Lean Over and Lick! Respect Water!

October 15, 2010 is Blog Action Day, when bloggers worldwide all write about a single topic in order to push that topic into the public awareness. This year's topic is water.

When I was looking for a house to buy, a real estate agent told me that when considering property, I should be mindful of water. Will it flood the land? Will it flow naturally through?

After I bought a place, I was discussing basement water-proofing with someone who had done it, via an effort appalling to my work-allergic self. The guy warned me to be ready for a struggle. "Water," he said, "Is a persistent and unstoppable force."

Both comments shared the same core wisdom: Respect Water. If you don't, you'll be sorry. Does water get the respect it deserves? The answer is mixed, but I think leans towards no.

For example, you've probably heard the statistic that water covers 70% of the globe. So why do we call our home Planet Earth? We should rebrand our home Planet Water. If you saw our planet from far away, would you categorize it as earth or water? To call it Earth would be like calling a human being an arm. (My fellow arms, lend me your ears!)

As for me, I'm aware of the water cycle, but what really concerns me is drinkable fresh water. How would I get some if the faucets suddenly stopped? How would I know where to dig a well? What if it all got contaminated? Then what? Ignorance is a form of disrespect. My low freshwater I.Q. tells me I take water for granted.

Before humans had evolved vending machines and faucets, how did our ancient ancestors find fresh water? Did they stand in the rain, staring skyward with their mouths open like a love ballad music video? Maybe before streams were polluted with crap from places that make plastic bottles to put water in, finding drinking water was easy, just stick your hand in a stream and drink. Or, as some might prefer, lean over and lick.

What? Did you think LOL meant something else?

On the positive side, I can say I admire the beauty of water. Having grown up in New Jersey, visits down the shore were spent swimming through murk. You couldn't see more than a few feet. When I visit tropical lands, I always find it fascinating that I can see my toes through several feet of water. That's how an ocean should be.

But what's beautiful and what's good to put your tongue in are two different things. (What? Those double-entendres are in YOUR head, not MY writing!)

Only once in my entire life can I remember actually going up to a stream and drinking from it. I was hiking in a mountain forest. It was a wonderful, beautiful, spiritual moment, where I felt like I communed with nature and the universe. Sadly, that brief event was followed by a week of angst that I had swallowed some invisible carcinogen.

Another thing that terrifies me about water is the idea of the polar ice caps melting. Two continent-sized water balloons are just waiting to pop and drown us all.

So let's review. Water owns over half our planet and it's got reserves in the polar ice caps. It's an unstoppable force that's easily contaminated. Oh and only a very small portion of it is drinkable, but that tiny portion is essential to our lives.

When this year's Blog Action Day topic was announced, my first thought was, "Water? That sucks! How can I make that interesting? It's water. Who cares?" However, after reviewing here the many ways in which I'm hydrologically ignorant, it turns out water was a perfect candidate for an awareness campaign.

Sometimes it seems we arms (I mean, we humans) can't come together over anything. If there's one thing we should really try to achieve, I think we should start with giving water the respect it deserves. We have to work together because water is collective, always. There is no individual ownership, much as those motivated by money try. Water moves, expands, evaporates, flows. If you mess up one part, it will contaminate the rest.

We've got to give water respect. One way or another, sooner or later, it will demand it. Let's make it sooner, because once water is no longer drinkable, we won't ever be able to LOL again.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.