The Future We Want E-Book

Aditya Goel

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Water and sanitation problems have reached boiling point; children are dying unnecessarily at the rate of 20 jumbo jets crashing every day. We forget that the water cycle and life cycle are one. Only a fool tests the depth of water with both feet. What makes the desert beautiful is that it somewhere hides a well. As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict over water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world. The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea. In one drop of water are found all the secrets of the oceans. Thus, it is necessary to conserve and use this resource efficiently.

Leseprobe

Aditya Goel

The Future We Want

The Earth We Need

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water." W.H. AUDENBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Global Water Crisis

Water Cooperation: Global Water Crisis

Over a billion people do not have access to clean water and it is only getting worse with every passing day. Make no mistake Global Water Crisis is clear and present danger.

Now, that was the bad news.

The good news is, we still have time to solve it. The even better news is, you and I can solve it.

We invest billions of dollars to find evidence of water and life on Mars, but here on Earth, we struggle to mobilize the funds needed to develop the full potential of the water resources we depend on for life and growth. Is our glass half full, or half empty, at the present time?

THE FUTURE WE WANT CANNOT BE THIRSTY

The glass cannot remain half full or half empty; it must fill up.

Water Lost

Water covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface but that’s not a lot actually. Water is in fact a very rare substance on our planet. It makes up just about 0.05 percent of the Earth’s total mass; that is it.

The amount of water on Earth has never been the same; in fact, we have actually lost quite a bit of it over the last four billion years. So, scientists have been busy singing the the 1966 No Mercy hit single; “ Where Do You Go”

Where do you go, my lovely

Where do you go

I wanna know, my lovely, I wanna know

Where do you go, oh oh eh ho

I wanna know, oh oh eh oh

Where do you go, oh oh eh oh….

I wanna know….

In 2012, scientists finally calculated the amount of lost water.

The ocean water splits into hydrogen, deuterium and oxygen via a process called methanogenesis; this process was much more active when Earth was young than it is today. Now, hydrogen and deuterium are low-density gases, so they rise through our atmosphere and eventually escape into space.

Scientists studied rock samples across geological timescales and thereby calculated the amount of hydrogen that had disappeared from the oceans over the last four billiion years. They concluded; Earth has lost about a quarter of its water.

We do have enough water but do we have enough freshwater?

Actually, there is enough fresh water on Earth for all of us. The problem is it is distributed unevenly across the planet and a lot of it is simply wasted, polluted, or used unsustainably.

Thus, water crisis is both a natural and human-created phenomenon. Now, we cannot go about redistributing lakes, rivers and other fresh water sources across the world.

So, we must fix our part of the crisis, the human-created part.

Waters of India

India has about 16 percent of the global population as compared to only 4 perecent of its water resources.

With a population of over 1,000 million, the per capita water availability is around 1,170 cu m/person/year (NIH 2010).

India is the largest consumer of groundwater in the world; in fact the United Nations report shows that India was the highest drawer of ground water between 2000 and 2010.

About 60 percent of the water needed for agriculture related activities and about 80 percent of water needed for domestic use , comes from groundwater resources.

This level of usage is simply unsustainable!

It is noteworthy that there exists a considerable temporal spatial variation within the country with respect to water availability. 71 percent of India’s water resources are available to only 36 percent of the area while the remaining 64 percent area has 29 percent of water resources available.

Exploitation has put the ground water at great peril, lowering the ground water table in many areas and causing saline water intrusion in various parts of the country.

Water can at times lead to trans-boundary conflict. India has its own share of conflicts. Tribunals have been set-up to resolve these conflicts.

Agriculture accounts for around 70 percent of water used in the world. In India, over 80 percent of water is used in agriculture related activities. Agricultural activitites are also the major source of water wastage and pollution along with industrial activities.

The World Water Council, an international network of organizations and water specialits, wrote in their recent report titled World Water Vision Report that “ There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people- and the environment- suffer badly.”

To avert the water crisis in India we must improve our agricultural practices on absolute priority.

Therein lies the challenge; for all of us.

We can and we msut conserve water in our households, institutes and office spaces; every drop of it but we need to do more, much more.

This is because most water wastage is done by agriculture related activities.

We ought to get involved in policy making and implementation. At the least, we must hold accountable, those who make key decisions about water in our localities.

Why should you bother?

Well, because your quality of life is directly proportional to the availability of water. Make no mistake about it;

“If you aren’t part of the

solution,

You are part of the

problem.”

You, see the challenge?

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO)

World Health Organization has identified various facts which underpin water scarcity and its impact on our daily lives as well as economy and development across the world.