Water wars? World leaders and military strategists are already planning for a day when the Earth’s most abundant resource — water — becomes more precious than oil. Mankind can survive without oil, but water is essential to life. Climate change, pollution and a growing world population could make water the most valuable commodity on Earth.
- Environmentalists fear that as global warming sparks climate change, droughts will occur more frequently in heavily populated areas.
- Unchecked industrial pollution and agricultural runoff threatens the safety of fresh water supplies.
- A growing world population is already straining water supplies in some regions. California already pipes in water from over the Rockies. Great Lakes states are planning for future water sharing.
“We are definitely leaving the century of oil behind, and we are entering the century of water,” warns Peter Annin, author of The Great Lakes Water Wars. While 70% of our planet is covered with water, only 3% is fresh water, the kind we drink and use. Most of the world’s fresh water is unavailable, frozen in the polar ice caps and mountain glaciers. A mere 1% of the world’s fresh water is available for man’s use, and there are more than 6 billion of us competing for every drop of water.
Water — who has it and who needs it — is expected to become an increasingly pivotal issue in global politics in coming decades. Many fear drought-caused water shortages could ignite the political fuse that sparks the next world war.