Our Personal 60%
How important is freshwater? Allow me to give the answer this way > for each of Earth’s eight billion human inhabitants, water is the most essential ingredient since the precious liquid makes up about 60% of the average human body. Thus, the number one long term concern with respect to climate change is a lasting supply of fresh water - for everyone. That and oxygen are the minimums for life to flourish. While there is an abundance of oxygen to go around, only three percent of the world’s water supply is fresh (acceptable enough to drink), and two-thirds of that amount is difficult to access due to the glaciers that own it. Therefore, only 0.5% of Earth’s water is truly AVAILABLE fresh water.
Today, about 1.1 billion people lack access to fresh water, while almost three billion suffer from water scarcity at least one month of the year. As a matter of fact, overpopulation has pushed agriculture to the forefront in terms of the number one consumer of freshwater - 70% to be sure. And a good portion of that percentage is lost due to leakage and mismanagement. Throughout the world, the drought stricken rivers, lakes and groundwater aquifers have shrunken water levels, some of which are polluted. The overuse of a dwindling water supply will never reverse itself until global warming changes course, and that will never occur until fossil fuel emissions are almost totally eliminated with the advent of sustainable energy.
Without a strong sign of energy transition on the near horizon, it is projected that by 2029, some degree of water rationing will be allocated to roughly 65% of the global population. When will too many people cease adapting to something they shouldn’t have to adapt to? It’s not so much in the USA, Canada or Europe but in the Southern Hemisphere. You can be assured certain regions in America will face a water shortage risk - as well as a Forever Chemical water pollution scare (more on FC in a forthcoming post). Currently, both are on high alert in some of our nation’s geographical areas. In many, many locations, water contamination is being tested because of various forms of nasty chemicals having infiltrated our natural water boundaries. Industrial solid and invisible emissions, human waste discharge, fertilizers and pesticides have run amok due to one primary cause: misguided chemical management; and one secondary cause: uncontrollable demand required by a population that more than tripled since 1950.
And we can add in the fact that following the year 1900, humanity’s population explosion brought on a tidal wave of civilization development that eliminated about half of the global wetlands without a second thought. Sadly, it’s not at all that difficult to accept the fact that our personal liquid commodity is flowing down a dangerous waterway path.
The majority of us take water for granted. Our country’s climate matters more than all forms of greed generated by political and social divides - which, for the time being, rule the environmental land and waterscapes. And for that reason, no one is able to predict how long it will take until our nation comes to its senses to fully grasp the level of humanitarian comprehension required to replenish fresh water sources. Way too long I’m afraid, unless a series of devastating weather disasters and droughts make enough headlines to cause the right vs. left division to meet somewhere in the middle, eventually leading to climate cooling. Once Earth’s temperature begins to drop, no one will ever again favor fossil fuel consequences over renewable energy. . .not even Big Oil and Gas.
Throughout the history of mankind, income inequality, environmental degradation and conflicting economic competition were a prerequisite for most every civilization’s collapse. This time around, the circumstances become even more complex because, to date, every continent is dealing with an unheard of setback: the inability to unanimously grasp the severity of climate change and its epic challenges for younger and future generations. The overwhelming lack of a broad based recognition of Earth’s frail life support systems is impossible for me, as well as many others, to comprehend. While our personal 60% is being threatened, too many leaders don’t forecast the freshwater supply being threatened by rising temperatures.
Before I close on my feelings about fresh water scarcity, I must give you some concise examples of where people are faced with an enormous consequence of fossil fuel gasses overloading our atmosphere. I was really hoping that the following past winter warnings in America would wake up those turning their heads away from our climate debacle. It was the least frosty period in 130 years of record keeping.
The Great Lakes ice coverage hit a February low of 2.6% while a paltry snow covering was delivered to eastern and southern states. A whiplash weather pattern included a 1.1 million acre wildfire in Texas; a massive snowfall with 150 mph winds in the CA Sierras; temperatures 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the Great Lakes region; and deadly tornadoes in Indiana - all in a 10 day time span! These events were lost in time by most of our citizens. Spring will continue to arrive earlier on an annual basis and the transition into summer will also occur sooner which only jeopardizes nature’s seasonal balance.
The summer of 2023 was the hottest in 2000 years, or since the height of the Roman Empire, and one reason is that the rate of CO2 lodging in our atmosphere is ten times faster than any point in time during the last 50,000 years.
The Ecuador drought has lowered reservoir depths significantly enough for the government to ration electricity to homes and businesses at certain hours of the day.
In Morocco, the drought is beyond insane and the impact on freshwater supply is alarming. In this country, the second largest dam is at 3% of the average water amount of nine years ago.
Mexico City’s Valle de Bravo reservoir is three-quarters empty, and this dam is essential for about 25% of the city’s water supply.
Roughly 70% of Canada’s rivers and lakes are shrinking, thus negatively impacting the hydroelectric turbines that feed power as far south as our New England states.
Over the past three decades, European temperatures have increased twice that of the rest of the world, on average, which has had a profound effect on fresh water availability.
In Northern Ireland, 20+ million tons of untreated sewage and chemical wastewater has spilled into rivers and lakes annually. A failed sewage system that has been awaiting a fix for years is to blame.
In the good ole USA, a different kind of deepening water pollution emergency is risking nature’s health in multiple Gulf state farming regions. The Mississippi River is the undistinguished recipient of massive amounts of farm waste in the form of fertilizer and animal manure. The Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie suffer from the same dilemma. In each example, adjacent fresh water aquifers become contaminated with nitrogen and phosphorus forcing area groundwater wells to be considered polluted.
And Venezuela recently became the first country in the Americas to lose ALL its glaciers.
At the current rate of higher global temperatures, 83% of Earth’s 215,000 terrestrial glaciers will fade away by the year 2100. Remember, the majority of our planet’s freshwater is stored in those glaciers.
And the list goes on and on and on.
Don’t you think the question of fresh water scarcity should stir an intuitive reaction in any human to act for all mankind? An instinctive reaction for restoring our natural environment, including an atmosphere absent of emissions, should be foremost in our minds. Sadly, this is still not the case for everyone - except the folks that are directly dealing with their own freshwater reduction every day.