Sep 30, 2009
Even as the world applauds India’s discovery of water on the Moon, 23 million East Africans in 7 countries enter the 5th year of severe drought. Over 200 dead animals were recently found near a dried up water source in Wajir in northern Kenya while human beings there are surviving on just 2 litres of water a day, less water than a toilet flush. One in every six children in Somalia is acutely malnourished while in Ethiopia over 13.7 million people are walking in the shadow of death because of hunger.
About 1.1 billion people living on the globe already suffer from a serious lack of fresh water. By 2025 this number will increase to 3 billion – over 40 percent of the entire global population. Calculated predictions indicate that a crisis will occur during 2025-2030 where over 50 percent of the world’s population will face a serious shortage of water.
The global water crisis will first hit Africa, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia. China and India (that discovered water on the moon) will start to suffer next, from acute water shortage, despite the two countries having natural fresh water reserves.
Future wars and conflicts will be over water. We are already seeing a bit of it between states in our own very own country.
Making a trip to the moon for a few drops of water is going to be a distant dream.
We must save the earth from its depleting water tables and prevent the pollution of water bodies. Water existed before we did. “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2)
Spiritually speaking, God created the waters before He created us, as the primary provision for us. We have both a social and spiritual obligation to protect the water resources of the earth from pollution or depletion.
We are already paying a price for water for our own carelessness. Decades ago, there was no bottled ‘mineral’ water in shops. There was water everywhere and we thought it was safe. Whether for convenience or for safety, we are buying bottled water today. There will come a time when even money cannot buy this precious ‘commodity’, if each of us as individuals do not make an effort to save the earth from the impending water crisis.
One’s effort can begin from closing a dripping tap to harvesting rain water in our very own campus or using water as frugally as possible to charitably provide for the thirsty generation of the future.
(Fr adolf washington is President of the Indian Catholic Press Association and PRO, Bangalore Archdiocese)
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