Water scarcity tops the presentations in the SlideShare World’s Best Presentation Contest.

SlideShare is YouTube for PowerPoint presentations. It’s a fantastic social tool for sharing presentations, discussing them, voting on them, and ultimately learning from them. Of course, we’re actually Keynote users because it’s a superior product, but that’s beside the point.

In the 2008 World’s Best Presentation Contest, THIRST won in both the education category and the overall. This is effectively a supporting presentation for Water is the New Carbon and Our Water Footprint is Deeper than it Looks.

From the author: “This is an educational presentation exploring humanity’s water use and the emerging worldwide water shortage. It is designed to act as a stand-alone presentation.”

Guy Kawasaki was a judge provided us with the tip. There are many others worth a view.

As water gets the attention it deserves, the issue can be framed in terms we understand all too well. Here are the 10 ways that freshwater and carbon dioxide are two sides of the same coin.

Water is the new oil. This is certain to be repeated ad nauseum in the coming months and years. But is it? Does it make any sense to compare water with oil? Not really. The more accurate way to understand the impending freshwater crisis is in terms of its atmospheric counterpart, CO2.

Scarcity and abundance. Get used to it. We’ve got too much water and not enough water. Too much pollution and not enough oil. Too many fat people and not enough food. Too many drugs and not enough medicine. Too many people and not enough of the basics for human survival. We’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately, per this fall’s Pop!Tech conference where the theme is…scarcity and abundance.

At first glance these terms appear at odds. But as the above examples show, they can be two sides of the same coin: thesis and antithesis. Put them together, and you get synthesis. That’s quite possibly the way we should view water and carbon.

First, let’s dispense with the oil-water analogy, as they literally do not mix. The comparison appears to make sense on the surface because the common challenge is scarcity. This gives way to the competing forces of supply and demand, pushing up the respective values, which drives profits and puts power in the hands of those who control supply. But this is where the comparison ends.

Oil is not a fundamental component of life. We don’t need oil to live. And while both resources are finite, water is uniquely and infinitely renewable. Whereas water gives life and has purifying qualities, oil causes cancer through its polluting qualities. To be clear, oil can be a fantastic natural resource. It’s just been poorly used and managed. But in the big picture, petroleum doesn’t hold a candle to water. Carbon does.

Indeed, water and carbon are the building blocks of life. We are carbon-based life forms composed primarily of water. Photosynthesis occurs when H2O and CO2 mix in the presence of light. One of its products is oxygen. The problem with these basic molecules of life, however, is that they’re out of balance. Scarcity on one hand, abundance on the other. It’s too little and too much of two good things.

In the following we outline the ten ways carbon and water are more alike than dissimilar, despite this distinction between scarcity and abundance.

10. Sequestration vs. Desalination: This is what it’s come to. There is so much CO2 in the atmosphere that we have find a way to capture and sequester it deep within the earth. One of the more popular places is deep aquifers. That’s right, we’ll create caverns full of Perrier. Meanwhile, we’re going to purify salt water through an energy-intensive process, thereby emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere, in order to sustain arid regions.

9. Conservation: Part of the answer to these troubles is to conserve the resources. Conserving energy limits CO2 emissions. Conserving water relieves pressure on an already taxed system. Neither sacrifices quality of life. With energy it’s a matter of developing zero-carbon sources, whereas with water it’s simply about more conscious use and management.

8. Pollution: Neither CO2 nor H2O is a pollutant, though the former will soon be regulated as one. Why? Because it’s far too abundant in the atmosphere for our own good. Water is subject to many types of pollution, which plays a big role in its scarcity. Just as we need to stop using our atmosphere as a storage tank for fossil-fuel emissions, we have to stop using our groundwater and waterways as storage tanks for toxic runoff.

7. Subsidies & Waste: When we don’t factor the full costs and value of these resources into the unit price at the consumer level, it encourages waste. Taxpayer subsidies for water and energy play a huge role. First, the subsidies need to be eliminated, and then taxes need to be layered on top to both encourage conservation and raise funds to repair the damage done thus far while investing in sustainable systems for the future.

