Planetary boundary 6: Freshwater Change
Our lives depend on fresh water. We’re making it an endangered resource.
I’ve received a lot of feedback off-platform about my articles and the approach I’ve taken thus far. Supporters praised my courage and vulnerability and thanked me for stepping up to take on these important topics. Naysayers used words like lazy, idealistic, irrational, unfocused, improperly researched, and too emotional.
Look, I’m angry. I admit it. What we’re doing to our planet is beyond outrageous! It’s a crime of galactic proportions. It’s suicidal.
My articles also received criticism for the use of and references to ChatGPT. A few anonymous quotes to capture the mood. “Your approach is an affront to writers everywhere.” “Do you know how much energy AI uses?” “Did you know the US is building 133 new natgas power plants? That’s because of people like you!”
These comments gut-punched me. Have I been corrupted beyond redemption by the wealth and privilege I grew up in?
In response to the feedback, I’ll try a different approach. I may curtail my use of ChatGPT. I will continue to include the prompts I wrote, so you can research the facts yourself, if you want to. My critics won’t like this answer, since I’m now inviting you to submit the same prompts I did, further increasing the power demand.
The moral dilemmas introduced by AI keep me up at night. But none of it’s going to matter anyway, if we don’t take concerted action as a species to address ecological overshoot. I’d rather see you take action to understand for yourself what’s happening to our planet rather than me spoon-feeding it to you. I hope that the short-term energy cost will pay off by awakening you to what we’re doing to the precious planet we belong to. Join us in the growing effort to turn our course away from collective self-destruction and towards a regenerative society.
Moving on to today’s topic, freshwater change. Facts courtesy of ChatGPT and woven into the text by me. Opinions are my own.
When I look at daily life where I live, I realize how much we take fresh water for granted. In all the places I’ve lived, we had fresh water in abundance, though the water quality has degraded in the brief span of my lifetime. My parents tell me they used to drink water directly from the tap. Pure water sourced from mountain rivers. I can’t even imagine that.
As my previous articles suggested, we’ve placed unprecedented stress on our freshwater systems. Arctic ice locks up nearly 70% of our freshwater, almost 30% in groundwater, and only 1.2% above ground in lakes, rivers, streams, and swamps. Farming consumes most of it, often from groundwater sources. Industry and municipal uses take the rest. Biogeochemical flows end up in the water along with pharmaceuticals excreted or flushed by humans. Chronic overdraw on underground aquifers places future generations at risk and can cause geological problems such as land sinking. It’s all another horror show caused my human overconsumption and unconsciousness.
What are some solutions? Aside from the obvious, stop dumping toxins in our water, technology inventors are working hard to bring solutions to freshwater scarcity to the table.
One area where I see action is atmospheric water generation (AWG). AWG systems harvest moisture from the air. Startups such as Drupps, Maithri Aquatech, Sky River Systems, Dewh2o, Urava Labs, Watergen, and Source Global have received meaningful investment. I love seeing the action. And I worry about the unintended consequences of sucking that much water out of the atmosphere.
Desalination plants can also help to reduce pressure on freshwater systems. Combining desalination with power generation brings additional benefits by utilizing the waste heat for desalination. Leading companies include AWCA Power, Umm Al Houl Power Plant, Shoaiba Power and Desalination Plant, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, General Electric Water & Process Technologies, Siemens, Veolia Water Technologies, and Toray Industries. These solutions are more mature that AWG and meet actual needs today.
What about harvesting fresh water from breakaway icebergs? Sounds like this nascent idea faces a lot of challenges. Two examples at different scales of operation: 1) The National Advisor Bureau Limited intends to tow icebergs to the UAE to introduce cold freshwater to the region, and 2) Ed Kean, a Canadian entrepreneur, built a local operation to bottle iceberg water. This one has a long way to go before it becomes a global solution, if it ever does.
Last but not least, my favorite, living systems. Regenerative agriculture, green infrastructure, riparian buffer zones, restoration of natural wetlands and constructed wetlands can all help us solve the freshwater change problem. These solutions can also create habitats to help restore biodiversity (see the article on biosphere integrity). Countries and cities that have implemented living systems include Hammarby Sjöstad in Sweden, Singapore’s Marina Barrage, China’s Sponge Cities Initiative, The Living Machine wastewater treatment system in South Africa, Natural Water Retention Measures in Poland, Floating Treatment Wetlands in India, and The High Line urban park in New York.
Researching this article highlighted freshwater change as the planetary boundary with the most concerted action thus far. Seems that humans understand fresh water is life. There’s much more work to be done, including widespread introduction of water use efficiencies to reduce the demand. Still, this is the first article I’ve written that’s left me with a feeling of hope.
Love, Aventurine
Prompts written by a human (me) to provide insights and supporting facts for today’s article. Try these prompts in GPT-4o to learn more about freshwater change and how we can turn this boundary around:
How much of the water on Earth is freshwater? Of that, how much of the freshwater is underground vs. lakes, rivers, ponds, and streams?
Please provide the data source(s) for the previous response.
Of the freshwater humanity consumes, what percentage is used for potable water, farming, semiconductor manufacturing, and other industrial uses?
How has freshwater quality and freshwater change become a risk for human prosperity?
What have ecologists wrote about creating a regenerative society to address these issues?
Please list the leading companies that are innovating machines to harvest water from the atmosphere.
Which companies are leading innovation in combining water desalination combined with power generation?
What about equipment manufacturers in that space?
Do these desalination technology leaders help address the Stockholm Resilience Centre's violated boundary for freshwater change?
Are there startups or established companies that plan to harvest fresh water from breakaway icebergs?
How can the implementation of living systems help solve the challenge of freshwater change?
What are some other examples of living systems in action from around the globe?