Here in my piece of flyover country, I am blessed with abundant water. As global change brings us closer to a water-based Armageddon, I'm thinking that I might have a shot at survival given all the water around me within just a few miles. I wonder if enough people are looking at the issue of water becoming a scarce resource for more people, especially those, like me, for whom water was once found in abundance. I think, in my remaining few years (hopefully more than that), that we are going to see water come to the forefront of critical issues for humanity. I really continue to wonder why we don't hear more about desalinization, even simply using solar energy to drive evaporation on a large scale to produce salt free water. For a great bulk of the planet, water remains such a plentiful commodity that it has not yet risen to the level of questioning its supply for our ongoing survival. That's changing day by day, but the change is so small and so local that we don't see it. Not yet and hopefully not ever.
That brings me to today's phrase, "urban water". Like this:
Aside from the many alarmist facets of this issue, urban water still can provide respite from the daily grind. Many of us dream about the week every year in which we "escape" to the Boundary Waters or some other watery spot in which we can paddle about and leave our worries behind. While that week in the BWCA remains high on the list of annual goals, I find the daily (or at least weekly) pleasure of getting out on urban water to be very much worthwhile. This can be a lifestyle thing, whereas the annual vacation is an exceptional thing. An hour of simply aimless wandering around on water in a boat, paddle in hand is a good thing. Even with skyscrapers in close proximity.
Sometimes, even as it comes ever closer to your daylight basement and the sliding glass door, water still provides the simple pleasure, or novelty, of paddling in your backyard.
No comments:
Post a Comment