I know I am not only one who notices how lovely all of our headlines are, and how much lovelier they get with each passing year. "Record Number of Tornadoes," "War Debt in the Trillions," "Fires Heading Toward Nuclear Lab," "Water Becoming a Precious Resource." I am generally an optimist regarding the state of the world (I am sure that is a bit hard to believe considering my sarcasm, but it is true). I see the good, the honest, the inspiring, and find myself awed by how amazing the natural world and humanity is. Seeing someone hold open a shop door for a stranger, or seeing a child say thank you brings a smile to my lips. Hearing of the tireless volunteer efforts by those who put themselves in danger to help others (Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, PeaceCorps, etc.) makes me proud to call myself a member of the human race. So why is it that I find myself unable to completely block out all of the news that wraps its suffocating arms around me, enveloping me in a confusing blindness?
I think it is important to keep my head out of the sand. I listen to NPR and watch the PBS News Hour (hell, I even pick up the Economist when I am feeling particularly brainy) and absorb the recent news and status updates in my quest to be a well informed. And for the most part, I am able to keep from letting the news effect my mood or outlook, but not always...
I just read an article regarding water and its increasing scarcity. I earned my degree in natural resources, I have an aunt who is a water conservation nut, so the concept is not new to me. But this article was different... it was written from a financial perspective, listing off the values of water over traditional investments (the main one being that it is required for survival- we can live without gold, we can't live without water) and outlining the very real threat to this resource all the while saying, "so get in there and invest."
Did the author not make the connection? Did he not see that it doesn't matter if you invest your money in H20 and become a billionaire, if a glass of water costs you a billion dollars because we mismanaged the resource and outsourced it to private companies (what do you think bottled water is???) then you still only get one glass of water. This isn't like oil, we cannot come up with a new alternative resource to replace the current one. This is it. We have the water we have, most of which is undrinkable salt water, we can't magically make more. Once it is used up, it is used up. Why oh why would you write an article that recommends investing in our downfall? Why not use that space to write about water conservation? Hell, why not just leave it blank?