6. Agriculture & Livestock: Sixty percent of the world’s freshwater withdrawals go to irrigation uses, and 18 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions are tied to livestock. Toxic runoff from pesticides and chemical fertilizers pollutes rivers and creates dead zones downstream. Moves toward more sustainable farming practices not only addresses both of these issues but also presents outright solutions.

5. Technology: The so-called Clean Tech industry is dominated by technologies to address both freshwater scarcity and carbon abundance. There are tremendous wealth-creation opportunities in addressing these crises with the added benefit of saving lives and improving quality of life.

4. Weather Patterns: Global warming often gets too much credit for the water crisis. In the absence of CO2 abundance, we would still have water scarcity. It just wouldn’t be as bad. Still, the abnormal weather patterns of late can be attributed at least in part on a warmer atmosphere. These cause floods in some areas, like the American Midwest, while droughts worsen in others, like the American Southwest and Australia.

3. Bottled Water: When you look up “vicious cycle” in the dictionary, there should be a plastic bottle of Evian. The French company pioneered the packaging of an otherwise free beverage into plastic bottles so they could be shipped half-way across the world. The marketing convinces us that our abundantly safe freshwater supply is not safe. So we buy bottled water from France and Fiji, which requires absurd amounts of petroleum and CO2 emissions to produce, ship, and dispose of. Which erodes the quality of our freshwater supply, and compels us to buy bottled water.

2. Sustainable Levels: When you look at the problems of water and carbon, they really boil down to simple imbalances. And while the solutions are neither simple nor easy, at least we know what needs to be done. We need water and carbon to return to an equilibrium that is sustainable for all life on the planet…especially human life. In many ways, you can’t do one without the other. These issues are attached at the molecular hip.

1. Water Footprint: Water recently adopted the same footprint metric we’ve used for carbon and ecology over the past decade or so. According to Waterfootprint.org, “The water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation.” As with the carbon footprint, this includes all of the water used to manufacture goods. For example, a glass of beer has a water footprint of 75 liters. A kilo of corn takes 900 liters, regardless of whether it’s used for food or fuel.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll deal with our water footprints in the same way we’re dealing with carbon. We can certainly reduce our net impact through conservation, recycling, and buying lower-impact products (as those products become available). Beyond this, water offsets and so-called neutrality are areas that need to be explored.

H2OConserve.org also has a water footprint calculator. The Worldwatch Institute wrote an excellent piece on the subject, as did Hummingbird604. This is certain to be a topic of much study and debate.

As mainstream media prepares to adopt water scarcity as its latest cause, we prepare you for the flood of cliché-driven headlines.

We could be wrong, but our sixth sense for media trends tells us that the issue of global water scarcity is about to get the attention it deserves through so many magazine covers, nightly news stories, and cable news tidbits. The coverage will likely accompany a fair share of celebrity support with cause-driven events, catchy T-shirts, and corporate sponsorships. We’re ready. Are you?

We’ve already written that Water is the New Carbon (H2O the New CO2). In further preparation, here are the top ten water scarcity clichés. Use them at your own risk.

10. Water, Water Everywhere. This Coleridge line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (and freshman English) is the go-to water hook, since the rest of it reads, appropriately, “Nor any drop to drink”. This is sure to be the most popular. Expect to see it used liberally by CNN, Fox, and MSNBC.

9. Is the World in Hot Water? This one lends itself to boiling-pot imagery and lets you ratchet up the fear factor by adding global warming to the story.

8. Water: Is Our Glass Half Empty? If there are only two ways of looking at the water crisis, the media outlet that chooses this headline will certainly give you the more pessimistic one.

7. Water is the New Oil. This is a proclamation you’ll most likely see from Time or Newsweek. You’re already afraid of oil. Buy this magazine and be afraid of water, too!

6. Are We in Deep Water? Heh, heh. Get it? How can we be in deep water if there’s no water left? It’s funny because it’s true.

