75% of the Earth surface is covered with water, only 3% of the water are not salt water, and we can only consume 1% of that water as the 2% is frozen ice and glaciers.
Imagine, how can that little water support the lives of humans on the earth? So it is not surprising that we have a problem. It is a today's problem, and it will be tomorrow's problem if we do not do anything. Water scarcity!
I am sure many of you feels that water scarcity has nothing to do with you. Water scarcity is the next generation's problem, so let them worry about it, don't bug me for their problems!
What a funny thing to say actually!
If you are 18 this year, and you expect to live until maybe 60 or 70 years old, I am sure you will be in the age of water scarcity! You don't need to worry if you have planned to die early. If you are about 30 years old now, do you want to see your kids suffer when they get older just because you took bath for an hour everyday?
So actually, it is your business. It is something you should think and do something about it.
Water scarcity arises due to many reasons. Some are avoidable but some are not. Those unavoidable causes are by mother nature. Maybe pollution of water by volcanic activities, earthquakes, storms etc.
But the main causes are not by mother nature, they are by us! So expected isn't it? It is always humans fault, but that is because we did not get the education that we needed. Now i am providing you the 'education', so please wake up and help out.
Water pollution, mainly caused by humans leads to many water sources to be undrinkable. Water pollution are due to deforestation where people remove the trees, so the soil particles loosen and fall into the streams. The fallen trees and plants are also caused pollution. Besides deforestation, in the cities water pollution is caused due to the use of detergents, rubbish throwing into the sea and streams and also bad sewage management. These causes the streams and rivers to have deadly bacteria which can affect human health.
People do not know how precious water is, maybe to some they do just because it has something to do with the water bills. They tend to use too much water unnecessary. Such as when taking a bath, you didn't turn off the shower when you soap your self, or when you were brushing teeth, you didn't turn off the tap when you were not using it. Not repairing leaking water taps. To you it is minor, it won't make any difference, but it does actually. When minor things adds up together, they will become MAJOR things. It is just simple maths addition.
Overpopulation of human beings. And i heard my neighbour wants to achieve their goal, having more than ten kids! The more the merrier i guess. If you do not understand how over population causes water scarcity, well it is like you have a cake and you have to share with the people around you. If there are many people around you, each person will get a smaller part of the cake.
Mass consumption. In Malaysia, we have many people who are obese. They eat a lot of food. This is good news to the farmers who plants vegetables and rare cows, but it is not good to the environment because lots of water is needed to support this over growing need of food. Besides that, big sized people get tired easily, so they drink more water than normal people would.
Well, since water has became so scarce in some countries where they have deserts, there came a new kind of war. Water wars! Or in other words, water politics. Country fight over water for their people, it is quite serious.
Like what i have written just now, dirty water affects humans health. Well, due to limited source of water, when the source of water becomes polluted, people have no choice but to drink it, especially when the country is not a high tech country where they have treatment plants to clean the water for you. So consider yourself lucky. Most of the people living in Africa ( sorry i didn't mean to discriminate ), they do not have clean water supply so they have intestinal parasites, which came from the untreated water.
Well, with problems arising, there must be some way we could solve it right? Of course we do! Humans are smart!
The first thing that most people think is, we have the sea. So do something about it! We can extract clean water from the ocean. This process is call desalination. Its is like boiling the salt water, then the water will evaporate leaving the salt behind. Then cool the water vapour to form distilled water! However this solution cause environmental problems to the sea ecosystem. By extracting water from the sea, this will make the sea to be more concentrated affecting marine lives. But people are desperate, there is nothing much they can do about it. This also causes the sea current to change by the way.
In Singapore, they have a limited source of water too. But with their high technology, they are able to reuse their water. Water from the toilet is treated, to form New Water which are drinkable.
Besides that, reverse osmosis. Many bottled water are water that went through reverse osmosis.
Hey, how can it be an environmental problem without you helping to solve it too! We can do many things to help out. Save water! Be more sensitive and grateful when you see water flowing. Turn off the taps when you are not using them. Try to save every drop of it. I am sure you will enjoy doing that because i actually do! When you see taps in public area which are not turned off completely, do it yourself!
So to create awareness in water conservation, we do have a day called the World Water Day.
Last words from me for this post is, many of you do not realise how connected things are. Some of the people out there are kind hearted people. You would give and donate money to the poor people who live in areas like Africa so that they can have a better life. But do you realise if you save water here, you can save their lives too? You are saving water for the world, for the people, for humanity. When you have a lot of water here, you are able to send water there.
So lets save the world by saving water!
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