Water Crisis: We’ve to adapt or perish

The Free State is in the grip of its worst ever water shortage in decades, thanks to limited, read non-existent, rainfalls.

This has prompted authorities in several municipalities across the province to impose restrictions on water usage to make sure communities can last longer on the little of the life-saving liquid that’s available.

In order to make the people appreciate the gravity of the situation, the municipalities have embarked on aggressive public awareness campaigns which as seen it circulating missives to residents reminding them that each drop of water could be the last.

We can only hope people will heed this clarion call and use water sparingly, while foregoing activities that tend consume too much water.

We can also hope that the more affluent sections of society, that are known to have a penchant for watering lawns and filling up swimming polls, will also come to the party.
Without water, all life forms are as good as dead. Let us not contribute to our own extinction.

We have already done enough harm to the planet as it is, thereby accelerating what palaeontologists call ‘the sixth extinction’.

We have all either witnessed, read or seen on television some of the most devastating effects of the current protracted drought on some of the Free State’s small holder farmers. The farmers are struggling to grow enough fodder to feed their livestock, while they also face a daily challenge to get water for their livestock and for their own sustenance.

Some farmers have already lost cattle, sheep and other animals to the drought, a situation that will mean South Africa will in the not too distant future face shortages of meat, pork, chicken and other meat products.

In a similar vein, the Free State – which is regarded as one of South Africa’s leading growers of commodities like maize and sorghum – could also find itself unable to produce enough supplies of these and other staple foods.

But for provinces such as the Free State it is not only food shortages and higher food prices that we are facing.

The drought is damaging the viability of an agricultural sector that like the rest of the economy was already under serious stress owing to a harsh operating environment that had already forced some farmers to quit the land.

With a huge chunk of Free State labour hired on farms loss of viability in the agricultural sector means the thousands of people working there will be without jobs. It goes without saying that unemployment does little to reduce poverty.

According to experts, the prevailing weather pattern is a manifestation of climate change, also referred to as global warming, and which is defined as the increase of Earth’s average surface temperature due to effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels or from deforestation, which trap heat that would otherwise escape from Earth.

Climate change scientists accuse industrial activities in the West of contributing heavily to global change by emitting a far bigger amount of these harmful gases than the rest of the world.
South Africa, like other developing countries, contributes minimally to global change.

Ironically, the countries that are the least polluters are the ones that suffer the brunt of global warming more than, for example, America which is the largest polluter.

While we appreciate the developing countries’ efforts to lobby for the west to take measures to cut down on their emissions and support the third world’s efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change, we also believe the onus is upon us to adhere to our national adaptation strategies.

We cannot be blaming the west (rightfully so, by the way) for our misery, while we sit and do nothing but watch as Mother Nature wreaks havoc on us. Finger pointing and blame apportioning will not increase dam levels or suddenly make our dried up rivers suddenly overflowing with water.

We have to adapt or perish. We have to put in place measures to conserve water. Construction of more dams is an option, while we wait to conduct desalination of seawater, which like experts say, can only be feasible after at least five years.

But in the meanwhile we could all do ourselves a great of good by abiding by calls by the provincial government and municipalities to use water sparingly so that we do not quickly exhaust the little that we still have in our dams and rivers.