5. Blue Gold. Here you go Forbes, Fortune, and Colbert Platinum. How are we going to bank big time on water scarcity? Yep, that’s T. Boone Pickens smiling back at you from the cover.

4. Troubled Waters. A more serious and somber take on the crisis. Major newspapers might consider this one.

3. Waterworld. Kevin Costner’s 1995 bomb could make a comeback, especially considering the global warming tie-in.

2. Something in the Water. This one has an investigative feel to it with an emphasis on pollution and contamination. We see a three-part series that explores water scarcity from several angles.

1. Got Water? Like water itself, this milk campaign is endlessly recyclable.

If you see a water scarcity cliché, feel free to add it to the comments and link to it. If you have others off the top of your head, feel free to share.

Update: We’re going to update this post with all of the articles that use the above clichés. It’s not necessarily a critical thing, because they will all be important articles. It’ll just be interesting to see how the media embraces water as the new carbon.

• September 5th: The Daily Green goes with the ever-popular “Water, Water Everywhere” in its preview of the new water documentary, Flow. This is #10 on our list.

Global Warming is about to give way to Global Parching, sharing the international stage among the most urgent and high-profile crises of our time.

Consider yourself warned. Water will soon become the new carbon. Global Parching, as we’re calling it, is poised to give Global Warming a run for its money in terms of media coverage and clean tech investment…not to mention a good measure of armed conflict. Because when it comes to our most pressing environmental, national security, economic, and health issues, water is in a class of its own.

This rather flippant fashion analogy is meant to reflect how big, green causes have been marketed through films, celebrities, concerts, websites, and so much political theater. So let’s just acknowledge and accept that that’s how we spread important messages these days. Water won’t be any different. Moving on…

In the following, we highlight the challenge of fresh-water scarcity, drawing parallels to the challenge of carbon-dioxide abundance and what we might expect to see in selling the public on Global Parching.

Climate change and aberrant weather patterns are often blamed for the current water crisis, but that’s only part of the story. The reality is that a limited and somewhat fixed portion of the world’s water is available and suitable for human consumption. Jack Johnson’s “Sharing Song” for children comes to mind. “It’s always more fun to share with everyone.” That is, until there’s not enough to go around. Here’s the essence from ENN:

Some 70 percent of the earth’s surface consists of water, but only 3 percent of it is freshwater, and less than a third of that is drinkable. The amount of water we consume is increasing, whereas the supply of freshwater is static, which is why it’s running out. More than a third of the world doesn’t have enough water, and the situation is worsening.

As much as we love a good stat, these don’t really mean anything. We obviously get that the oceans aren’t a fresh water source, despite the unsustainable practice of desalination. For these purposes, salt water isn’t really water at all, is it? Why even start there? Instead, the reality is that about 30% of the earth’s fresh water is readily available to us. How much water is that? Well, we’re sure it’s a big number when measured in gallons or shot glasses, but that’s not the point. The significance is that 6.5 billion people share that same fixed supply. In other words, as they say in the real estate business, God isn’t making any more of it. When the global population adds another three billion people in 50 years, that supply won’t change, other than to diminish through pollution and other forms of outright consumption. So global warming is just making this bad situation worse.

If we’ve learned one thing from global warming, though, it’s that a hit movie can really make an environmental issue. We need an An Inconvenient Truth for water. Could Flow be it? It won accolades at Sundance, so it’s following in its Truth’s footprint, so to speak. We’ll get a better sense on September 12th with the film’s limited theatrical release. For now, enjoy the trailer. It’s fairly convincing.

In case you didn’t know, this is World Water Week, which is being held in Stockholm, Sweden. “The theme of the week is Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World with Special Focus on Sanitation.” Much of the emphasis is on Asia, where more than 1.4 billion people lack adequate sanitation and 700 million use unsafe drinking water.

WWF is calling for a global water agreement, specifically to help govern and mitigate conflicts with waterways that not-so-conveniently form international borders. They looked good at the time, right? Rivers can certainly make good borders, but unlike fences they don’t necessarily make good neighbors.

WWF Director-General James Leape called on governments to support the entry into force of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention—an international agreement which could play a key role in water security for about 40% of the world’s population.

