Water is essential to life.Without it there is no life. The earth is covered by it, but over 90% of the water is locked in the oceans, rivers, lakes, aquifers, and vegetation. Pure clean water is rapidly becoming an unsustainable resource because of pollution caused by those who are supposed to be stewards of the earth: humans. The only creature that fouls its own nest.
The reason is that a marvel of creation—the hydrological cycle—has been savagely and callously interrupted. Nature often operates in cycles and water is a prime example of this. Water is not just a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. It has unique properties that allow it to exist simultaneously as a liquid, solid, or gas under the earth's atmospheric conditions.
These conditions are an integral part of the hydrological cycle. The hydrological cycle takes place in the earth's hydrosphere, which is the area where all the water on earth is contained. The cycle begins with condensation, the vaporization of water that forms clouds. When the clouds become saturated the water returns to earth as rain, which in turn creates run-off, infiltration into aquifers, and provides a considerable part that is absorbed by vegetation. This is followed by evaporation from the lakes, rivers, and oceans, which then completes the cycle, returning as condensation.
The problem facing humanity now is the so called "shortage" of water. As we said before, there is no shortage of water, it is just not always where we want it to be. There are many ways to bring water where it is needed, most of them expensive and labor intensive and the situation will get worse not better. The reason is that the cycle has been interrupted by human ignorance of the laws of nature. Numerous civilizations have tried to ignore those laws and most have disappeared ignominiously into the fog of history, leaving behind a desiccated tree-less wasteland and a legacy of brutal abuse of their habitat. It is the cycle, stupid.
So in spite of our best efforts to bring water where it is needed—to purify it and make it safe when we return it to the cycle—we return it corrupted and polluted with our waste.
Eventually, the cycle cannot keep up with the rate of pollution. The ocean areas now the size of Texas covered with plastic waste will cover the entire oceans; they will interrupt currents and change the weather. And so our "civilization" does not have to wait for the sun to immolate itself as a white dwarf. We will die and disappear into the fog of history as many did before us. And history will die with us. Are we that stupid and arrogant to believe that we can pollute our habitat with impunity?
Unfortunately most of us are indeed that stupid and arrogant to think the laws of nature do not apply to us. So the latest best thing is to design and manufacture systems to provide clean water to those who do not have it. This water is gratefully used and discarded in a polluted state, because the technocrats of the industrial world are forgetting that clean water is returned polluted. So much for philanthropy according to the United Nations, NGOs, charitable organizations, and industrial conglomerates that provide these clean water systems and forget to add treatment systems to make the resource sustainable.
At Allen Filters, we plan to provide solar-powered water purification systems together with solar-powered waste water purification systems to close the cycle. We will do this free of charge to those who need it.
Are we tilling at windmills? I am from Holland and we tamed the windmills back during the Middle Ages to do our bidding and provide us with land from the sea. It is not that difficult because once you obey the laws of nature, they can serve you well.
