More people than water
The news isn’t that fresh, and the topic doesn’t get attention in this period of holidays, presents and thoughtless spending by whom can still afford them (with debts). Nevertheless it’s a problem that everybody, sooner or later, will have to deal with in the upcoming future. Fresh water supplies are, already today, inadequate to satisfy the demand, and in future it will be worse and worse considering the growing needs of those real demographic atomic bombs generally listed under the “developing countries” definition.
There are more people than fresh water on Earth, when I read it I didn’t want to believe it but the source - a 185-pages report from the respected consulting company McKinsey & Company - seems trustworthy. The report, Charting our water future, has been commissioned by largely water-dependent companies (Coca-Cola, Nestlé and others) together with the World Bank and takes into account the present situation of water supplies as like as the future conditions, the possibilities to use technology to put an halt to waste and overutilization and the specific weight of countries like China, India, South Africa and Brazil that in 2030 will represent 42% of the worldwide water needs.
Water is scant, it is years now since I read about future wars set off to control sources and ponds but I believed it was a less close horizon. On the contrary the problem is already here, I’m an average Italian accustomed to an endless rush of flowing water so I clearly have an altered perception of this dramatic reality, so much that the idea that water stop being a human right (even in places where it’s accessible and inexpensive as in western countries) for the simple fact that there isn’t enough of it for everybody still sounds weird to me, to say the least.
The solutions to the problem obviously don’t exist, they can’t exist because one cannot multiply a limited good to satisfy a demand with a theoretically unlimited growth. Technology surely can help to lessen the draining where it’s possible (they talk about “intelligent” irrigation systems that cut a lot of the waste, for instance), and the governing people could direct their efforts towards a more conscious use of the most valuable good simultaneously pushing for the adoption of policies based on the absolute environmental respect and total recycling.
Of course, considering the political representatives we have (I mean “we” as human race), it’s a lot more likely that the world will fall in an age of chaos and war rather than it will succeed in solving the hardest problem it will ever have to face. If we talk about Italy, afterward, there are only laughs: these absurd vermiform beings (politicians in short) that day by day misuse laws, institutions and the citizens’ intelligence think about nuclear energy, laws to save their ass and Silvio Berlusconi’s one and not many more. They have good, fresh water at Palazzo Montecitorio every time they want, imagine if an asshole unable to see beyond his own wallet (where the taxpayers money usually become ash) take care of some “crap” like this. Ha, happy new year everybody.
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