Coming soon: A waterless world
LET’S consider the drama behind the statistics on water, the simplest chemical compound of two parts hydrogen joined to one part oxygen – fresh and saline. Without fresh water, in one to three days, we die. Water, like sunshine and air, is a “free good” from Nature, perhaps the reason why we use, abuse, and misuse it with abandon, forgetting that it is a “finite resource” and can be exhausted.
Now, let’s reconsider the exigency behind these facts: Water covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, but more than 95 percent of it is salty; only 2 percent is fresh but mostly frozen, leaving only 1 percent accessible for human use – and 70 percent of that is used in agriculture! These are reasons why people should end the abuse and mismanagement of this precious gift – in homes and elsewhere on the ground. Because of man’s folly, fresh water has become precariously scarce worldwide, and if not alleviated can start a “water war” among the people – among nations – in the not-too-distant future. In 2009 in the US, Georgia nearly came to a protracted quarrel with Alabama and Florida for the fresh water of Lake Ranier. Until now here are pocket hostilities among communities in some parts of the world, each claiming ownership of water sources in their area. In this country, the “water sellers” should be aware that in a similar bad and ugly situation, they might contend with bad and ugly riots of poor and exploited thirsty “water buyers.”
Due to global warming, the oceans are getting deeper due to melting massive icebergs in the North and South Poles while fresh water lakes and rivers on land are drying up; the bad news is those icebergs are fresh water, melting not on land but on salty seas. Some years back, there was an attempt to transport massive icebergs in large tankers for melting in big reservoirs to replenish fresh water pumped-up from dwindling water sources. That creative
but difficult and expensive process can be revived, depending on existing conditions and the courage to plunge into something formidable and expensive.
This country has more than 400 rivers and 100 lakes – all fresh water sources but most are now biologically dead. The water crisis is here and now but it is never too late to clean them up and manage how much water is still salvageable to alleviate the critical situation we face. The most valid suggestion is desalinization or desalination, the production of fresh water from salty water from the ocean. The science and technology of desalination only started in the middle 50s and though expensive has been found to the most practical, especially in the arid countries of the Middle East. Today there are more than 4,000 desalting plants producing almost all the water needs of 150 countries with more than 350 million people. More plants are being set-up today due to the fast-underground aquifers are also dwindling.
We do not know of any desalting plant in this country, being rich in fresh water above the ground which sadly is now laden with filth and poison dumped by mindless people and business establishments. We have a Department of Science and Technology with capable people who can design and set-up landbased desalting machines. Being new in this technology, our Department of Foreign Affairs may solicit the help of friendly Middle East countries in this regard – how to set it up and who knows, might even donate even second-hand machines to start us off with the resuscitated clean sea water of Manila Bay.
A waterless world is coming soon! Being “forewarned is to be forearmed!”
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(Eddie Ilarde is a former Senator, an author and independent Radio-TV host and producer. During this incumbency as Congressman more than 50 years ago, he investigated 27 inland waterways in the country for pollution and abuse.)