If brought into force and widely implemented by the nations sharing the water of river systems and associated lakes and aquifers the convention could greatly contribute to ending the chaos of water grabbing and to improving the health of 263 rivers and lakes in 145 countries. Rivers that cross or form borders, most suffering from non-existent or inadequate regulation, drain half the earth’s surface, provide water to 40 percent of the human population and generate about 60 percent of global freshwater flow.

Meanwhile, coastal regions of Spain are being annexed by the Sahara desert. These areas are suffering from prolonged droughts while adjacent regions enjoy agua aplenty. This report by the BBC shows how water scarcity can lead to very local conflicts between people of the same nation. The desalination solution will only feed into the vicious cycle of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, more global warming, more extreme weather patterns, and more droughts (or floods). Also known as prolonging the inevitable.

Back in the first world, ENN describes the water issue in all-too-familiar terms:

Some 70 percent of the quality drinking water flowing into North American or European homes is flushed down the toilet or used for cleaning. Our water footprints – which include the water used to manufacture the things we consume, as well as the water we use ourselves – are increasing. The further a product, and everything used to make it, has to travel, the bigger its water footprint will be. A typical Belgian consumes 108 liters, or nearly 30 gallons, of water directly each day, and another 4,940 liters indirectly, including part of the 10 that are used to produce a sheet of A4 paper, 11,000 for a pair of jeans and 40,000 for a car.

You can be sure that water footprints will give way to water offsets, water credits, and water calculators (feel free to link to them in the comments). All in an effort to go…water neutral, of course. It would seem that the $45 billion bottled water industry is about to have some competition. After all, the carbon offset market alone is estimated at a whopping $1 trillion.

Closer to home, The Man is cracking down on wasteful water use in Los Angeles. Because we’re in a drought, of course. According to the L.A. Times,

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed an ordinance Thursday that doubles fines for residents who repeatedly violate the city’s “drought buster” rules, including a reworked ban on watering lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The measure bars restaurants from serving water to customers unless it is specifically requested. And the ordinance will quadruple fines for large customers of the Department of Water and Power, mainly businesses, that break the city’s water-waster law.

Under the new rules, DWP customers are prohibited from using hoses to wash down their sidewalks and driveways, unless there is a public safety issue or a pressure washer involved. The law also bars residents from watering their lawns when it rains.

Next time a waiter offers us tap water, we’ll be making a citizen’s arrest. It’ll be Global Parching vigilante style.

Of course, we’ve already written about the Great Water Debate with bottled, tap, and aquifer. T. Boone Pickens is poised to become America’s first water tycoon…or sheik, as the case may be.

When it comes to water causes, we’re big fans of Charity Water. The fact that they charge $20 for a bottle of water, which amounts to a donation of just about $20, effectively mocks bottled water and illustrates all that’s wrong with that industry. Charity Water is running a donation drive next month with a unique approach that celebrates the organization’s second anniversary…in conjunction with founder Scott Harrison’s 33rd birthday.

There’s no question that carbon dioxide has gotten too much attention over the past few years relative to the other environmental issues we face, such as water scarcity and other forms of pollution. If water does become the new carbon in this sense, all we’ll be doing is trading one flawed approach for another. Sustainability and our overall quality of life should be viewed and addressed as systems. We can look to leaders like Charity Water to help educate us about water issues, but this information should be factored into a systems approach that reduces our overall impact and helps us live more healthy and fulfilling lives.

Emma Stewart refers to this single-minded approach as “carbon myopia” and uses some interesting examples to illustrate her point.

[A] singular focus on one ecological system, the atmosphere, may cause perverse outcomes or neglected crises in the hydrosphere or lithosphere. We see this clearly in the rush to produce lower carbon biofuels and the unintended consequences this has had on land use, biodiversity, water and other issues. To put it bluntly, your company does not live by carbon alone, but on water, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and hydrogen cycles. For example, beverage, IT and pharmaceutical businesses depend on clean and regular supplies of water from aquifers and reservoirs. Food and agriculture firms rely on crop pollination by insects in order to maintain yields. Electric utilities need flows of cool water, and thus the shade cover that keeps water surface temperature low.

