Water.

Water is such an obviously essential part of our life, but ‘virtual water’ is the name given to water that is not an obviously essential part, but it is still very essential. Lots of food products use large amounts of water just to be created, water the consumer does not necessarily no, or think about. So many products use so many litres of water, without our knowledge, it’s no wonder we’re in a severe drought.
I think there is definitely the potential for water to be fought over, it is in the end up to each countries leaders as to whether we get to the point in time where water is so scarce we have to fight over it, and then if we do get to that point whether there is a way to resolve matters without fighting.
One way people hope to stop the need to fight for water is to turn sea water into fresh drinkable water, otherwise known as desalination. It is pretty important for Australia to invest in some form of water increase technology as it is becoming sadly evident that we can no longer rely on nature to provide enough. But is desalination the way to go? There are so quite a few negatives connected with desalination, it does seem smart though for a country surrounded by sea to use some of it to create drinkable water, just is the electricity needed to power the plant going to have such detrimental effects on the environment that water will seem a miniscule issue? I think that if the desalination plant is the best cure for Australia’s water shortage issue, then it should be used wherever it’s needed. But I’m not sure it is the best solution, I’m not sure the positives outweigh the negatives, I don’t think the people who are trying to solve Australia’s problem have done enough research into other solutions, the desalination plant is causing a lot of upheaval while it is being constructed, hundreds of kilometres of farms are unable to use paddocks for months as big pipelines are tunnelled under their land along with the electricity needed to pump the water from the plant. When the desalination plant is discussed people talk about the amount of electricity needed to power the plant, but how much power is also needed to pump the water? How many other things are connected with desalination plants that are bad for the environment? Was there a better way to solve our water shortage issues? Is this just another way out that will cause more issues for our environment later on?