Not That Much, Really!

I am consistently taken aback by this picture, courtesy of the US Geological Survey, showing all the water in the world. When thinking about the Earth, the common knowledge that water makes up 3/4 of the world’s surface suggests this massive, almost limitless expanse that boggles the mind. And to some extent, that’s true. Stories about sailing, particularly in the nightmarish Southern Ocean, only barely capture the vastness of the medium, which can stretch (or seem to stretch) to eternity. Certainly, one wrong move in the ocean can mean eternity for the hapless adventurer.

NOT RECOMMENDED

However, by abstracting out the entirety of the Earth’s water, we have to be confronted by something sobering – our water resources are incredibly finite. Though they stretch for thousands of miles, and can swallow us puny individuals whole with the savage indifference of nature, the oceans are not actually limitless. Even less so are our freshwater resources, as the graphic indicates. Those tiny spheres are the sum amount available to humanity to live on and with. Thus, when we contemplate our human practices of dumping tons of plastic in the oceans, or contaminating our scanty freshwater supplies by fracking, (to say nothing of oil spills, like the Deepwater Horizon) we should realize the absurdity of the situation. Throwing pollution into our water is hardly a way to make it disappear.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time