More on Water

I finished reading the Summer Lapham's, entitled Water.  As I said in my recent post about this edition, there were not many articles that struck me individually about the subject, but that they all in aggregate made an impression.

A number of articles expressed water as a living entity with a history, and a place in time.  I found this very intriguing, to think of a particular body of water, a river or ocean, or even a local tributary, and how it has altered its path over the years in response to human or natural activity.  How it has been used for recreation, from the simple pleasures of fishing from its banks or diving into its coolness from a tree rope, to the more complex rewards it provides via food for entire communities or its navigable pathways which bolster our economies.  Or the simple fact that water, especially in its ocean form, separated cultures and civilizations from each other, enabling, in part, the rich diversity of humankind that we find so rewarding, and so challenging.

The edition made me think about the unique qualities of water, as opposed to other liquids, which have inspired all the great religions to view it as more than a necessity for life on Earth, but as a pathway to eternal life.  Water has been perceived not only as being endowed with divine and curative powers, but as a way to quench fire, whether it be the fire that destroys our homes and fields, or the fire we dread that represents an eternity of pain.

This edition reminded me of the preciousness of water, despite the fact that 70% of our planet is covered by it.  Its necessity for life is easy to understand, but what about our requirements for water in the area of sanitation and hygiene.  I had an interesting conversation with a family member about why we live as long as we do after centuries of dying in our 30's and 40's, and she pointed to the advancements in medicine, which is certainly true.  But there are still areas of the world where too many children die before the age of five, and where people still struggle to reach 60 years of age.  And yes, the medicines do not always reach them as they do in the developed world, but it is also the lack of clean water that the medicines are not there to heal that leads to the diseases that kill these people and reduces their life expectancy. 

And, unfortunately, this edition reminded me that as we tend to do with so many of the resources that we have been blessed with, we tend to use water as a weapon.  We divert its flow to address the needs of our fields, while reducing its flow for those downriver, threatening their survival.  We dam it to provide energy to mega cities, while eliminating the culture or lifestyle of those whose land is now underwater.  We pollute it in our chase for more profit, while forcing the neighborhoods to drink tainted water to the detriment of their children or spend money on bottled water rather than some other necessity.

As my wife has often reminded me of late, we fear the future will abound with water ownership battles, whereby the water distribution systems of communities will be the legal and protected property of large corporations who will treat water as just another commodity to improve its balance sheet.  And where countries will go to war over water access rights, as they do now over precious metals and energy sources. 

And, finally this edition makes me think that our quest for more and more material possessions, regardless of the price, might extend past water, which is clearly now a marketable item, despite the fact that it occurs naturally, and next touch on air. 

Is it possible that, just for the vast majority of the human existence on Earth, water could be consumed right from its naturally occurring source without having to be cleansed of man made pollutants and toxins, air will next fall victim to our insatiable need to control and profit from nature?  The fact of the matter is that bottled air is already available online.   It is sold to provide a higher concentration of oxygen, or as "country" air for urban residents, or as a source of air that comes from northern climates where the air is "purer".  While these enticements to buy might sound foolish to most people, today, imagine how foolish paying for bottled water would have sounded to your grandparents.  When we make conscious decisions to mortgage our future for today's dollar, we open our country, and our world to the possibility that fresh air may become a commodity as fresh water has become today.

If it is not too late to return to a time when water was treated with respect, respect for its effect on the quality of our lives, and respect for the need for it to be universally accessible, regardless of income or nation of birth, it is certainly not too late to avoid making the same mistakes in regards to air.  It is our complacence with the ease of which we can turn a faucet and have water, that has blinded us to the realization that water is no longer a free flowing liquid which descends from the air via rain or from the mountaintops via snow melt, feeding our streams and rivers to allow us to eat, and move, and transport goods to other parts of the world, but is now a way for man to establish dominance over other men.  If such a travesty should occur to air, if a future Lapham's edition called "Air" is printed which reminds of past times when air was naturally pure, and not stacked in neat rows on a supermarket shelf, it will surely mark another example of man's greed ruining the environment, and destroying our one and only home planet.