The United Nations has issued a warning that we are entering ‘water bankruptcy’ which could result in catastrophic impacts for Earth.
This is something scientists have been warning the public about for decades but it seems like the reality could be worse than previously believed.
Now, the UN has released a statement to say that many regions of the planet are experiencing such persistent water shortages that it is unrealistic for them to recover back to their ‘historical baselines’.
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Kaveh Madani, who is the Director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said: “For much of the world, ‘normal’ is gone. This is not to kill hope but to encourage action and an honest admission of failure today to protect and enable tomorrow.”
Greenpeace UK has also spoken out through social media, where the organization wrote on Instagram: “The future of life on earth is more important than the profits of Big Tech Billionaires. Pass it on.
“Water is not a commodity, it is a human right. And right now it's being stolen. It's time to resist the Big Tech and Big Agriculture billionaires stealing our water for profit.”
According to scientific findings, the world is rapidly depleting its natural ‘water savings accounts’.
This means that over half of the world’s large lakes have ‘declined since the early 1990s’.
Meanwhile, roughly 35% of the natural wetlands have been lost since 1970.
However, while there has now been irreversible damage to the world’s water system, this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost just yet.
This is because Madani has highlighted recovery routes that can be taken to help work towards some restoration.
He explained: “It is the start of a structured recovery plan: you stop the bleeding, protect essential services, restructure unsustainable claims, and invest in rebuilding.”
So, what are some big culprits of this crisis? According to Greenpeace UK, AI and industrial agriculture play a huge role in draining the planet of water.
The organization detailed how AI data centers are ‘drinking billions of liters of water everyday just to stay cool’, while industrial farming is ‘draining ancient underground reservoirs that took thousands of years to fill’.
Reacting to the news on Instagram, one user wrote: “We don’t need AI, but we need water!”
Another said: “I wonder if water conflicts will out-do our oil conflicts in the future…”
And a third person added: “Humans suck.”