By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Did you just leave that glass of water, barely touched at your restaurant table? You and millions of others do -- every day, everywhere. Tsk, tsk, tsk! The gods shake their heads in disapproval. This glass of water will soon be worth its weight in gold. At a recent meeting in Belgium, scientists concurred that within just two decades, hundreds of millions of people will not have enough water, and by the year 2050 as much as 75% of the world's population could face fresh water scarcity, and who do you think they will be? Why, the poor of course, they're always the victims. Somehow the rich manage to buy their comfort and safety, their refuge and relief from floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, and disease. Even if the whole human race is standing on the edge of extinction, the rich will somehow buy their escape. Disasters seem to favour the poor, but from a water shortage can anyone escape? Water is our most precious commodity, yet it is taken for granted. Every living thing consists mostly of water. The human body is 2/3rd water, a chicken is 3/4th and a pineapple is 4/5th. Water covers over 4/5th of the world's surface, filling oceans, rivers, lakes, the ground we walk on, the air we breathe. Most scientists believe that life itself began in water -- the salty water of the sea. Proof of that may be the salty taste of our blood, sweat and tears. Throughout history water has been man's slave and master. Where have all the great civilizations risen? Egypt? Babylon? Sumeria? China? By rivers where water was abundant. Man has risen with water and fallen without it. He created rain gods to grant him life-giving rain. Today more than ever before, he must implore those water gods to help him conserve the use of earth's water, before disaster strikes. Our demand for water is constantly increasing with our growing population and industrial needs. But there is no more or no less water on earth today than there ever was, or ever will be. Water is used and reused over and over again. Every drop of water we use returns to the ocean. It is evaporated by the sun, then falls back to the earth as rain. Unlike everything else it is never used up. But we must make better use of our water supply, for without water, there is no life. How much water is there on the surface of the earth - about 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. How much is that? In a cubic mile there are more than a million million (1,000,000,000,000) gallons, equivalent to 3.8 million million litres. That sounds like plenty to go around and around. But unfortunately 97% of this water is in the salty ocean, and more than 2% is in glaciers and ice-caps. The rest totals less than 1%, and the remainder is underground and in lakes, rivers, springs, pools, ponds, also rain, snow and air vapour. What supplies water to us is rain, and were it raining equally around the world, all the land would get 66cms every year, but alas, like everything else in our world, nothing is distributed evenly, equally, or fairly. Many regions have constant water shortage causing draughts, dehydration and death. Dry areas like Chile, may not get rain for years. Half the earth's land does not get enough rain, like most of Asia, most of northern Africa, Central Australia, and of course, as we all know, the Middle East. How are these areas dealing with the shortages? We know that water is purified, disinfected, filtered and in some areas fluorinated (treated with fluoride to prevent tooth decay). It was necessary to turn sea water into fresh water. This process is called desalination with thousands of desalting plants in the US, Asia and the Middle East. However, an international water crisis seems unstoppable. Waste and mismanagement of water are the main culprits. The United Nations confirms, that even today, tens of millions do not have access to safe water or adequate sanitation facilities. By 2050, the number will rise to 4 billion, 2/3rd of the world population today. In a recent issue of Nature, science experts Mike Hightower and Susan Pierce explore the global problems of fresh water supplies. Their hope is in exploring non-traditional water sources such as wastewater, brackish ground water, sea water and extracted mine water to be used by electric power plants for cooling and processing instead of fresh water, Even more than oil, water is at the core of the Middle East battles. Access to water is getting scarce for many Palestinians contrary to the recommendations of the World Health Organization. International law states that most of the water sources are international resources, and must be shared by Israel and Palestine according to the principle of equitable and reasonable use." But since when was any international law applicable to Israel? Israelis get 92.5 gallons per person per day, while Palestinians in the West Bank get 18.5 gallons per person per day. That about describes the degree of unfairness applied to all issues pertaining to the region. The world community watches in silence-again. There was a time when men fought over a strip of water, a stream or a pond. Will future wars be fought again over water instead of oil? Who would have thought it after such progressive strides in our modern civilization? The answer is conserve now, for there is still enough water for all of man's needs, if it is managed wisely and well. We need water for everything in life, not just drinking. We need it for cleaning, cooking, bathing, flushing toilets, washing dishes, washing machines. All living things need it -- flowers trees, plants and animals. We need water to produce electric power for our factories, for all industrial uses, for manufacturing steel, for making the paper we write on. We plant our fields with vegetables and fruits, and we need it even for canning and freezing them. The list is endless. Water is what makes life worth living and certainly worth fighting for. But have we not had enough of wars? Before we have to fight another one or need to, let us each individually, conscientiously, conserve it and use it wisely and efficiently. Only then will there be enough water for all living things to survive. Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 -- 1834)
