Making Water
Are we really on the verge of running out of drinking water? Years of drought and wasteful utilisation practices and other forms of mismanagement suggest it’s true. More dams won’t help, but conservation will. There are studies, there are recommendations, which, if implemented, would improve the situation, if not resolve it. We hear about these things only occasionally, and usually as exceptions, such as this or that farmer who’s managed to defeat soil salinity or the city that’s implemented a wetlands rainwater purification catchment system. There’s plenty more that could be done, products and systems installed to directly conserve water as well as indirectly. Energy production isn’t just a matter of petroleum, you know. Water plays a significant role. Everything every ordinary person can do to reduce energy consumption and water utilisation is worth doing. Year by year, the world goes into “ecological debt” sooner and sooner. I once heard it speculated that the next global conflict would not be over land or oil but water, and even considering the present conflicts in the Middle East, there’s a good deal of truth in it. Who controls the Jordan, who controls the Tigris and Euphrates? Major sources of fresh water in specific regions of desert, and the nations in conflict with one another and themselves. Will Tasmanian exports do the trick?