Strategic Threats To Our Global Water System

environmental refugees

Written by Adam Shake

The following article is the first of five in reference to the strategic threats to our Global Water System. They are based on the writings of Al Gore from his book “Earth In The Balance” and proper attribution and referencing will be enforced. In my opinion, this is one of the top two best written and most informative Environmental books ever written. (Rachel Carsons “Silent Spring” is a must read for anyone interested in the state of our planets health and was written almost 40 years ago.)

We (humans) are indelibly linked to the planet. Biologically speaking, Al Gore says “Human beings are made up mostly of water, in roughly the same percentage as water is to the surface of the earth. We are 23 percent carbon, 2.3 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent calcium, 1.1 percent phosphorus, with tiny amounts of roughly three dozen other elements. But above all we are oxygen (61 percent) and hydrogen (10 percent), fused together in the unique molecular combination known as water, which makes up 71 percent of the human body.

So when environmentalists assert that we are, after all, part of the earth, it is no mere rhetorical flourish. Our blood even contains roughly the same percentage of salt as the ocean. Little wonder, then, that water carries such great spiritual significance in most religions, from the water of the Christian baptism to Hinduism’s sacred water of life.

We can not survive without fresh water, which is only 2.5 percent of the total amount of water on earth. Most of that is locked away as ice and groundwater makes up most of what little remains or just .01 percent for all the lakes, creeks streams, rivers and rainfalls. (Authors note: Recent studies indicate that because of pollution, only .0001 of the planets water is available and consumable.) The problem is that both now and in the foreseeable future, it is distributed unevenly throughout the world.”

It’s for this reason that most of humanity populations are clustered around those geographic areas that best afford the use of the little water available.

Unfortunately, the dramatic change in our relationship to the earth since the industrial revolution is causing profound damage to the Global Water System. In layman’s terms, this is how the planet tries to regulate itself.

• Cold water draws warm water to it.
• Warm water is pulled to the colder poles near the surface of the ocean.
• As it travels, some of it evaporates along the way.
• When this evaporation hits cold polar winds, much saltier seawater is left behind.
• This water becomes denser and heavier, sinking at a rate of 5 billion gallons a second, forming a deep current as powerful as the Gulf Stream which flows back south toward the tropics under the warmer water above. (In scientific circles, this is called the “Ocean Heat Pump.”

What is causing this warming water in the arctic that could will stop drawing warm water from the equator?

• One example is the Jakobshavn glacier, the volume of ice breaking off it has doubled in the last few years. (not the last 1000 or even the last 100, but the last 10 years.) Scientists say that ice holding enough water to supp all of New York City for a year now races away from the glacier in a day. This ice melts, warming the surrounding water. The ice that once covered the water is gone so the sun has more water to warm. The sun warmed water melt the glacier and they cycle spins out of control.

Now if the polar regions warm up, these ocean currents may slow down or seek a new equilibrium. If this pattern changes, the climate pattern will also change and some areas will get more rain, (floods) others less; (desertification), some areas will get warmer and others colder. (sounding familiar?) In 1991, Peter Schlosser, a scientist at Columbia’s Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory announced that during the 80’s, a key component of the “Ocean Heat Pump” slowed by almost 80 percent, to a rate “not significantly different from…a stagnant water body.”

Water distribution effects not only the weather, but our ability to live. The earth tries to regulate it’s balance, even at the expense of us humans. It’s been proven that large rainfall in one area of the planet is directly linked to lack of rainfall in another. So while our Midwest continues to flood, California continues to dry up. While 1st world countries continue to buy bottled water (it takes 4 bottles of water to make the plastic for one bottle of water), 3rd world countries subject themselves to drinking liquid pollution.

I realize that this topic is very Macro-Environmental, and we may all look at it and say “If all of this is going on at such a big scale, then there is nothing that I can do about it. Putting my plastic bottles in the recycling bin isn’t going to fix the Ocean Heat Pump.” You may be right. But….

It’s not about what I can do. It’s not about what you can do. It’s about what WE can do. Join the fight by educating yourself. By changing your habits. By sharing your views.

Alter the Eco and keep up the good fight,

Adam

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Related posts:

1. More Severe Arctic Storms Seen as Threats to Oil, Gas, Fishing and Shipping
2. Strategic Threat to the Earths Water System – Deforestation
3. Over Population is a Threat To Our Global Water System