The war in Iraq is still going on, eh? And now the president wants to invade Iran, too. A lot of opinions circulate around this polemic topic, and it’s pretty easy to get worked up. Before you get too heated up, maybe you just need to sit down for a minute, have a glass of water. But look at your glass of water and you’re looking at the next resource to fight over.
For years we’ve heard that the world’s petroleum reserves are rapidly being depleted, but all predictions put our global deadline within the next 20 years. Some places, like the North American continent and the North Sea, have already reached their production peak. As scary as it sounds, we’ll be done fighting over oil before my classmates and I retire. So, fine, alternative energy initiatives are slowly getting under way around the world to relieve this dependence, but in Argentina, a country without troops or economic interests in the Middle East, their biggest concern is what will come next.
Ask Argentines what they think is the most at-risk natural resource and they will answer “agua dulce” or “fresh water.” One could easily chalk up the comment as a point of national pride because the Guaraní aquifer in the north of the country is one of the world’s largest freshwater reserves. However, they have a reason to highly value this resource.
Environmental concerns often take a backseat to economic development, as if dumping toxic chemicals and emitting greenhouse gases will faze the land “like water off a duck’s back.” Argentina’s La Boca also boasts one of the world’s most polluted rivers thanks to years of chemical waste from early leather factories. Now, as Buenos Aires is redeveloping its riverfront, the city won’t dredge La Boca because, as one of my guidebooks says, they’re afraid of what they might find.
As a trend, economic development and environmental degradation go hand in hand. We are starting to hear more of the ever-vociferous warnings of how global warming is damaging our climate thanks to the small number of decades we have been generating automobile and factory exhaust. Additional culprits are land-clearing and agriculture developments.
Melting of the polar ice caps, an irrevocable product of climate change, will further restrict our access to fresh water, as their volume will raise the level of the oceans. The human population in general is already only able to use less than 0.08 percent of all the Earth’s water. The BBC states that already one person out of five does not have access to potable water, the most necessary element to sustain life.
We don’t have to look very far from home to see how water pollution is affecting our habits. Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. We know water. Water was and continues to be a lifeline, and one of our identifying features, the Mississippi River,
is no longer recommended as a carefree swimming hole. And don’t even think about eating the catfish you can catch.
The contamination only gets worse the farther downstream it travels. The stretch between Baton Rouge, La., and New Orleans has one of the country’s highest rates of cancer. Could this be because the Mississippi is what provides 18 million Americans with drinking water?
April and May bring with them the tempting thoughts of summer. Boating on the lakes and rivers, running through the sprinkler and, of course, watering the lawn. Come summertime, sit down with your glass of water, glass of iced tea, or glass of Kool-Aid and let each drop refresh you while it still can.
Sarah Merchlewitz, a former Winona Winhawk, is attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She is studying non-fiction writing and music.
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