Water

Water is never far from my thoughts. I find it fascinating and beautiful, and always have. Water is the essential ingredient in everything we find awe-inspiring or beautiful--from waterfalls to glaciers, canyons to beaches. Nothing makes the heart sing quite like a daylong hike to a secluded alpine lake. California's majestic redwood forests are only possible because of fog. Flowing water, taking the form of a vigorous mountain freshet, a lazy lily pond, or the rolling surf of the Jersey Shore, is nature's antidepressant. The snowfields of the Sierra Nevada, the geysers of Yellowstone, the waterfalls of the Upper Peninsula--all of them water.

We all know that fresh water makes life possible, and that it is scarce: less than three percent of the planet's water is fresh, and over 99% of that is locked in icecaps, glaciers, or aquifers. Where you find fresh surface water, you find life in abundance. Only those flora and fauna that are specially adapted for arid conditions are to be found far from the local watering hold. The singular exception to this natural law is humans, whose only natural advantage in dryland conditions is the ability to engineer. For millenia, humans have tried to find ways to survive in the desert, and for millenia they have failed. Modern-day humans have technological solutions to the problem of aridity that their thirsty ancestors could only dream of. Without the ability to reroute the flows of the Feather, Owens, and Colorado Rivers hundreds and thousands of miles from their natural courses, Los Angeles as we know it could not exist. The Great Plains, once one of the world's great grasslands, is now the world's breadbasket, solely because we now have the means to pump vast amounts of water from the Ogalalla Aquifer.

But, just as our desert-dwelling ancestors found, these are not solutions so much as stopgaps. The Ogalalla is being drained far faster than it can be recharged, with the result that a massive second Dust Bowl, probably in our lifetimes, is inevitable. The damming, draining, and delivery of river water far from its natural course is having a lethal effect on western ecosystems, impacting our balance of life in ways we don't yet clearly understand. It seems that humans will try anything to find a way to live where we oughtn't.

And this is another reason why water is never far from my thoughts. I still consider my current living situation to be temporary, and constantly weigh alternative locations for settling down permanently. Many if not most of the places that attract me the most are these "oughtn't" lands. Can I justify living, or even vacationing, in places where human civilization is unsupportable, even if it is in other ways the best place for me? If I want to work on water issues, isn't it hypocritical of me to live in a place where I'm part of the problem?