Get ready for the water wars

Most of the world’s population takes water for granted, just like air. But a Hindustan Times blogger said that in India right now, as in so many other places around the globe, drinkable water has become such a “precious commodity” that it’s dragging the world into “water wars to follow the ones for the control of fuel oil.”

Climate change is drying up lakes and rivers almost everywhere. In Australia, for example, an unprecedented heat wave brought on massive wildfires and critical water shortages.

As water grows scarce, more countries are building dams on rivers to hog most of the water for themselves, depriving the nations downstream. Already, Egypt had threatened to bomb the Grand Renaissance Dam upstream on the Nile River in Ethiopia.

And as the Earth’s population crossed the 7 billion mark last year, more and more water sources are so polluted that drinking the water can kill you. No one’s counting, but various government and private estimates indicate that worldwide, tens of thousands of children die each and every day from drinking contaminated water.

By most estimates, half the world’s people live in places where clean water is not easily available. Bangalore, India, for example once had 400 lakes in its vicinity. Now, the New Indian Express newspaper wrote, only 40 are left, and all of them are polluted.

Hence the fights. One of the biggest areas of conflict is the India-Pakistan-China nexus. Multiple rivers intertwine the countries, and as water levels fall, all three are building dams to keep much of the water for themselves.

So where is all this water going? With ever-rising temperatures, more and more water evaporates and returns to the ground as rain. But most of it falls into the oceans. That’s one reason sea levels are rising worldwide, threatening vast coastal areas.

Source: Tribune Content Agency

B.N