“We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.”
— from “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change,” by Derrick Jensen in “Onion” Magazine. Profound and eye-opening! To read the full article, click here.
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Living Simply And Still On The Grid 
Bravo! Thank you for emphasizing this! You are spot on. I hope my former students read this as it was my position that the “un”availability of usable, clean water might be the major crisis they will face in their lifetime. My hope is that desalinization technology will advance enough so that it becomes a realistic alternative.
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Thanks Barbara! I remember writing a long story in the early 90s about misuse of water in a part of Maryland that has no access to rivers, lakes or reservoirs, and is entirely dependent on groundwater from wells.
Desalinization will be wonderful if it can be commercialized.
Sorry I haven’t emailed you recently. I always spend far too much time on WORK (at this time both my paying job and unpaid blogging), and often fail to keep up with friends and family, which is so much more important.
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