“We have forgotten that resources are scarce. Five hundred million humans live in the world’s desert lands, more than the combined population of Europe. They know the value of water. They know how to use it sparingly. Here they depend on wells replenished by fossil water which accumulated underground on the days when it rained in these deserts, twenty-five thousand years ago.”
They have to use this water for all their daily activities. In underdeveloped areas of the world such as this, the use of recourses is done with survival in mind: to gather all that is available. But when little is available, rivers, lakes or underground layers of water are sucked too rapidly, and soon become another portion of the dry land around it.
They have to use this water for all their daily activities. In underdeveloped areas of the world such as this, the use of recourses is done with survival in mind: to gather all that is available. But when little is available, rivers, lakes or underground layers of water are sucked too rapidly, and soon become another portion of the dry land around it.
But this frenzy-like pumping of water is not fully aimed at securing basic levels of hygiene or growing food for the population around it. If countries from these areas want to survive in the global market they need do trade with the outside world and export food that has been grown with the use of this scarce water.
“The once mighty river Jordan is now just a
trickle. Its water has flown to supermarkets all over the world in crates of
fruit and vegetables. The Jordan’s fate is not unique. Across the planet one
nature river in ten no longer flows into the sea for several months of the
year. Deprived of the Jordan’s water, the level of the Dead Sea goes down by
over one meter per year.”
Quotations
from the 2009 documentary, HOME by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
You are right João, people in developed countries have been wasting gallons and gallons of water just like if they have an infinite well of water. At this rate, scintists say that soon a gallon of water will cost more than a gallon of petrol due to the how scarce this resource has become.
ReplyDeleteJust to add a curiosity related to the my previous comment, nowadays water IS TRANSACTIONED in shape-like milk bottles to countries like the United Arab Emirats.
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