exploiting the ocean for Arizona water

The Arizona Republic headlines note…ARIZONA MULLS NEW WATER SOURCE: OCEAN … As we ponder exploiting the oceans as one of the primary sources of potable (drinking) water in Arizona’s future, might we consider the long term implications this action will have on our single source ecosystem…? I invite us to consider and make part of our discovery process how we honorable deal with the increased salinity issue such desalination will have on the ecosystem of the ocean from which we choose to extract this water. I invite us to multiply Arizona’s pending action by a factor of 10 or 100 or 100 or more times as cities far closer to the worlds oceans rush head long towards a similar solution. I invite us to consider the horrific energy cost on worldwide scale desalination will have and from where do we anticipate obtaining this needed energy – fossil fuel…?

We love numbers and it is noted the world’s oceans contain approx. 97% of all the water available on our planet. These same oceans provide home to teeming millions upon millions of life forms all designed to live within a specific salinity range. Our increase desalination efforts will only serve to inexorably exacerbate already declining ocean life forms. That all “life forms” share one inexorably intertwined ecosystem somehow does not resonate with the degree of prominence that it should. Sir Isaac Newton noted long ago … that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction … and I do not believe mankind can long endure by thumbing our nose at Mother Nature’s consistent warnings, can you…?

It may be that desalination can be a factor in providing a portion of the potable (drinking) water that mankind world wide requires today and will require tomorrow, but only if we choose to address this in an honorable and holistic manner. Choosing to run rough shod over Mother Nature will only end in utter disaster for mankind.

When “IT’S” fixed we will have honorably taken into consideration the holistic implications of Sir Issac Newton’s … that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction …