LETTER: Do not take water for granted
With climate change and ever-growing cities, the continued availability of clean drinking water is critical
I know Eskom’s future is important for SA, but our obsession with its incompetence is blinding us to an even more critical crisis. Civilisation flourished without electricity until about 140 years ago, but it has always depended on water.
You can trace water’s influence back to the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and their efforts to control the Nile’s annual flood. Though India has just received good monsoon rains, 21 of its major cities were recently trucking in water. Groundwater reserves have been heavily exploited. One of the underlying causes of the Kashmiri conflict between India and Pakistan is water. Over 1-billion people rely on the meltwaters of the Himalayan plateau, which will be negatively affected by climate change...
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