[G]overnment researchers are exploring how regulatory structures could transition away from the silos of air, water, wildlife, etc. to an ecosystem-based approach.

Our friends at Creative Citizen have this down by tracking the impacts of our behaviors and products on reducing emissions, water use, and waste. Not to mention saving you cold hard cash.

So we’re ready for water to get its day in the sun. But let’s not take our eyes off carbon and other issues that threaten our one and only eco system.

Photo: Flickr

Water is quickly becoming the new oil. It’s more scarce, thanks to droughts and waste. And our consumption habits have been called into question. This is the great water debate in three acts.

Act I: Message in a Bottle

Last summer, Fast Company magazine published Message in a Bottle. This superb article by Charles Fishman is one of those rare pieces of journalism that captures the moment…dare we say, the zeitgeist. Though the momentum was building before it, it seemed that the public suddenly awoke to the absurdity of drinking bottled water, especially in the United States. At restaurants, it became fashionable and responsible (not just cheap) to ask for tap water. So this article is a key reference for the bottled water debate. We’re happy to reduce, reuse, and recycle it here.

Message in a Bottle outlines the history of bottled water, dating back to the 1800s, through to its rebirth in the 1970s with Perrier, on to the introduction of plastic bottles with Evian in the 1980s, and the cornucopia of bottled-water brands we know and loathe today. If nothing more, it symbolizes the gilded age that may be rapidly coming to an end.

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water.

There is [another] item in bottled water’s environmental ledger: the bottles themselves. The big springwater companies tend to make their own bottles in their plants, just moments before they are filled with water–12, 19, 30 grams of molded plastic each. Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person. Durable, lightweight containers manufactured just to be discarded. Water bottles are made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, so we share responsibility for their impact: Our recycling rate for PET is only 23%, which means we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year–more than $1 billion worth of plastic.

Supporters of bottled water, including Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, typically have a vested interest in the business and justify the product because it’s healthy. The reasoning is that bottled water is effectively displacing less-healthy alternatives like sugary juices and sodas in our diets. But can a case really be made for paying for something that’s otherwise free, especially when it leaves behind such a significant environmental footprint?

We buy bottled water because we think it’s healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn’t healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world’s $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four–the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico–that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe. It is monitored constantly, and the test results made public.

And for this healthy convenience, we’re paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35–17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren’t paying attention.

In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.

The story of Fiji Water is perhaps the most absurd. In fact, this article directly inspired Stephen Colbert’s satirical jab at the industry.

The label on a bottle of Fiji Water says “from the islands of Fiji.” Journey to the source of that water, and you realize just how extraordinary that promise is. From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji’s two-lane King’s Highway.

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles’ journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation–which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity–something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from “one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth,” as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze. Each water bottler has its own version of this oxymoron: that something as pure and clean as water leaves a contrail.

Getting bottled water from Fiji or France just isn’t sustainable. As the economics of higher fuel prices, which effect the cost of the plastic, the cost of transportation, and the cost of running those diesel generators, come into play, prices for exotic brands will have to go up. As Americans decide bottled water is a luxury they can no longer afford or justify, demand should fall. But we can’t pass laws banning bottled water, as we can with plastic bags, because it would only increase consumption of less-healthy alternatives. This is a choice consumers and the market need to make, and it requires awareness. Each bottle should list its carbon footprint and possibly other environmental impact data in order to inform consumers about what they’re actually paying for.

Packing bottled water in lunch boxes, grabbing a half-liter from the fridge as we dash out the door, piling up half-finished bottles in the car cup holders–that happens because of a fundamental thoughtlessness. It’s only marginally more trouble to have reusable water bottles, cleaned and filled and tucked in the lunch box or the fridge. We just can’t be bothered. And in a world in which 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water, and 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water, that conspicuous consumption of bottled water that we don’t need seems wasteful, and perhaps cavalier.

