What is water?
Pangaea Earth
“All the water that
will ever be is, right
now.”
― National Geographic,
October 1993
Historic water
“Only within the moment
of time represented by the
present century has one
species -- man -- acquired
significant power to alter
the nature of his world.”
― Rachel Carson
Roman Aqueduct
Water System ruins
“Water does not resist.
Water flows. When you
plunge your hand into it,
all you feel is a caress.
Water is not a solid wall, it
will not stop you. But
water always goes where it
wants to go, and nothing in
the end can stand against
it. Water is patient.
Dripping water wears away
a stone. Remember that,
my child. Remember you
are half water. If you can't
go through an obstacle, go
around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood,
The Penelopiad
“You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.”
― W.C. Fields
Municipal Water Meter
“The day, water, sun,
moon, night – I do
not have to purchase
these things with
money.”
― Plautus
Water Fluoridation 1945
Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Water is the only drink for
a wise man.”
― Henry David Thoreau
(American Essayist, Poet,
and Philosopher, 18171862)
Scientific water
“Water is the driving force
in nature.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
H2O molecule
“Water is H2O, hydrogen
two parts, oxygen one, but
there is also a third thing,
that makes water and
nobody knows what that
is.”
― D.H. Lawrence (18851930), Pansies, 1929
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3D_model_hydrogen_bonds_in_water.svg
“The upholder of the
cycles which sustain
all Life is water.”
― Viktor Schauberger
“Earth as we know it came
into being through its four
great components: land,
water, air, and life, all
interacting in the light and
energy of the sun. Although
there was a sequence in the
formation of the land
sphere, the atmosphere, the
water sphere, and the life
sphere, these have so
interacted with one another
in the shaping of the Earth
that we must somehow think
of these as all present to one
another and interacting from
the beginning.”
― Thomas Berry
Sanderson Hope iceberg
“Plans to protect air
and water, wilderness
and wildlife are in fact
plans to protect man.”
― Stewart Udall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iceberg_with_hole_near_sanderson_hope_2007-07-28_2.jpg
Christian baptism
“Water is life’s matter
and matrix, mother
and medium. There is
no life without water.”
― Albert Szent-Gyorgyi,
1893-1986 (Hungarian
Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize
for Medicine)
Makah Whaling
Pacific Northwest
Canada
“Until justice rolls
down like water and
righteousness like a
mighty stream.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Great Lakes For Sale”
book cover
By Dave Dempsey
“Fire, water, and
government know
nothing of mercy.”
― Author unknown
Negro River in the Amazon
Basin 2010
“We never know
the worth of
water till the well
is dry.”
― Thomas Fuller
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/photogalleries/101206-freshwater-amazon-drought-pictures/
“Human nature is like
water. It takes the shape of
its container.”
― Wallace Stevens
Wastewater treatment
plant
“Filthy water cannot be
washed.”
― West African Proverb
http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/newsletter/june_9_2008.htm
Water treatment plant
Durham, North Carolina
“The most important
things for human beings
are clean air and clean
water.”
― Akira Kurosawa, Yume
Agricultural Irrigation
“Water is essential for all
dimensions of life. Over
the past few decades, use
of water has increased,
and in many places water
availability is falling to
crisis levels. More than
eighty countries, with forty
percent of the world’s
population, are already
facing water shortages,
while by year 2020 the
world’s population will
double. The costs of water
infrastructure have risen
dramatically. …
Confined animal feed lot
“… The quality of water in
rivers and underground
has deteriorated, due to
pollution by waste and
contaminants from cities,
industry and agriculture.
Ecosystems are being
destroyed, sometimes
permanently. …”
Fish kill
“ … Over one billion people
lack safe water, and three
billion lack sanitation;
eighty per cent of
infectious diseases are
waterborne, killing millions
of children each year.”
― World Bank Institute
WATER POLICY REFORM
PROGRAM - Nov. 1999
The “Blue Revolution”:
Modern Aquaculture,
China
“Life originated in the sea,
and about eighty percent
of it is still there.”
― ISAAC ASIMOV, Isaac
Asimov's Book of Science and
Nature Quotations, 1988
Rice paddies
Indonesia 1967
“Many estuaries produce
more harvestable human
food per acre than the
best mid-western
farmland.”
― Stanley A. Cain,
testimony, U.S. House of
Representatives, Merchant
Marine and Fisheries
subcommittee, March 1967
“…we have never really
learned how important
water is to us. We
understand it, but we do
not respect it.”
