Why Water is the New OilQuicklink submitted by Joan Brunwasser Permalink
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|We take water for granted. And why not? We turn a tap and out it comes. But that's going to have to change, says author Alex Prud'homme. As he explains in a new book, The Ripple Effect, the basic problem is this: the quantity of water in the world is finite, but demand is everywhere on the rise. As oil was in the 20th century – the key resource, a focus of tension, even conflict – so water will be of the 21st, as states, countries, and industries compete over the ever-more-precious resource. So we need to figure out how to use it more sustainably. But that's not all. In the United States fresh water is under threat from new kinds of barely understood pollutants, from pesticides to pharmaceuticals, and from a last-century infrastructure of pipes, dams, levees, sewage plants that urgently needs upgrading.|
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