Once you understand the resources mustered to deliver the bottle of water, it’s reasonable to ask as you reach for the next bottle, not just “Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I’m about to spend?” but “Does the value equal the impact I’m about to leave behind?”

Act II: Something in the Water

In the past few months, we’ve seen at least two articles highlighting the potential dangers of tap water, and it defies the imagination: prescription drugs and other narcotics.

Our water system is essentially a closed loop. Part of that cycle runs through our bodies. As it becomes more common for one to be on prescription drugs than not, it’s bound to have an effect on the water supply. Evidently, it already has.

According to an investigation by the AP, a “vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.”

The concentration levels measure in parts per billion or trillion. Not so much, right? But a zoologist points out that these pharmaceuticals are specifically designed to be effective in very small doses. If Congress and Big Pharma have their way, Americans will be consuming increasingly more drugs in the coming years, so without some type of action, these levels have one place to go: up. “Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12% to a record 3.7 billion, while non-prescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.”

Does this mean we’re clear to drink bottled water? Not so fast. The problem is that this affects all water in all countries, and it’s not just from humans. Steroids and growth hormones used in raising livestock are also contributing to the problem, as are the veterinary drugs used on our pets.

Oh yeah, there’s also “evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.” Indeed, the cure is worse than the disease.

The AP interviewed several representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the story. The same EPA that’s been instructed not to talk to reporters about its internal workings; the same EPA that’s being threatened with legal action by five states for shirking its duty on air pollution controls; the same EPA who’s director is being called upon to resign by three US Senators. And this is the bureaucracy that’s tasked with addressing this issue and “protecting” us?

In London, England, Environmental Graffiti explores a related trend and shows that all drugs in the water are local.

The largest part of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals we ingest every day ends up in waste water, before passing through treatment plants not designed to filter it and eventually back into our water supply. Effectively the contents of our medicine cabinets – that’s everything from aspirin to LSD – ends up in the water we cook with, bathe in and drink everyday. The content of tap water in each area thus depends largely on what the residents of that area ingest.

Van Bulen’s study showed that water in Notting Hill benefits from the high density of organic shops found in the area and is free of food additives and pesticides, whereas water from the city of London is enhanced with all kinds of stimulants, from caffeine-rich drinks to cocaine. Golders Green, which houses an important Jewish community, apparently even produces very ‘fertile’ water due to the low concentration of people taking anti-conception pills in the area.

And you thought that noise was the only problem with your neighbors.

Act III: T. Boone Pickens Wants to Drink Your Milkshake

We wrote briefly about the Pickens Plan in Part 3 of How to Debate Climate Change. First, we want to clarify that this plan is tragically flawed. Pickens wants to trade dependence on foreign oil for dependence on T. Boone Pickens. He is the largest natural gas lease holder in the U.S., and as soon as demand for natural gas goes up as a result of switching any significant portion of our vehicles to this “alternative fuel”, Pickens will become the Sheik of Texas. Perhaps he’ll then build another Dubai on the Texas panhandle. He could, because Pickens also has a ton of water rights in the area, which means he can tap the vast Ogallala Aquifer.

From Cleantechnica: Pickens’ company, Mesa Water, bought more than 200,000 acres of ground water rights in Roberts County, Texas. Estimating that he could make more than $1 billion off of the $75 million investment over the next few decades, Pickens wants to drain the Ogallala Aquifer to meet the demand for water in west Texas.

Though scattered and difficult to watch, this video from ZapRoot illustrates the issue.

This could be just the beginning of the water grab for the Ogallala, since it spans several dry and highly agricultural states. He who has the biggest straw will win.

Water is a big issue with many dimensions that’s just starting to get the attention it deserves. As with oil, perhaps it shouldn’t be so cheap. Perhaps the government shouldn’t subsidize agriculture with a blank check for water. Perhaps the government should take steps to make sure our water supply is safe and then promote that fact to encourage more responsible choices and less waste. Perhaps we should pay a hefty deposit for plastic water bottles to encourage recycling. The solutions are at hand. All it takes is some thought and the political will to make them happen.

Photo: Flickr