It’s only a matter of time when two nations go to war not over access to oil, but to water. Bypass the debate about whether climate change is causing this — the reality, according to the United Nations, is that 1.2 billion people today suffer from severe water shortages. That number will rise to 1.8 billion within the next decade. Access to water will not only eventually lead to conflict, but will be a force driving mass migration. When half of the world lives within 65 miles of a coast, and 97 percent of the water on the earth is saltwater, things will get very thick on the coasts and very thin in between.
Science author Sam Kean says that while conservation is necessary, it won’t be enough. To stave off global drought, we’ll need to reform agriculture (which accounts for two-thirds of human water use), and fix leaky pipes, cause of severe water loss in many developing nations. But beyond these reforms, we will need also to harvest water from new sources. The two main candidates? Hold your nose: the ocean and the potty. (Yes, that instinctive revulsion has certainly tapped the brakes on these efforts!)
Desalinating water from the sea is not without its challenges. Reverse osmosis technologies thus far have been expensive and energy-intensive. But Israel has virtually eliminated its chronic national shortages through government investment in desalination plants. And an Israeli company will soon open in San Diego, promising that parched city 50 million gallons of drinkable water per day.
But if I hated drinking tap water at the beach as a child, everything in me turns from the idea of drinking recycled wastewater. Experts, however, claim that the path to the end of thirst is paved with reclaimed water from showers, washing machines, and, yes, toilets. The obstacles here are not technological but psychological. The water is plenty clean for drinking; it’s just a mental block. Yet the trend — once people get thirsty enough — will overcome this hesitation. Again San Diego, which rejected a plan for drinking recycled water in 1998, approved a multibillion recycled water plant that will provide one-third of its tap water by 2035.
Expect the conversation about the future of water supply to be wide-ranging and increasingly passionate. Kean speaks of strategies ranging from something as simple as low-tech water-collecting nets in Guatemala to the grandiose idea of harvesting water from asteroids.
But few forces in life are as powerful as thirst. What I will be watching for is how Baptists who speak of Jesus as “the water of life” invest and serve in slaking both the spiritual and physical thirst of a globe increasingly deal with drought in both realms.