Glass Half Full

It’s no longer in doubt: as far as water goes, we are definitely a ‘half glass’ sort of country.

I’m sure you remember the joke in Groundhog day; "Are you a ‘glass half empty’ sorta guy? Or a ‘glass half full’ kinda guy?" I have always thought of myself as a glass half full kinda guy, but frankly, the problems approaching the Australian water supply tend to give me serious ‘glass half empty’ thoughts.

A trip from my home in bountiful, verdant Byron Bay to my sister in Melbourne shocked me into the realisation that we are entering a new world of conservation values, not because it is green, or ‘trendy’ but because it is essential. Water has never before been so valuable.. and hey, let’s get real. This is just the start.

But let’s look now at the ‘glasshalf full’ situation. We are realising that we never did need all of the water we were so unconsciously squandering, and so the sort of reverence towards this most precious of molecules that we always should have had is returning.

We are - because we have to – beginning to see Gaia – Mother Earth - as something to be respected rather than raped.

Let’s look now at some of the positives of the water shortage.

It’s a positive that in the UK, which has its own drought, grassroots groups are lobbying to ban the use of non-recyclable plastic water bottles.

It’s a positive that the US National Resources Defence Council said that both bottled and tap water may contain contaminants such as bacteria, arsenic, lead or pesticides.

It’s a positive that Times of London food reviewer Giles Coren has said that if he is not offered tap water to drink before bottled water, he will penalize the restaurant in his review. Mr Coren wrote; "Mineral water is a preposterous vanity … we have invested years and years, and vast amounts of money, into an ingenious system which cleanses water of all the nasties that most other humans and animals have always had to put up with, and delivers it, dirt-cheap, to our homes and workplaces in pipes, which we can access at a tap."

It’s a positive that also in the UK, all national government departments, including the Cabinet Office, the House of Commons, the Treasury, the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills, have been asked by a food and farming alliance to stop using bottled water at meetings.

It’s a positive that we can now gasp at the fact that Australia consumed 313,000,000 litres of bottled water last year at a cost of (average) $2258, when the same from the tap would have cost $78!

People are taking notice of the amazing and unsupportable cost in resources in creation of, and freight to and from the source of plastic water bottles.

Of course we also have new challenges. As water supplies dwindle, water quality deteriorates, and water processors have few tools to deal with the excess of parasites that concentrate in low level reservoirs. Excessive use of chlorine must be balanced with excessive addition of lime, causing problems with pipes and kettles, not to mention health.

The upside – the ‘half full glass’ of this is the amazing technologies now available to the water consumer. Parasites can be eliminated totally with UV technology either under the sink or for the whole house. All of the water that enters your house can be filtered of colour, odour, bacteria, and chlorine before it reaches your shower, or your kitchen.

Even all of the problems of excess calcium – calcified water heaters, kettles taps etc – can be overcome by the latest magnetic technology. A simple unit that goes inline will even cause old calcium deposits to fall away inside your water heater.

There’s an old saying; ‘As above, so below, as without, so within.’ Pollution, EMF, processed foods and stress have all colluded to create our own inner climate change amazingly similar to what is happening to our earth. Acidity dehydrates and parches our inner terrain, and even here technology has been adapted to assist us with our own inner drought.

We now have ordinary tap water filtered, then split into two vastly more useful types of water. Originating in Russia, popular in Japan, and now Australia, one form of water output that cleanses the body and cares for the skin as well as killing bacteria in the kitchen. The other form becomes alkaline, antioxidant, oxygenated and microclustered to hydrate more fully to counter excessive cellular acidity, and to restore the normal inner ‘climate’.

It’s a positive that water has been able to return to its original crystalline shape using these new technologies. Mr Emoto’s amazing images clearly demonstrate that we can save the spirit of our water with ‘sympathetic’ technology.

We have all heard about the government’s plans to recycle water. In the UK, male fish are turning female as they are affected by mutagenic compounds, mainly from female contraceptives in urine. Here in Australia we are reasonably safe, but the technologies of Reverse Osmosis the government tells us is the best does not remove this new threat.

Again, technology comes to the rescue, and systems have become available that remove all mutagens, contaminants and heavy metals. These new systems are far beyond the old undersink reverse osmosis or countertop distiller. They prove to me that I am right to be a half full sort of guy.

We are an amazing species. We have survived dinosaurs, hairy mammoths, chicken pox and a hundred years of careering down narrow strips of bitumen at speeds our forefathers would have died in fright over. What is it that kept us alive? Our irrepressible, amazing, unstoppable ingenuity, invention and vision. Water is what we are made of. Water is what we live with. Water is the new frontier that we will conquer.