Our recent experience with water restrictions is a wake up call for our attitudes.
A large portion of our consumption in the summer goes to watering lawns. Compared to earlier this summer, once the Metro Vancouver Stage 3 restrictions went into effect, our consumption went down by 27 per cent. To put this in perspective, summer consumption is 60 per cent greater than mid-winter.
We live in a region where we are fortunate enough to have a lot of water and so we can almost be forgiven if we assume water is everywhere. That's not so for most of the world.
California, as we know, is in the fourth year of drought, with severe water restrictions underway.
Almond trees are being dug up as the crop takes too much water. Other agriculture is threatened or already compromised.
The aquifer underlying much of the state is being drained such that it will be empty before long - at which point massive reductions in agriculture will take place. The population and the economy of California, in the absence of a return to more wet conditions, are threatened by these events.
If say one half of the California agriculture products now in the stores were to disappear due to crop failures, where do we go for food? Yes, there are alternatives, but others will also be looking for the same goods.
In the U.S. Midwest, a major underground aquifer covering several states is forecasted to run dry within the century, or sooner. The area is used extensively for agriculture and thus a threat to the continuation of that activity.
Predictions about sea level rise in Florida forecast much of the state will be in trouble - a combination of land under rising sea levels and seepage of seawater into mainland fresh water aquifers and collection systems.
Canadian Prairie farmers are declaring crop disasters due to a lack of rain and moisture. Livestock is being slaughtered due to an inability to feed them. Perhaps a price increase in the short term, but what comes later? There is clear evidence that not only is there less rain and snowfall, while glaciers are melting a rapid rate and may be gone in a few decades. Where will the water come from then?
Forgetting that our last ice age was 10,000 years ago, history tells us that weather does change. Britain enjoyed warmer temperature and Leif Erickson made his voyage to Newfoundland about 1,000 AD. During that same period places such as Angkor Wat, Cambodia or Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, both once thriving communities, were abandoned in the face of severe droughts.
Global climate change is upon us. We need to look to sustainable methods with some seriousness that we have lacked so far.
Ian Robertson is a registered professional engineer who lives in Tsawwassen.
