Monday, January 07, 2013

A river (used to) run through it

The biggest issue of this century will be preservation of water

Mark Twain (in an editorial by Charles D. Warner, Hartford Courant, in 1897) said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” 112 years ago, Warner’s op-ed quoted that if you are in Colorado, it’s illegal to divert rainwater falling on your property unless you have a very old water right or when the weather is “very happy.” In other words, you could not harvest rainwater for personal use. Surprise surprise. The situation’s the same even now in Colorado.

Interestingly, many other states in the US are reportedly taking steps now to set up similar rules. UK goes one-step further and fines anyone using hosepipes (a 1,000 pounds fine). On the other extreme is New Mexico, which makes it mandatory for new dwellings to harvest water. So what’s our drift? The drift is that today, one third of the world’s population is suffering from water shortages; and by 2025, as per UN, two out of three people would undergo “water stress.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
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