Here is nice example of compassion towards animals. It always goes down well and it should. It is our duty to be compassionate towards animals as we are their guardians.
Kind man provides thirsty squirrel with water. The squirrel is so into his drinking that he does not recognise the fact that the guy is stroking him. Image: MikeB based on screenshots.
People have warmed to this 11 second video. It is a brief moment. I don’t know where the video was made as I believe that this guy travels a lot. He has the time and the means to do it. But you can see the parched landscape behind the squirrel. Where there was a ditch with water there is dry rock. How many thirsty squirrels are there? How many don’t get the opportunity to successfully beg for water from a passing pedestrian? There seems to be a bit of a silent crisis in regions where there is drought and abnormally high temperatures. I don’t know if this area is affected by global warming but the climate change crisis is impacting wildlife deeply.
I sense that if we go on getting drier and hotter summers water will become the most precious commodity on the planet and we will be fighting over it. The United Nations tell us that water scarcity already affects every continent. Water usage has been growing globally at more than twice the rate of population increase over the past century. In arid regions water services have reached the limit of their ability to sustainably deliver water.
Water scarcity is exacerbated because of greater pressure placed upon the services due to rapidly growing urban areas. And they admit that climate change and bio-energy demands make things worse. At the moment they say that there is not a global water scarcity problem “as such”. But there are regions and countries where they need to urgently tackle the critical problem presented by water stress. They recommend that water is treated as a “scarce resource”. And there needs to be better management of demand.
They say that 72% of water withdrawals are used by agriculture, 16% by municipalities for households and services and 12% by industries as at 2021 (data provided by United Nations).
“Water-stress” means a territory withdrawing 25% or more of its renewable freshwater resources. The UN states that “Five out of 11 regions have water stress values above 25% including two regions with high water stress and one with extreme order stress”.
By 2030 the Global Water Institute believed that 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity. And nearly 50% of the global population are already living in areas where there is potential water scarcity at least once one month per year. They think that this could increase to some 4.8-5.7 billion in 2050 with about three quarters of those affected living in Asia.
California is going through its worst drought in over 1,000 years. In April the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a “water shortage emergency”. This followed the state’s driest ever start to the year.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) say that California has enough water for one year. California is suffering a drought during the first seven months of 2022. And 60% of California is in extreme drought conditions or worse. Underground water resources are being pushed to the limit. And the Tulare aquifer is in danger of running out of water because so much has been pumped from it.
It has been suggested that California has to become more efficient in its usage of water and the Pacific Institute High-Efficiency organisation predict that water usage in 2030 could be 20% below 2000 levels notwithstanding a growing population and a healthy economy. They think that a water-efficient future is achievable but at present there are no clever inventions on the horizon.
