A friend of mine a number of years ago once commented on the fact that I had let water run from the tap while cleaning the counters. All he said was, "you know, if that was beer, people would never waste it like that."
I've thought about that statement many times: from the knocked-over beer bottle when my roommate said, "whoa, that's alcohol abuse" to every time i force myself to turn the water off while washing my face ( I'm reluctant to get the faucet all soapy - how ridiculous!). Yet I feel it's true that if beer came out of the tap it would be a different story. People would be quite agitated, and probably a lot more conservative, if it was Sam Adams running down the drain instead of water.
Where did this mindset come from that water is a never-ending supply of the basic ingredient of life? Was there ever a time when it wasn't acceptable to let the faucet run and waste water?
All too soon, the people of the United States (and the other countries of the world like us) will come to realize that our grandiose way of life and living is unsustainable. Democracy Now recently devoted time on its daily news program discussing the documentary Flow: For Love of Water. Flow discusses the fact that we're running out of water and how its privatization is only making matters worse. Democracy Now has a transcript of the segment, found here.
A few excerpts from the documentary are quite striking: "This notion that we'll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It's got 20-some years of water. New Mexico has got 10, although they're building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five," "We're treating the water resources of the planet with contempt, which is just so stupid, because we depend on them. We need water to live. We will only survive for a day or two if we don't have water," and "You know those movies where there's the comet coming at the earth, and all of a sudden the governments of the world say, "Gee, we're not -- our differences aren't so big anymore, because we're about to all die"? That's really where we are. There is a comet coming at us. It's called water shortage."
What is sad about the state of our water situation is it barely makes a blip on the mainstream media's radar. There are certain stories that make national attention, however, these are played off as something happening to only a few states and mostly due to the mismanagement of the water or debates and disagreements about how much to use for wildlife.
For example, the water negotiations between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida have failed as of Saturday. "The talks appeared to unravel further in recent days, with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue saying the water problems facing Florida and Alabama are not as critical as Georgia's and accusing the other states of approaching the talks without the same urgency as Georgia." However, "Florida and Alabama argue that Georgia hasn't adequately planned for growth. The extra withdrawals, they argue, would damage the environment and dry up river flows into their states that support smaller municipalities, power plants, commercial fisheries and industrial users like paper mills."
According to the New York Times here and here, "To support growth...Albuquerque will virtually abandon 40 years of pumping ground water out of the regional aquifer and replace it with surface water from the Rio Grande," which "is no longer strong enough to reach the sea."
And there are many more examples of water shortages in the United States. In Orme, Tennessee, they are living off of three hours of water a day, "the Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows...and in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year." All that is here.
One would think that the most precious combinations of elements in our solar system running out, the one's without which we die in two days, would cause more care and concern. Well, never fear, the growing water shortage does attract attention and demand action - and people are doing something about it - making money off it. Now if you'll excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth and need a glass of water.
