Seattle’s hot summer days are over. Cloud armadas massing on the western horizon, prepare to let loose with mother nature’s liquid arsenal, creeping into your bones and joints and beginning to test your mental tenacity.
Indeed, as another powerful hurricane spins through the Gulf Coast, it seems odd to be blogging about water scarcity. Blame it on the disorganization of my files. I originally wrote this piece in the winter of 2001, when I was living in northern India, and for some reason, it chose to surface on the storm tossed surface of my desk last night.
However, in a era of profound stability at many levels of our society – environmental and geopolitical – it is good to remember that things are not always as they seem.
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge
While water is plentiful around the planet, very little of it is fit for drinking, and what is left is increasingly being sucked away by the rapidly growing needs of rising population, water intensive industries such as meat production, coal (slurries) nuclear power (coolants). Then there are those old American standbys – car washes, golf courses and lush green lawns, and chemical applications (poisoning the water) designed to eliminate any unwanted “weeds” or pests.
While the complexity of the problem is beyond the scope of my post here, please refer to the resource list at the bottom for more information. Meanwhile, I share some front line experience of water scarcity with you from my two years in India.
From 2000-2002, my wife and I lived in a one room flat in the foothills of the Himalayas. As global warming is expected to cause glaciers to melt, South Asia – home to three billion people in India, China, Bangladesh, Burma and Vietnam – will see first many floods as rivers rise, then water shortages as these same rivers run dry.
One of my friends in Seattle used to joke about “hour showers” every morning back in the 1990’s. Because of my profligate Seattle water habits, life in Dharamsala proved to be a rude awakening to me. The building I lived in had its water supplied via a tangled mass of above ground pipes flowing from springs higher on the mountain. Sometimes the water would not flow for days at a time, and gradually, the tank on the roof of the house would begin to run dry.
But I learned: We bought a 45 gallon water barrel and kept it in our apartment, filling it a bucket at a time during times when the water supply was ample. Clean water was used for cooking and washing.
Showers, an every other day luxury, were undertaken as follows: first I heated a gallon of water on the stove. (Hot running water did not exist in my building). Then, carrying my towel, hot water basin and soap, I walked down the hall to the common bathroom.
Mixing the hot water with cold water to a comfortable temperature, I ladled myself a few times, then lathered up. In mid winter calisthentics provided heat to stay warm. I stood in a basin that caught the wash water, which was poured into a brown water bucket near the toilet to be used for “royal flushing”. Water from dishwashing was also collected here.
So while it may seem that there is no shortage of water here in Seattle, don’t count on it staying that way. The situation may well change quickly in the years ahead. Meanwhile, if you wish to fill up your karmic water tank, consider ways to conserve water in your home such as cutting down on meat consumption, switching to drought resistant landscaping, saving brown water if possible for double duty – toilet flushing, gardening, car washing, etc.
Finally, consider that we live in an interdependent world. Our attitude towards shared resources affects all other beings on the planet. How we use water is an indication of our sense of universal responsibility and compassion towards others.
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