the time water lost their respect

WATER

What is your definition of water? We drink, flush the toilet, wash hands, take showers, we use water every day like breathing air. It’s just water, but without it, we cannot live.

What color do you use to paint the Earth? 

People who have seen the videos taken from the space station, and also the first person to reach space said “Confirm the Earth is Blue”, you would probably pick blue paint from the paint set.

Now we often hear news talking about the lack of water in countries and water pollution. One article surprised me. Currently, one in three people globally don’t have access to safe drinking water. 

Earth is about 71% covered by water. So why do we have to worry about water so much? The reason is very simple: our oceans are salt water which cannot be used for our daily needs. So how much fresh water do we have on Earth? It is about 3%. Yes, 97% is salt water! But sadly, we cannot use the 3% of water either. Within that number, most of it is glaciers and Antarctic ice, and some percentage is underground water which is very hard to get to. And only 0.3% of our freshwater is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers and swamps. But how much of the water is drinkable out of the 0.3%? Really a little. But what we know is that  7.7 billion people need to share this drinkable water. Natural water is so important for not just humans but also animals, plants and all living things. We must find a way of saving and protecting water. 

So, focusing on the "Under 0.3%" water we currently can use. Did you know 70% of the freshwater is used for agriculture? Especially livestock industries use tons of water, mostly for cattle. Why? They have to make livestock feed such as grains and grass to grow the food and as you know, cattle eat a lot... The amount of water required to produce goods or services is called water footprint. For example, A 1/3-pound burger requires 660 gallons of water. That’s the water footprint of the burger! That’s over 8 bathtubs of water! Yikes!

So, what else do we use the fresh water for and how much do we have left for us to use at home? 

Industrial factories use 19% of the freshwater. It is hard to believe but textile production which includes cotton farming uses up 4% of Earth's freshwater. Growing cotton takes so much water. For example, it takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton T-shirt. And fast fashion produces more than it can sell and the unsold clothing winds up in landfills. We can be just a little careful to help save water such as wearing hand-me-downs, second-hands or buying organic textiles. 

Now, I would like to talk about a little bit of the history of water. 

Did you know the freshwater disaster started to occur around 200 years ago, when the Industrial Revolution started. Water pollution from factories is one of the problems. The overpopulation of cities and lack of sanitation also contributed to the issue.

Water has been saving and changing human lives for such a long time. Without water, the major ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Mesopotamia, the Indus Civilization and Chinese Civilization couldn't have occurred. They were all developed around rivers and grew plants for farming. Also the Indus Valley had one of the world's first water irrigation systems! They had water and waste systems and most homes had access to a bathroom and toilet that was connected to the drainage systems. 

Though those water systems didn’t become widely popular till Ancient Greece era. Ancient Greece was known for its art, architecture, philosophy and science. One of my favorite people, Aristotle, lived in that era. Technology developed the Greeks' water delivery system rapidly such as using a pipe system, piston pump system, Archimedes screw pumps to pump up water and amazingly still some of the Greek inventions are being used in our daily lives. Science is awesome! 

Ancient Rome had huge success building aqueducts. They developed plumbing which was made out of lead pipes. Oh well - it sounds dangerous but because of the strong water flow and sediment stuck to the pipe surface it helped reduce the lead poison in the water. The huge part of this success was by Roman architects. Have you seen the pictures of rounded stone arches in Rome? Most likely these bridges were to carry water. Roman people already had faucets for their own personal baths, drinking, and irrigation. They also used water for public fountains and public baths which was a popular place for social gathering. High-ranking rulers such as emperors often had them build those facilities. Also if you pollute the water, they had a VERY VERY costly penalty. I can see there was great respect for the water and good teamwork among people in Rome.

I can tell that people treat water like gold and water brings happiness and brought people together during ancient times. 

So how did the golden water turn into disaster around 200 years ago? One of the problems was due to the Industrial Revolution. A population explosion occurred in cities especially in London. People wanted to move to where jobs were available. But that made the city an inferior dwelling environment. People were supposed to throw away excrement, the bathroom stuff - to certain areas of the city, but most people ignored this and threw it out their window. And it drifted directly into rivers when it rained. Now I know why they used to wear hats and high heels!

Unfortunately, back then they did not understand how human waste could spread disease. And in 1845 a cholera outbreak had occurred in London and a lot of people got sick and died. After doctors and scientists found out that cholera was coming into polluted water from excrement the city created water supply and sewer systems. They learned from the failure. These systems spread out all over Europe and later on to the US. 

People learned from their mistakes and came up with ideas for better living. But I also learned that people don't seem to take action until something causes their own misfortune such as a health issue. 

Until some point water was a respected resource. Nowadays people use water without thinking. For their own wealth and desires and it's causing resource problems. 

There are so many people who cannot drink clean water from their faucets or need to travel miles to get clean water for their families. Just because we might have a comfortable situation right now doesn’t mean we can ignore these problems. 

Nowadays people are so busy and don't have time to think about the importance of what is around them like water. If you think a little more deeply like people from a long time ago, we can surely change the way we are now. We shouldn't be afraid of inconvenience. A little effort times billions of people creates huge power.

We can do this!