As we learn more about our planet and how our actions over centuries have shaped it, we are also learning more about how our water is affected by global factors and the damage it is doing to us.
We have always understood the local, small interactions between humans and the water they live in and around, but the reality is that things that we do to our water halfway across the globe can have worldwide consequences.
Using fertilizers on your lands can then roll downhill into the water table, causing excess nitrogen runoffs. That water will continue to roll until it reaches the sea where it creates massive algae blooms and gigantic dead zones in the ocean where no sea life can survive.
And why did you have to use more fertilizer in the first place? The changing climate shifted ideal conditions so that you were forced to compensate for too little rain or too much sun.
Tiny actions like this all over the world create a butterfly effect which will have repercussions for years and even decades.
And that is not even including the more obvious effects of climate change on our water table, causing devastating floods in one area of the world while in other parts, plants and animals die from dehydration in years-long droughts. And we can only expect these issues to get worse.
At the global Climate Summit, it was confirmed that even if each nation truly does its part, sea levels are still expected to rise several inches in the next several years. This means that entire cities will literally disappear under water as the most physical manifestation of how far we as a species have gone.
Water is the element necessary for all life, human or otherwise, and yet our mishandling of the climate means that this vital resource has become more of a curse than a blessing.
