Journalism & Democracy Fall 2012 by Chelsea M.: So, what's the big deal?

Well, the big deal of my last informational post was to help you build some knowledge about the current "ecological water peak" as ecologists on Before It's News call it. If you don't know what the ecological water peak is, you might find Global Water Crisis easier to understand. The crisis is the shortage of water all around the world, due to the over consumption of it as well as the contamination of it. Yes, there are cleaning reservoirs that filter out the water and recycle it to various places in America, but that's not the case around the world. Most of the water in some countries are being dried up due to massive droughts happening throughout the past decade. In desert-like places such as Saudi Arabia, ground water aquifiers are beginning to become contaminated and dried up with salt, and the last rescources of water they have are going to irrigation. Saudi Arabia does contain a desalination plant, that separates salt from saltwater creating fresh water; the only downside is that it uses so much water to provde energy to the plant. So for them it is a lose-lose situation, and because of that they had to shut down wheat production in which so many people lost their jobs as well as food; adding on to having no water.

Photo Taken From http://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/galleryformatter_slide/Grim-situation.jpg

       Also in China, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created every year due to drought. Some of China's waters are so polluted that they don't even support aquatic life. China's water use just exceeded more than one-quarter that of the world average, and the distribution of those resources throughout the country is highly uneven. There is rarely any circluation of water because most of it is dedicated to the large factories being built for workers in poor villages and towns. "By far, the largest portion of China's water use is devoted to energy: The process of mining, processing and consuming coal alone accounts for almost 20 percent of all water consumed nationally." quoted from a CNN report.
     Even in American states such as California and Texas are experiencing droughts, and all our "available" water is being contaminated with pharmesuticals, anti-biotics, and hormones so it's becoming more and more dangerous to consume The world is going under a water crisis, the primary neccesity of survival.
     So back to my first post on us taking "thirst" for granted; the only water we have left, we are contaminating it with trash, sewage, and medical disposals. Before you know it, we'll be out of clean water and filled with diseases and most likely die from it.