Esquire: The Water Crises Are Here

Earth has a limited supply of water, and an increasing amount could become unusable due to every imaginable contamination, explains Alec Wilkinson in an article for Esquire. “Water cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be damaged,” he writes. “Having evaporated from lakes and rivers and oceans and returned as snow and rain, the water we consume has been through innumerable uses. Dinosaurs drank it. The Caesars did, too.... In theory, there’s enough freshwater in the world for everyone, but like oil or diamonds or any other valuable resource, it is not dispersed democratically.” Less than 3 percent of the world’s water is freshwater, and challenges include governments doling out more water rights to users than available freshwater based on unrealistic assumptions, improved technologies that sap the limited supply, and climate change contributing to uncertain predictions. Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Peru, Indonesia and Russia are well supplied, but China and India with one third of the world’s people are not. Wilkinson urges conservation as well as technological innovation. – YaleGlobal