Water Scarcity

Water

by R. Z. Halleson

I'm not sure why water scarcity is not in the news more. If it were, maybe all of us would be a bit more careful in our use of what we have. That was my gentle way of telling you that the world, yes the world, is running out of clean water, and that fixing this needs to be very high on our to-do list. Dying of thirst isn't pretty.

Charles Bowden, in his book Killing the Hidden Waters, tells of how America's Sonora Desert was once home to numerous Indian tribes who developed cultures that could find water for themselves without destroying their environment. As the United States grew, however, and became industrialized, this changed. The need for water could not be satisfied by existing creeks and rivers and so began the tapping of underground aquafers, the building of dams, and the piping of water to faraway places. Here are some excerpts from Bowden's book:

-- "So far as can be learned, the Seri lived in balance with their resources: zero population growth, zero economic growth, a steady-state society."

--"The small human populaton of the pre-European Sonoran deset is something hardly realized by modern residents. The city of Tucson, Arizona, certainly contains more people than the aboriginal desert did, probably more than the entire pre-Columbian southwest. This feat is possible because the current inhabitants live off nonrenewable resources and the original inhabitants lived off renewable resources."

--"Democracy, widespread education, mobility, opportunities for changing careers, and chances to raise personal income are commonly described as dependent upon current levels of consumption and upon economic growth. It is said that the water table must decline so that the possibilities of human life may expand."

--"The point is almost too simple to be readily understood. Americans are presently staring into economic ruin on the High Plains because water is running out."

--"Speaking of the plains in general, the committee argued that humans had plowed land better left to grass, had raised crops better cultivated elsewhere, and had tapped groundwater at rates wasteful and suicidal."

--"In sum, the state contemplates seeking water it does not own which it will move with money it does not have to a final destination where it cannot control water use."

--"Overpopulation simply means that humans in specific places cannot find the resources to sustain them at the moment. Holland is not considered overpopulated because it is able to import food, energy, and minerals for its people."

--"The poverty of Bangladesh is mainly the product of what its own land puts forth, and the prosperity of the United States is accomplished by plying 6 percent of the planet's humans with one-third of the planet's resources."

--"In short, all the problems associated with exploiting fossil groundwater will grow worse because all the known solutions to these problems require concentrated energy, which will grow more costly."

From the other side of the world, we get another story. James G. Workman in his very readable book Heart of Dryness, How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought, tells the story of how Botswana tried to remove all the Bushmen from the Kalahari Desert, and in doing so, destroyed an incredible culture of people who had learned to live in the most arid of circumstances. What is different about the Bushmen is that they were well aware of what the government was trying to do and found ways to fight back. Some exerpts:

"In the face of scarcity all water, like all politics, becomes emphatically local."

"In places like Bolivia, Kenya, and Iraq the strong who controlled access to water killed the weak who increasingly sought it."

"We don't govern water.
Water governs us."

"The logic is simple. Humans can live only a few days without water. Control water, and you control every aspect of those of us who depend on it: how we live, where we live, and whether we live."

"Never again would Botswana provide, or even allow, the dissident Bushmen another sip of water."

"It dawned on me that it was no longer I who could help these Bushmen endure the hard times that had been thrust upon them, but rather they who might guide us through the coming Dry Age of our own making."

Through the story of a woman Qoroxloo, who with a small band of people, refused to leave the Kalahari Desert, James Workman tells a mighty tale of people who go to the highest reaches of Botswana government to try to preserve their right to stay in their homes in a desert in which most of the rest of us could not survive for even a week. The Heart of Dryness reads like a novel, and its dramatic conclusion leaves one shaken.

To understand the problem of water scarcity, reading these two books is an excellent place to begin. The problem is as dire as it is complex, and for the sake of our children and all future generations, we would be wise to work out the solutions as quickly as possible.