Water Shortage in America

Imagine this. As a college student you get a job in the local fast-food place for minimum wage. Now that you're employed, credit card applications fill your mailbox. You apply and receive a new Visa in a week. Because you are a college student, you have a higher spending limit, since statistically speaking you will probably have a higher-than average future income. What do you do with it? You immediately "max it out," spending $1,500.00 within a month. Typical American, right?
Also typical American- -the way we are "maxing out" our dwindling water supply with absolutely no slowing down to prepare for the future, no plan for how we are going to "pay back" and replenish the water supply. Not only are we as Americans using and wasting our own water at an alarming rate, we are also the highest manufacturers of ethanol products which are destroying the water supply for the entire world. Greenhouse gases which trap heat and play a major role in the melting of the glaciers and snow-dependent regions are building up largely due to Americans' continuing use of ethanol products and lack of water conservation. "It's like having a credit card and spending wildly, and not thinking about how you're going to pay it off," Dr. Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution says. He and other scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography predict that there will be a severe water shortage, resulting from global warming, in the near future. The United States will feel the impact of the global climate change in as few as 20 years. The timeline for the loss of water in other parts of the world will vary. Places like Peru will most likely feel the shortage sooner, whereas places like China might feel the effects a little later.
Why is ethanol such a problem? Right now, right here in the United States, there have been regional water shortages due to the booming ethanol industry. In the state of Iowa, the biggest producer of biofuel in the U.S., the demand for water required by the ethanol manufacturers adds up to an estimated 28 billion liters per year, but even this is only one third of what the United States produces. Not only does ethanol contribute to global warming, but the production of it uses up the fresh drinking water supply.
However, it is not just ethanol production that is a problem. Water is being wasted everywhere. Wherever it is being used, for agriculture, industry, or even domestic use in people's homes, water could and should be managed better, according to the World Water Council. What will the result be, if we don't make changes right now? Scientists predict the harmful effects of global warming will include hundreds of millions of people not having enough water to drink, while at the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year due to rising temperatures and sea levels, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The world will change in numerous unexpected ways, too. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By the year 2050, the panel predicts that polar bears will no longer exist in the wild. their natural frozen habitats will be gone. Pests like fire ants, on the other hand, will thrive. The world's physical and biological systems will be forever changed on every continent. This is not the future we imagine. Do we have the discipline to change this path? Do we have the initiative to even start making changes in our own homes?
There are many ways that people can conserve water in every area of their lives. Right at home, we can begin by installing appliances that use less water than older models, such as toilets and washing machines. We can landscape our gardens, parks and other public places with drought-friendly plants, and most of all, we can simply monitor our own use of water and learn to get by with less. Factories can recycle and reuse water that they waste after one use. Agriculture and other areas of food production can be improved. People can even use their consumer power to buy goods that require less water to produce and cut back on buying goods that require lots of water to process. For example, the World Water Council points out, "Changes in food habits many reduce the problem, knowing that growing 1 kg of potatoes requires only 100 liters of water, whereas 1 kg of beef requires 13,000 liters." The changes can be as simple as eating less processed beef, or taking a bath instead of a shower every day. The important thing is that we have to begin...and we have to begin now.