World Environment Day Special
When contemplating world wars, history showed that the mighty forces fought for supremacy and absolute sovereignty. However, according to the new study by NASA, if things don’t change soon World War 3 is going to be fought over the scarcity of water. No wonder, Mark Twain was more than prescient when he said: “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over”, as trans-boundary water conflict is not a myth anymore.The Earth, despite being called as the ‘blue planet’ is facing its worst water crisis in generations. The bitter irony is that out of 71 % of surface area covered with water, only less than 1 percent is available for human use. While the demand for potable water is ever increasing, one has to bear in mind that the supply will always remain constant. Water being the important aspect of life on earth affects everything. Without clean water there will be no progress in health, education and livelihood.Humans have polluted water like there is no tomorrow: be it the agricultural run-offs, discharge of untreated sewage, dumping of chemicals, microfibers, microbeads & microplastics, synthetic organic substances, acid rains, littering and the list goes on. Rapid growth of industrialization has led water pollution reach at dangerous levels. Industrial sectors like wine, petrochemical, cosmetics, paper, pharmaceutical, sugar and fertilizer has caused widespread water pollution. Moreover, over 1 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water and half of the world is drinking contaminated water. According to the report released by World Health Organization (WHO) more than 50 percent patients hospitalized in the world are suffering from the water borne disease and every year water contamination is killing lives of 50 million people. According to the scientists, contaminated water can cause fatal diseases like Typhoid, Cholera, Paratyphoid Fever, Dysentery, Jaundice, Amoebiasis and Malaria. Also hazardous toxics that present in water can cause damage to the nervous system, cancer, liver damage, lumps in throat, tooth decay, respiratory diseases, intestinal disorder, damage to the spinal cord and other diseases like kidney, etc. It is very distressing that even animals and plants get severely affected instantly while some species are extinct and some are on the horizon. Contaminated water also destroys the beauty of the lakes and rivers, decertified topsoils and destabilize climate. Clearly water pollution has assumed alarming proportions and is indeed one of the most serious environmental threats to our ecosystem. The role of the catchment ecosystems is very critical as it absorbs rain water and releases it into water bodies. It is ecology that supplies potable water to all living creatures. But for the convenience of human settlements, water used in industries and irrigations is being diverted from the natural stream flow. Water is even withheld in canals and reservoirs for storage or hydro power generation.So, what needs to be done to stop the exploitation of earth’s gold – water? The first step, however, is waking up to the crisis and its outrageous scope. Adopting few smaller initiatives like stopping litter menace into the water bodies, shifting away from water-intensive uses, cutting down on excessive use of soap, detergent, acids soda, bleaching powder at home, creating awareness campaigns on causes, threats and consequences of water pollution, not disposing chemicals in water drains and reporting to authorities if you see anyone thrashing garbage/ litter into water, adoption of alternative methods to control pests, embracing drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting. Ineffective government’s regulation calls for strong and unified voice advocating for stringent water protection and conservation policy as 90 % of polluted material are directly let into the water bodies without any treatment.It is known fact that water use has been growing at more than the rate twice of population and at the current consumption rate the situation will only get worse. The consequences are almost unthinkably dire: drought, famine and death. If water is not managed better, today's crisis will become a catastrophe. Dwelling and deliberating on the reasons behind the crisis now will really not help as freshwater sources around the world are already threatened by water pollution. The world has witnessed how water pollution has impacted virtually every living organism in the world and killed millions either through contamination or thirst. Also, fresh water is depleting due to saltwater inundation and intrusion linked to rising sea levels. Polluted water, damaged catchments & ecosystems have a multitude of cascading effects on fresh water resources and its infrastructure that would inflate the price of potable water thus making it out of reach of poor people.Not an alarmist but alarming: the water table is dropping all over the world. Making self-interest their priority, man has made theseeffects calamitous. So it is man’s responsibility to set high standards of maintaining and protecting clean water; make an impact by donating time, energy and resources to secure water; spread awareness on conserving and wisely utilizing water sources; increase resilience in the face of climate change; fitting society and ecology together. We have to treat water scarcity as everybody’s business and take massive action on becoming more water-efficient societies sooner rather than later.
Varun Sheth, CEO – Ketto Ketto is Asia’s most popular online crowd funding space for social, creative and personal causes. Founded in the year 2012 by Finance Wiz Varun Sheth along with Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor and Tech gig Zaheer Adenwala, Ketto has raised over 150 crore till date.
