So this semester is coming to a close, and it is time to wrap up my blog posts! To summarize all my blogs into one paragraph may be difficult because water is such a huge part of everyone's and everything's life. First, is something that we have talked about in class a lot - people only care about climate change when it is something they can see first-hand. We saw this in many cases in readings and in class. It pops up in government debates, and people just cannot seem to agree on whether our economic processes or the Earth is more important right now. This brings me to my second point, water has become a huge industry in the world. Something that the world has so much of is controlled by only a few, and then sold to the rest of the people at an exponential price. This causes huge problems because water is a basic need for human life and the fact that they are trying to sell this to people is disastrous. If people cannot afford to pay for water, how are they expected to live? Finally, as water shortages become more prominent, people are engineering ways in which to get more drinkable and usable water from new sources. This comes in the form of desalination plants, new water conserving irrigation techniques, new GMO (yes GMO) plants that are designed to not use as much water (i.e. GMO rice in Egypt to help conserve water in the time of the Ethiopian Dam concerns), and ideas such as the Sahara Forest Project.
The most influential thing that I learned through my research on water concerns throughout the world was something that I also stated in my film's essay. When a necessity to human life, such as water, becomes a luxury good rather than a public good, conflict will arise. This is seen in many parts of the world, such as Egypt and Jordan in which water is mostly sectioned off to the highest bidder (Tourism) or taken over by governments who cannot sustainably divide the good (Jordan and refugees).When people don't get access to something like water, people become sick, people will fight, people will die. In comparing the environmental and social impacts of water shortages, it is hard to understand why it isn't protected at a larger scale, but then you have to remember that water is money and money is power.