Wow, that’s a mouthful, eh? Across the globe people are inventing new ways to save and conserve water. As well-intended and responsible as we think this is, as much as we think we are on the right path to solving the horrible water shortages many people are facing, the reality is that in the long run water conservation will not prevent future water scarcity issues. If we really want to create communities blessed with dependable, plentiful water supplies, we must take a much wider view of water.
Please understand, I am not advocating irresponsibility in our management of our water, but rather being scientifically accurate. Imagine for a moment that you had a one-gallon glass pitcher full of fresh ice water. Imagine now that you sat down to have a glass of it. All is well and your thirst would be quenched. But no imagine that every 8 hours you take another glass from the pitcher. After 8 glasses, the pitcher would be empty. Alter your behavior and only drink four ounces at a time. In 16 hours, the pitcher would likewise be empty. In fact, no matter how small of a volume of water you consumed, at some finite point you would be out of water.
So too, is the case with our aquifers, lakes, rivers, ponds and streams. If our consumption is greater than the volume and replenish rate that the body of water can meet, we will drain the resource completely.
In our knee-jerk fetish to jump on any bandwagon that is “green”, we have failed to realize that industries such as solar technology, electric vehicles and super computers are intense users of water, and generators of massive, toxic pollution. Drought, we can handle and plan for. Irresponsible behavior? Not so much!
It is a fallacy that climate change has caused never before levels of drought and that our water shortages prove this. If one examines the global rain patterns over the past 200 years it become clear that the Earth’s rain patterns have not changed. We get rain, we get drought. Nothing is ever going to change that.
The reason we have water shortages is because we have engaged in irresponsible behavior. The Colorado river isn’t failing. It is the over-building of the West in places like Los Angeles and Las Vegas, coupled with the failure to build more reservoirs to capture the ample rain and snow melt that is draining the Colorado River. It is the stupidity of building water intense industries in areas that are already water stressed that is draining the Colorado river.
And so it goes, globally, our irresponsible behavior is the sole reason for our water shortages.
Did you know that it requires 3,800 gallons of water to make one EV battery? Did you know that Elon Musk’s Tesla plant (Giga Berlin) is not able to operate at 100% because doing so would rob all the residents of drinking water? Currently this plan is operating somewhere in the vicinity of 38%.
Climate change-induced drought has been the scapegoat for our irresponsible water behavior for too long now. Unless we begin to make better water decisions, our water sources will continue to become contaminated and scarce.