― WILLIAM ASHWORTH,
1982
Non-potable water sign
“More than one-half of the
world's major rivers are
being seriously depleted
and polluted, degrading
and poisoning the
surrounding ecosystems,
thus threatening the
health and livelihood of
people who depend upon
them for irrigation,
drinking and industrial
water.”
― Ismail Serageldin,
Chairman of the World
Commission on Water for the
21st Century- Water Forum,
Netherlands, November 30,
1999
Ocean Freight
“Water is the best of
all things.”
― PINDAR (C. 522-C. 438
B.C.), Olympian Odes
Portsmouth
“Water has become a
highly precious
resource. There are
some places where a
barrel of water costs
more than a barrel of
oil.”
― Lloyd Axworthy, Foreign
Minister of Canada (1999 News Conference)
USS Theodore Roosevelt
“The ability to breathe the
air and drink the water will
be what the wars will be
about from here on in.
And it’s coming with
alarming rapidity.”
― William Shatner
Three Gorges Dam
Sandouping, Hubei
Province, China
“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most
essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the
victim of his indifference.”
― Rachel Carson
Ganges River at
Varanasi, India
“Study how water
flows in a valley
stream, smoothly
and freely between
the rocks. Also learn
from holy books and
wise people.
Everything - even
mountains, rivers,
plants, and trees should be your
teacher.”
― Morihei Ueshiba
Rio de Janeiro Brazil
“Nothing in the world is
more yielding than water.
Yet when it attacks the
firm and the strong, none
can withstand it, because
they have no way to
change it. So the flexible
overcome the adamant,
the yielding overcome the
forceful. Everyone knows
this, but no one can do it.”
― Lao Tzu 600-531 BC
(Chinese taoist Philosopher,
founder of Taoism, wrote "Tao
Te Ching" ("The Book of the
Way")
Source: EPA Water Quality Assessment, National Summary
“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”
― Edwin Louis Cole
Natural (logical)
versus Political
borders: “The 18
States of America”
“If the states were divided by watershed boundaries voters would exercise complete
control over their water resources. They would also be self-responsible for a
multitude of environmental concerns as well with ability to operate on the premise
that local people are best able to decide how to manage their own environments. It
makes good sense.”
― The Daily Paul, 2010
Ancient Stromatolite Reefs
Shark Bay, Australia
“Microbe-rich stromatolite
reefs, like this one in Shark
Bay, Australia, were among
the first sources of oxygen
on Earth. They flourished
throughout the planet's
shallow waters 3.5 billion
years ago, but are
extremely rare today.”
― National Geographic, The
Ocean
Tierra del Fuego,
Cape Horn, Chile
“Surf froths: This
archipelago, which means
"land of fire" in Spanish, is
the meeting point of the
world's two largest oceans,
the Atlantic and the
Pacific.”
― National Geographic, The
Ocean
New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina 2005
“Of all our planet's
activities--geological
movements, the
reproduction and decay of
biota, and even the
disruptive propensities of
certain species (elephants
and humans come to
mind)--no force is greater
than the hydrologic cycle.”
― Richard Bangs and
Christian Kallen, Rivergods,
1985
Rolling thundercloud
Enschede, Netherlands
“In every glass of water we
drink, some of the water
has already passed
through fishes, trees,
bacteria, worms in the soil,
and many other organisms,
including people...Living
systems cleanse water and
make it fit, among other
things, for human
consumption.”
― ELLIOT A. NORSE, in R.J.
Hoage, ed., Animal
Extinctions, 1985
Wetland life:
Fish, fowl, frogs… bugs,
bugs, bugs
“Wetlands have a poor
public image.... Yet they
are among the earth's
greatest natural assets...
mankind's waterlogged
wealth.”
― EDWARD MALTBY,
Waterlogged Wealth, 1986
Golf course
La Quita, California
“High quality water is more
than the dream of the
conservationists, more
than a political slogan; high
quality water, in the right
quantity at the right place
at the right time, is
essential to health,
recreation, and economic
growth.”
― EDMUND S. MUSKIE, U.S.
Senator, speech, 1 March
1966
Junction, TX
Swimming pool
“Water which
is too pure has
no fish.”
― Author
Unknown
Bottling water plant
“When the well is dry, we
know the worth of
water.”
― Benjamin Franklin,
(1706-1790), Poor Richard's
Almanac, 1746
Indian Ocean
“Ocean: A body of
water occupying
two-thirds of a world
made for man - who
has no gills.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The
Devil’s Dictionary
What is water?