The Freshwater Crisis

Water is absolutely vital to life on Earth. It is around, above, beneath, and within us. In fact, we are yet to discover a single living organism that doesn’t require water to exist. It seems incredibly abundant – so why do we worry? 

Most of Earth’s water is not suitable for human use and consumption. The ocean contains 96.5 percent of Earth’s water, leaving just 3.5 percent for freshwater. Of that portion, inaccessible freshwater frozen into glaciers or stored deep underground leaves less than 1 percent readily available. Collectively, humans use 50 Olympic-size swimming pools worth of freshwater every second. Currently, about 3 billion people on Earth lack access to quality water, and as industry and demand continues to grow, this problem will only get worse. We must take action immediately.

I don’t think we will ever find a way to live without water. It is too omnipresent, already so intricately woven into every aspect of our lives. However, it may be a good idea to utilize varying types of it. I have seen projects concerning ideas such as flushing toilets with saltwater or replacing freshwater with saltwater in the process for manufacturing paper. Shifting our focus to saltwater could be the solution. If someone were to invent a cheap, large-scale way to convert saltwater to freshwater, they would probably:

• Win some sort of Nobel prize

• Grow incredibly wealthy

• Go down in history forever for literally saving the world
  

An achievement with such great rewards is sure to have countless bright minds working tirelessly towards, but no solution has been found… yet.  

Technology and innovation is great, but we must start by taking smaller steps in our individual lives then banding together to form a larger-scale action (honestly, I’m noticing a pattern. This seems to be a general idea for combatting many environmental problems). Try buying clothes more sustainably by thrifting and wearing items longer, taking shorter showers or installing water-limiting sink/shower heads, sub in rain gardens for sprinklers, etc. Such actions don’t take much effort at all, but with 8.1 billion people doing the same things, we can make a huge impact. Simple hope will not resolve the freshwater crisis – it’s going to take each and every one of us. After all, we’re the cause for this problem. It’s our responsibility to fix it. 

Sources:

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/freshwater/are-we-running-out-of-water

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth#:~:text=About%2071%20percent%20of%20the,in%20you%20and%20your%20dog.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity#:~:text=Only%203%25%20of%20the%20world's,one%20month%20of%20the%20year.

Hey there, I hope you enjoyed this short post! I tried out a different blogging style this time -- it's more of a short 'n sweet, opinionated, brain-dump conversation rather than my usual informative article-type posts. Let me know what you think and shoot me a message at luanniewang@gmail.com!