Coldsp33d's Blog

Anime Relations: Monogatari Series: Second Season

Water Problems

It so happened that I came across an article in the Daily Herald the other day which spoke about the growing shortage of water in our country. A water shortage! It was true, there were some pretty bad water problems in our country... But with a population of over seven billion people, I was sure the principle could be extended; water wasn't going to flow free and fast anywhere, anymore. Unless you were in the middle of the ocean. And you were drowning.

My throat tightened.

Looking at the article, I was only reminded of the glaring problem threatening the existence of humans on earth. Not good for us. Not good at all. So I started thinking of ways to counter this issue, and one came readily to mind.

What if people were to find a way to make salt water potable? Well, it certainly was a noteworthy thought. But as I could be sure, I wouldn't be the first guy to have thought about such a thing. Desalination of salt water is something that's in practice, even today. And if memory serves, Bahrain and Oman got their water this way. But desalination costs money... lots of it. And Gulf countries aren't exactly hard for cash. If you, as a country, don't have the money to foot the bill, then what do you do?

The next step would be to find a cheaper way to harness drinkable goodness from saline waste. Unfortunately, I'm no scientist.

Oh well, moving on.

What about digging deeper and deeper bore-wells? With today's technology, one could only go so deep. But improve your machines, and you'd be able to dig deeper than ever before, to harness the water lying untouched at the bottom of the crust. In fact, if you worked at it, you could even dig all the way over to the other side and steal water from China.

...That last thought tickled my funny bone. What an absurd misconception.
Thinking about the cons, I realised there were actually quite a few. First of all, there's no point digging beyond a certain depth, because then you'd just end up drilling into the Earth's bone-dry mantle. The water table only runs so deep after all, and you'd just end up wasting time and money because there's nothing below it. Except maybe oil. But then again, if you were looking to quench your thirst, oil really wasn't a good alternative...

The next problem would be the one of water purification. The deeper you go, the harder your water gets, the harder it is to purify it. Harder the purification, higher the cost. Higher the cost, lower the probability of it being a feasible process. Vicious cycle.

The last problem was that it wasn't a permanent solution... eventually you'd just be exhausting another un-replenishable resource. And what do you do after that? Drink some salt water? Hah, I don't think so.

What about harvesting rainfall? Hmm, a good idea. Again, I'm not the first one to have thought about it. It is, in fact, another technique in practice today. But what with rainfall becoming scarcer and scarcer everyday, rainfall harvesting is also becoming a fruitless exercise. What you'd get from rainfall is peanuts compared to what the world needs. Supply will never meet demand. Not in most places, at least. And it is because of this reason that it will fail as a solution.

Onto the next.

What about harvesting glaciers and ice caps? Another noteworthy thought. Sadly though, just as scrap-worthy. Granted, they are a huge source of fresh, drinking water, capable of supporting the next couple generations. But If I could think about all the problems it would entail doing something like this, I'd have ended up sitting there all day with the newspaper on my lap. How would you harvest ice caps? Cut off chunks of ice and boil them? Hah! That's already happening now! Because of all the waste and pollution, and all the oxides or carbon, sulphur, and nitrogen being pumped into the air on a secondly basis, the planet is slowly, but surely, growing hotter. There's even a name for the phenomenon... Global heating, was it? Global warming...? Something like that, anyway.

Now, by destroying ice caps, you'd effectively be changing the distribution of mass on earth. This is, by far, the most serious repercussion of all. Granted, it is already happening, but not at such an intensity to be life threatening for the current generation. As it is, global warming is melting glaciers, raising ocean levels and submerging landscapes. It is literally giving the planet a makeover, not to mention changing climates and seasons. The Mean Sea Level is constantly being redefined, messing up every single height and distance calculation ever made. These are some pretty serious problems, but when you look at what would happen if you destroyed the ice caps and glaciers, these problems pale in comparison.

By doing such a thing, you'd aid in increasing the rate of current changes twentyfold. You'd also (as I mentioned earlier) aid in the the redistribution of billions and billions of tonnes of weight around the planet. When you redistribute weight that fast, you change the period of rotation of the planet at a rate too quick for humans to adapt. What do you think happens when the Earth's rotation goes out of whack? Days and nights go out of whack. The result: A world in confusion. A day will no more consist of 24 hours, an hour will no more consist of 60 minutes. For a world which practically runs on time, what happens when you can no longer trust in time? What happens when you can no longer understand it, depend on it?

Chaos happens.

What then? There's one more thing I can think of. But it isn't exactly an immediate solution. If the human body needs water to survive, and if water becomes harder to find, then humans would have to evolve in such a way that their dependence on water decreases. Imagine a future where, like the Ship of the Desert, one could take a sip of water and say, "I'm good for a couple days."

But that'd take thousands of years. Maybe millions. In all probability, it'd never even happen. It isn't exactly easy to achieve, not to mention, humans wouldn't look good with humps and lumps and other assorted bumps on their back.

Well, that puts an end to that theory. However, there's one last thing I have in mind... just one more thing... and it, in my opinion, is the best idea I could've come up with. While all of my other ideas had gaping holes in them, this is foolproof. This plan could work, so long as people had the guts to follow it.

Substitute water with something LIKE water. And I don't mean something made with water, like alcohol. I mean, something that's widely abundant everywhere, readily accessible, and totally inexhaustible. Plus, tastes a lot better. Got an idea?

Blood.

Yes, blood. No, not the blood of animals... leave the poor animals out of this. I mean human blood. Think of a scenario where a man is walking down the street at night. Suddenly, he catches sight of another person in front of him. The man sneaks up behind his victim, catches them by surprise, bites them in the neck, has his fill, and flees. Sounds absolutely dreamy! But sadly, nothing lily-livered humans would be capable of doing. They'd drink salt water and die from kidney stones before they resorted to vampirism.

Who knows though, it could happen in the future, hopefully. I have my fingers crossed.

At that point, I stopped ruminating on the world's problems, folded up the newspaper, and left to tend to my nightly errands. Frankly, I couldn't care less about the humans' problems. They have theirs and we have ours. Then, why in the world did I bother to waste ten minutes of my time thinking up solutions to their issues? Merely out of boredom, that's all.

Truth be told, even though humans are necessary for our existence, we vampires find a deep sense of satisfaction in watching the world burn.