My Opinion of the BIG News — Water Wars (May 1)
There are three things we can’t live without— air, food, and water. Yet, even as I write this article from my favorite arm chair this morning, water is being rationed.
Our ancestors spent most of their waking hours seeking and securing these three things.
Today, however, in the richest parts of the world many not only go to bed with a full belly every night but actually carry around a big belly wherever they go as well.
Apparently, an abundance of food will be taken for granted. We pollute the very air we breathe as though fresh air isn’t a necessity. We throw food away by the tons every day. We think we’re entitled to these three things, and that our needs will be magically met with little effort on our parts.
We turn on our faucets to enjoy a stream of hot and cold water and think nothing of it.
On the flip side, scarcity breeds desperation. Emotional upheaval erupts. Water wars ensue. Hoarding follows. All the making of an apocalyptic movie materializes. Suddenly we’re not watching a movie any longer. We’re IN the movie. Our big bellies are hungry, we can’t flush our toilets or take a shower, and we’re afraid and angry.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to us.
Not us! We live in the land of plenty, so plentiful that we can afford to waste and abuse our natural resources.
I swear I missed my calling. If there was a field of intense interest that I should’ve majored in, it’s psychology. Since I was twelve years old, I’ve wondered
What Makes Humans Do What They Do?
Clearly, when we get up in the morning and step into our showers, we’re not thinking about how we’d manage without water. Yet, I guarantee you that if one morning we turned on the faucet in the kitchen and nothing came out, we’d be scrambling to figure out why.
Drought has always been a horrible possibility.
Even in modern times, the impact of drought is devastating. Yet, as soon as we think we have plenty, we resort to wasting what we have as though we’ve never heard of a well going dry, a reservoir disappearing, or water levels dropping in streams and lakes.
The Great Lakes region in the U.S. is a treasure that we take for granted.
Did you know that 20% of the entire world’s fresh water is in the Great Lakes? Lake Superior alone is the second largest lake in the world. This region should be treated like gold, not just by a few environmental warriors, but by every man, woman, and child that lives near these amazing bodies of water.
We should be in utter awe of this amazing resource.
If we must resort to the worship of mythological gods who demand our attention and gratitude, then why not make the Great Lakes our god. I can’t imagine a better candidate. You’d think we’d be overwhelmed by our good fortune.
Trust me, other countries are eyeing this natural resource that we tend to take for granted even abuse.
It’s a constant battle, however, to keep people from polluting the Great Lakes. Constant. And, we’ve failed big time. Even as we face a mega drought in the west, it’s a continual fight to regulate our treatment of the Great Lakes.
Until humans develop communities that emphasize the right things, however, we’ll always trash, waste, and abuse the very things that keep us alive.
Water, air, and food.
You can’t eat or drink money, big cars, mansions, or swimming pools. Our priorities are all wrong. We’re so blinded by the wealth of the rich and the hopes of getting some of that for ourselves that we jeopardize our very existence as a species on this planet.
Why must we lose everything before we can appreciate anything?
Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
