists to compete for dwindling resouces. One of the things driving the Syrian civil war is drought.
ReplyDeleteCanada has one of the largest (if not THE largest?) reserves of fresh water in the world. Guess we better start beefing up our Armed Forces, eh?
ReplyDeleteLarge reserves except in Saskatchewan, of course.
DeleteYou have hit the nail on the head. Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over. Scarcity of drinking water will limit population soon enough. Watering lawns has got to stop, as does high pressure sprinkler irrigation. The civil war in Syria started when drought pushed too many people off their land into the cities to try to survive. When American tanks cross the Canadian border, it won't be for oil, it will be for water.
ReplyDelete