After earlier noting that hurricanes are wet and windy, (White House) Resident Donald Trump went on to explain that Hurricane Florence, then inundating North Carolina, was very wet, “from the standpoint of water.”
From the standpoint of water, there is only about 3 percent of the total water in the world that is fresh, usable for human consumption without expensive treatment and filtering.
From the standpoint of water, there are about 2 billion people in the world who don’t have reliable, safe and convenient access to fresh water.
From the standpoint of water, massive aquifers, like the Oglalla Aquifer under eight Western states, are being mined for water much faster than they can be recharged by normal waterfall and seepage. This turns what could and should be a renewable source of water into a non-renewable one, on the scale of human lifespans. These aquifers likely will be recharged but it may take thousands or tens of thousands of years. In the meantime, farmers and cities which are depleting these aquifers will, as a result of over-draining, run out of available water.
From the standpoint of water, when and where it comes down is shifting due to climate change.
From the standpoint of water, many areas are experiencing historically unprecedented droughts. This has happened in California, the U.S. Southwest, the U.S. Southeast, large agricultural areas of Australia, and parts of Ukraine.
From the standpoint of water, desertification is spreading rapidly in many areas of the world.
From the standpoint of water, massive amounts of fresh water that have been frozen for millennia in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting much more rapidly than predicted, raising water levels, pushing fresh water into the salty oceans, threatening the Gulf Current (the main driver of the “ocean conveyor belt” of worldwide ocean currents, and one of the reasons why Northern Europe has been an agricultural area but whose climate is now changing in both predictable and unpredictable ways), and raising storm surge levels worldwide.
From the standpoint of water, the cutting down of rainforest in the Amazon is threatening the water cycle which relies on the tree cover, possibly turning large portions of the rainforest inhospitable and undermining conditions for maintaining the Amazon as the “lungs of the world.”
From the standpoint of water, increasing water stress for billions of people and millions of acres of land is either due to or exacerbated by climate change.
From the standpoint of water, Trump knows nothing and understands nothing of the needs of water, especially of the needs of water to be able to regenerate itself for human needs.
From the standpoint of water, U.S. policy is going in the wrong direction. A first step is to defeat many, many Republicans in the fall 2018 midterm elections, but that is just the start. Investigating and then reversing the corrupt Trump administration of the EPA, U.S. waters, National Parks, chemicals and pesticides, hog and other animal wastes, and fresh water contaminated through the fracking process.
Even with a fundamental shift at least by 2020 in the U.S. administration, much more needs to be done, starting with a renewed commitment to the Paris Climate Accord. Already, it is positive that many U.S. states and cities have committed themselves to the goals of the Paris Accord, but those goals are much too limited.
From the standpoint of water, a fundamental reordering of the major economies of the world is required, away from capitalist rapaciousness toward long-term human need as the measure of all policy.
From the standpoint of water, and of the human need for water, for which there is no substitute, we must revolutionize the economy—industrial practices, energy practices, agricultural practices, transportation practices, as well as individual personal habits of consumption, reuse, recycling, and conservation.
From the standpoint of water, and from the standpoint of humanity, removing Trump and his ilk is a good and necessary first step.
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