by Thaddeus Andreski

Created on: October 22, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

Water: The Blood of the Planet

In the new millennium water is almost totally taken for granted in developed nations. Humans are water vampires draining the life from the Earth. My fellow Americans and I have some of the sharpest teeth. Swimming pools by the thousands populate Phoenix and Las Vegas semi-arid deserts, green grass is irrigated in front of every bank in dry southern California, shower gray water goes right to sewage treatment plants, and water from over-used drip irrigation systems runs down every urban street.

To speak of the idea of water conservation today is a sad joke told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. This sounds overly harsh; however, the exaggeration is not as great as one may think.

First it was El Nino causing all environmental problems. Then carbon became the monster produced by Dr. Frankensteinor man if you will. At one time refrigeration and CFCs were destroying the ozone to such an extent, people were going to die like flies from increased cancer. Now glaciers are melting and will kill millions by huge floods.

The real problem is that people have not come up with a comprehensive philosophy of human-environmental interaction. Scientists have to scare people to act. Many want to look to Native American ideas. Many villages before European contact stayed just long enough in one place to use up all the resources and pollute the land with improperly treated and disease causing sewage.

If today's billions lived like native populations, then mass starvation, super-diseases, and environmental disaster would occur. There is not a golden age of human-environmental interaction to look to for answers. So what does that leave? What is humankind to do?

The key to a new philosophy of how people treat the environment needs to start with how we treat water. Water is the blood of the Earth and this needs to be made clear to our children from kindergarten up. If every pool had a cover, drip irrigation systems were properly set, and shower water was utilized for yard use, then a major first step would be taken.

Water is a resource that needs to be managed for the benefit of humankind. The expense of changing ocean water into drinking water will eventually make desalination uneconomical. If the Earth's population goes beyond 20 billion or more, then desalination for so many people will be prohibitively expensive for the developed world's current usage.

Governments can make severe water usage and pollution a crime. They can demand

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