World at the brink of crisis - II

After centuries of water mismanagement, we are at a point when the nectar of life is either not available or contaminated to the degree of being unusable. Water is a renewable resource but human and industrial contamination has reduced even mightiest of clean water carrying rivers to a trickle. The fact that only 2% of all the available water is suitable for human consumption makes it a very scarce resource that needs to be used with an utmost caution. We all have been wasting water since time immemorial as if there is an endless reservoir of it and this uncontrolled wastage of water has now put us in a position when we are thinking if water will last longer or oil? In India, the biggest of the rivers have started shrinking – Delhi is no longer on the banks of Yamuna, mighty Brahmaputra does not wreak havoc in Assam anymore, the sacred Ganges became a trickle, Allahabad is not ‘sangam’ anymore and Kaveri just flows in the year when it rains! Civilizations have been built on the banks of rivers across the world and perished when rivers changed course or dried up. Though the economies have lesser dependence on agriculture today than a few hundreds of years ago but people still eat and eating more than ever before – more on this later – the takeaway is that drying rivers will become harbinger of disaster unmatched to anything known to mankind. The doomsayers have been warning that 3rd world war will be for control of water and will be the last one. The process of decay that has been going on for centuries has picked up a visible acceleration in last 7-10 years and the rate of acceleration is going up faster every year.

But the good news is that all is not lost yet and the changes are not irreversible as off today and we can still control our destiny. If we can stop the Wall Streetization of the world, that is, focusing on short term gains at the cost of future (ours as well as our children’s) and stop the unbridled exploitation of natural resources, we can still turn the tide around. But for this, we have to start thinking about ‘One Earth’ and rise above the issues of individual countries and work with a common agenda to save the planet. Let's not wait for government's of the world to wake up and do anything to save the planet, what it will need a people's movement to get the ball rolling. The environment can be the common cause binding diverse people of the world together and a lasting movement can born out of this dire need.