After watching several documentaries on the degradation of the earth I find one thing very interesting. Even though there are people dying from cancer because of pollution of water, and there are farmers who are going bankrupt because of changes to the land has caused flooding on their land and damaging crops, the average person still doesn't understand what it has to do with them. I can't get my mind around that.
It seems that no one is able to see the big picture or their place in it. There are two things that we use daily that are slowly disappearing: oil and water. There are multiple studies prove this is true and suspect that it will happen in the next hundred years or so. Unfortunately, there's currently no way to prevent this unless people change the way they live. We have been taught from a young age that it's humans that are polluting the earth and yet we don't want to change. We'll take convenience over saving the planet. The most ironic thing is that by keeping things convenient now we're making things worse for the future. There is no need to have three cars, or seven shower heads in your bathroom, or an olympic sized swimming pool, or a green lawn. All those things may make people think that you're well off, but that's going to mean nothing when things start running low.
I understand the want for nice things, but why not put in a nice looking high efficiency toilet instead of a specially designed one? If you want to show off your wealth why not buy solar panels for your house and use them to charge a brand new electric car? Or you could put in a filtering system that takes your waste and cleans it so it's safe to drink or water your plants. And for goodness sake you don't need to take an hour long shower to get clean! You also don't need to do laundry every other day. It's a waste and even though shortages may not be affecting us now, it will eventually.
The average persons part in the use of oil is obvious, you can see it whenever you try to get to work on time. However, although many are still in denial about their part in oil depleting, most people still don't understand how fast fresh water is disappearing and how it will eventually effect them. Here's how it works: without water crops fail, farmers go out of business, we have to get food from other sources which raise prices, soon those sources are overwhelmed and price rise again, in order to keep the minimum amount needed cities have to either limit water to households, or tax water use. Not to mention that water is used in the production process of almost everything we eat, wear, drive, and drink. Therefore water shortages could effect the prices of those things as well. However, there are simple solutions.
There are personal, municipal, and national things that can be done. On a personal level you can choose to get a toilet that uses less water than others, take shorter showers, only wash your car when you have to, only do laundry once every week or two, turn off the tap when you're not using it, and by sucking it up and going to public places to swim (or to a lake or ocean). Cities can help by placing taxes on water usage. Obviously each household has to be given an appropriate amount of water for how many people live there, and a monitor should be placed on the water line going into the house so the inhabitants can know when they're approaching their limit but a fine should be set up for those who go over the set limit. Towns and cities can also choose to build "water recycling plants". That is, they could take the sewage that they normally just dump in an ocean or river, and take the water out of it and clean it up. If the process is done right the resulting water is almost as pure as distilled water. On a national level there can be laws put in place to put pressure on provinces to encourage their cities to put into place the above measures, as well as ensure that all companies are held to the same if not stricter standards as residents when it comes to water usage.
Well, that's all I have to complain about for the moment. I realize that I ended up taking more about water than oil, but I feel that more people are informed about the oncoming "oil crisis" than the shortages of water. Of course my opinion is tainted by growing up in an area with forest fires that required us to limit water usage, but considering the state of things I believe that the same measures that were taken then should be applied everywhere. For those who like their long showers, go cry me a river, the world needs another one.
