Water

You’ve seen those pictures of disasters, either natural or man-made, and all the Federal Emergency and 1^st Responders and Faith volunteers rushing in to help the survivors with humanitarian assistance. It makes your heart feel good to see the army troops unloading plastic wrapped bottles of water in the same manner they unload ammunition and bodies. Photographs of warehouses bulging with pallets of bottled water gives a sense that all will be OK because water is essential to life

Water is a transparent and nearly colorless chemical substance that is the main constituent of Earth’s streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. Its chemical formula is H₂O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen atoms that are connected by covalent bonds. Strictly speaking, water refers to the liquid state of a substance that prevails at standard ambient temperature and pressure; but it often refers also to its solid state (ice) or its gaseous state (steam or water vapor). It also occurs in nature as snow, glaciers, ice packs and icebergs, clouds, fog, dew, aquifers, and atmospheric humidity.

Water covers 71% of the Earths surface. It is vital for all known forms of life. On Earth, 96.5% of the planet’s crust water is found in seas and oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other large water bodies, 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation. Only 2.5% of this water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice (excepting ice in clouds) and groundwater. Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount of the Earth’s freshwater (0.003%) are contained within biological bodies and manufactured products. A greater quantity of water is found in the earth’s interior.

Water on Earth moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation and transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land. Large amounts of water are also chemically combined or adsorbed in hydrated minerals.

 

Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other life forms even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.

Water plays an important role in the world economy. Approximately 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a major source of food for many parts of the world. Much of long-distance trade of commodities (such as oil and natural gas) and manufactured products are transported by boat through seas, rivers, lakes, and canals. Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances; as such it is widely used in industrial processes, and in cooking and washing. Water is also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, boating, surfing, fishing and diving.

With all that factoid about “How Much Water Is Important” we get back to the story of all these bottles of water, filled from some far-off tap and capped and stacked and wrapped and distributed by plane or truck or you can just carry a 36-pack home (PS: Water is heavy) to do all your drinking and cooking and washing. And once the bottle is empty by whatever means, it needs to be disposed of.

Let us get back to the term ‘disaster’. Something or someone has just destroyed these people’s day-to-day lifestyles. There is no shelter, no food, no transportation, no communication and no water.

If it weren’t for the ‘kindness’ of the good souls of this earth, these folks would be left alone with destruction, death, wounded, disease, starvation and thirst. Other than the scavengers who wander by picking up leftover wallets and wiping the blood off of items that were precious and now trash.

Unfortunately there is always another disaster to divert our attention and all the do-gooders will move onto the next spot of mayhem along with the media. Those left behind will have to decide to migrate or start over.

If the local corruption of the government doesn’t sell the warehouses of aid, then the families and orphans and elderly and ill must make do by whatever means to continue.

Limited services are available to dispose of the mounds of trash where waste disposal may have already been non-essential or even established. Usually whatever water source there is becomes the removal method, including the mountains of empty plastic water bottles. There is no recycling.