''BLUE GOLD''


They call it ’blue gold.’ Around the world, demand for water is exploding. By 2050, at least one in four will live in a country suffering from water shortages - creating ideal conditions for a new market... Banks, investment funds and hedge funds are all rushing to invest billions of euros in anything related to water. A real monopoly of water has begun. The financialization of water is a battle taking place on many fronts: ideological, political, environmental, and of course, economic. 

The fate of nearly 10 billion inhabitants around the world depends on its outcome. Freshwater is limited is no longer a resource anymore, it has become a commodity. And it this commodity is limited that today many people are seeking after. Its natural distribution on earth is not equal in all nations and in many regions of the world it is considered as precious as gold. Water covers 70 per cent of our planet, and it is easy to think that it will always be plentiful. But, freshwater-the one we drink, bathe in, irrigate our fields with-is incredibly rare. Only 3 per cent of the world's water is freshwater, and two-thirds of that is tucked away in frozen glaciers or otherwise unavailable for our use.

Droughts, pollutions, desertification and global warming effects are making it increasingly scarce and therefore precious-just like gold! This brings us the saying that,' Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.' We know that water is the driving force of all nature. The problem of water scarcity, already very evident because of the increasing number of people who live on the planet, is aggravated by a number of factors-bad management of the world's water resources and a rapid rise in the request of water (particularly for industry and urban context).In this scenario, climate change will most strongly affect the poorest nations and therefore the world's most vulnerable people. Because of the unforeseeable nature of climate change, it will be extremely difficult for developing countries to take the necessary steps to limit the potentially disastrous effects.

Many of the water systems that keep ecosystems thriving and feed a growing human population have become stressed up. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up or becoming too polluted to use. More than half of the world's wetlands have disappeared. Agriculture consumes more water than any other sources and wastes much of that through inefficiencies and crystallisation. Climate change is altering the pattern of weather and water around the world, causing shortages and droughts in some areas and floods in others. As a result, according to some reports, about 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for a least one month of the year. Inadequate sanitation is also a problem for 2.4 billion people- they are exposed to waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. And about 2 million people, mostly children, die each year from diarrhoeal diseases alone.

If we don't play our cards well, they will be stacked against us, and we have to confront the arresting questions of our existence. We may happen to face up to an apocalypse. We are different, we always have been and will always be. However, 'difference' shouldn't divide us, but unify us to save this planet from global warming. Remember, ''the Earth is what we all have in common.''



For more information:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity

2. https://www.worldvision.com.au/global-water-crisis-facts

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C65iqOSCZOY

4. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/world-water-day-water-crisis-explained/

5. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/featured-documentaries/2020/12/29/lords-of-water-episode-one

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nssJ3qYNUo





 

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