Watering Our Brains
Drought is becoming more and more common in this aging world of ours, and it’s not getting any better. As we age, our planet inevitably ages too, and as we add infrastructure and drive our polluting cars through city streets or take care of our family’s land, we’re contributing to the overarching maintenance of our planet. Earth is a ball of dirt, minerals and gases which we call home, yet we’re slowly morphing it into an unrecognizable home, with a scary future before us. According to Mayo Clinic, nearly all of the major systems in your body depend on water, such as body temperature, transportation of nutrients or even protecting body organs (functions water body). Every year, the shortage of this resource is growing, and how it is impacting our lives and future lives is beginning to worry many. With the need of this precious resource carved into our DNA, it’s only natural to protect it with our lives and for the lives of future generations. Stage 2 water restrictions should remain in effect, even if our reservoirs appear to have recovered, because of possible droughts and future innovations/change of habits.
Facts and statistics of Austin throughout many years have helped us understand drought and how it’s a real problem for the future. Locally, the Drought Contingency Plan was recommended to the Mayor and City Council to enforce stage 2 restrictions. In the document, it entails a graph of the water levels in the Colorado River since 2005 (Ott 5). This graph also includes a decrease in water levels ranging from 2,000,000 per acre feet in 2007 to 800,000 per acre feet in 2013, all occurring in a 6 year gap. According to the assistant director with Austin Water, Daryl Slusher, in his interview with KVUE and the BBC, “It's important to keep conservation measures in place to protect the water supply in case another drought begins” (Miyer). Brent Clayton, Corpus Christi's Water Resources Manager, wisely said "If you had bad cholesterol and you went on a diet, and your cholesterol got better, the best thing to do is to stay on the diet, because it's the best thing for your health." (Ellison). Similarly, if Stage 2 water restrictions have tremendously helped our water levels currently, we don’t want to go back to our old ways and sink ourselves deeper into said issue and painfully regret it in the future. Austin is currently in stage 2 water restrictions because of the history it has with drought and water scarcity. In the 1950’s, Austin went through its worst drought ever recorded known as “The Drought of Record” (Austin Water 7-12). These years of suffering, when the bare earth cracked open and cattle fell dead in the pastures, was a touchstone crisis for a whole generation of Texans (Walton). One of nature's primordial elements was absent, and across Texas children were growing up without ever seeing water run in a creek, or feeling the rain pelting their faces (Burnett). If this happened in the 1950’s, where global warming was significantly lower, imagine what could happen 30 years from now, a century after this problem rose. Austin should be worried about the future if restrictions are abolished, because not only will the Drought of Record become a part of history again, it will come back fiercer and more violent than ever before. It’s obvious that the cause of restrictions is not just a precaution, it’s a way to protect us for what will happen if we ignore what’s right in front of us.
Secondly, they should remain in effect to create habits and prepare us for a future of innovations. Habits are tangible at any point in your life, and it’s never too late to make a change in any habit of your choice. The use of water individually or in groups is also a habit, and can also be changed. For example, generally Americans spend 8.2 minutes in each shower taken (Showers). If we were to cut shower time to 5 minutes, water usages and the CO2 emissions would lower by 70-80%, saving thousands of gallons of water and hundreds of pounds of CO2 emissions a year (Ecodad). One may wonder that if helping our planet is so relatively easy individually, why don't sometimes people follow restrictions, or keep up with good habits? Well, in populated countries, like the U.S., some people believe that small changes can’t make a difference in a larger scale. It’s like becoming a vegetarian, many people will ask “Well, why would you not buy this meat? If you don’t, the person behind you will anyways.” People who become vegetarians do so because their habits can spread over time, and eventually make a difference to hundreds of thousands. Comparably, restrictions create positive habits every day that can spread with will. Austin has chosen to make stage 2 water restrictions their habit, and hope that they’ll spread to America and stay as an instinct, instead of a “restriction”. Furthermore, this shifting means a long-term change in water demand. Water restrictions will force us to innovate with what we have, making way for sustainable development. With less water, we will be forced to find ways to live with the restrictions better than before. Infrastructure made out of recycled or earthy materials would be common, like the “Living Tower” created in Southern Germany back in 2009. This baubotanik masterpiece is made solely on white willow plants at the beginning of construction, and a strong root system plays the part of support for the whole building (Living Structure Germany). We could also come up with innovative, ecological ways to perform widespread agricultural tasks such as farming. Almost all lowland freshwater rivers, streams and ponds are degraded by diffuse pollution that comes from farmland activities (Biggs). With less water available for waste, we would be forced to devise new ideas every day, trying to find a solution instead of avoiding the problem. Restrictions open a door to a kind of utopia in which we encourage restrictions and create unimaginable things in today’s world. We shouldn't romanticize the idea of using water as we please, when simple changes can make restrictions even more appealing. Because of all this, it’s obvious that water restrictions are having a positive effect inside and outside our society every day, and them not remaining in effect seems almost unimaginable for the future.
In conclusion, reservoirs don’t last forever, and the more we have the better. We don’t want to uselessly waste all of our water resources now, when supply is high and demand is low. If we were to go back to no watering restrictions, we would only regret it in a very serious way later in the future. Water restrictions prepare us, and positively change us in all aspects. Water is a part of who we are, literally and metaphorically, and with everything that it does for us, we should only expect to give something back. As Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.
WORKS CITED
Biggs, Jeremy. Water Friendly Farming. Freshwater Habitats Trust, 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. <http://freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/research/water-friendly-farming/
Burnett, John. How Drought Changes Texas Agriculture. NPR, 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. <http://www.npr.org/2012/07/07/155995881/how-one-drought-changed-texas-agriculture-forever
Ellison, Andrew. Stage 2 Water Restrictions Extended. Channel 6 Kristv, 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. <http://www.kristv.com/story/29287100/stage-2-water-restrictions-extended
Living Structure Being Made in Germany. Wildlife Extra, 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/living-building.html#cr
Mashhood, Farzad. Current Drought Pales in Comparison with 1950s. Statesman, 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2016. <http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/current-drought-pales-in-comparison-with-1950s-d-1/nRdC5/
Mayo Clinic. Functions of water in the Body. Nutrition and Healthy Eating, 2016. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/multimedia/functions-of-water-in-the-body/img-20005799>
Miyer, Lynae. Austin Water Restrictions Will Remain in Effect. ABC KVUE, 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2016. <http://legacy.kvue.com/story/weather/texas-drought/2015/07/06/austin-water-restrictions-will-remain-in-effect/29791827/
Ott, Marc. Water Restrictions. The City Of Austin, 2015. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. <https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Water/Stage2Memo_7-1-2015.pdf
Showering for Savings. NPR, 2016. Web. 2016. http://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/showers
Walton, Brett. Central Texas Drought is worse on Record. Circle of Blue, 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.circleofblue.org/2015/world/central-texas-drought-worst-record/
Water Resources. Green Lifestyle Changes, 2016. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. <http://www.greenlifestylechanges.com/take-5-minute-showers/