Hold Your Water

68 Things You Need to Know to Keep Our Planet Blue

Wyland, Steve Creech

• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780740756825
• eBook ISBN: 9780740787140
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Conservation & Protection
• Index: Biological Sciences

The renowned marine life artist and founder of The Wyland Foundation shares vital information and practical advice on protecting the world's water. Artist and conservationist Wyland has spent decades encouraging responsible stewardship of the world's oceans and marine life. In Hold Your Water, he offers an engaging introduction to this important topic, providing readers with fresh insight into the water and world around us. Taking a conversational approach to conservation, it dives into simple ways that even little old you can make a difference—all with a witty, and at times whimsical, slant on the world in which we live. The book offers easy ways for people to help preserve water and other related precious resources. Divided into more than thirty sections, this compendium illustrates how everyday activities such as car washing, showering, fertilizing—even 'pet poop' cleanup—can negatively impact the environment. It then delivers more than 100 tips and tidbits that will help you protect your planet. Whether you are one of the nearly three-quarters of Americans who consider themselves environmentalists, or you just want to know more about the world in which you live, Hold Your Water is a book worth holding on to.

Part I

Getting Your
Feet Wet

1

It’s So Big

For sheer size, it’s hard to beat the incredible volume of water that exists on our planet. If you filled a glass with all the water in the world, the glass would have to be seven hundred miles high and seven hundred miles wide. (And if you think that’s hard to swallow, just remember that’s all the water we’ve ever had—or will ever have.)

The trouble with water—and there is trouble with water—is that they’re not making any more of it. They’re not making any less, mind you, but no more either. There is the same amount of water on the planet now as there was in prehistoric times. People, however, they’re making more of—many more, far more than is ecologically sensible—and all those people are utterly dependent on water for their lives (humans consist mostly of water), for their livelihoods, their food, and increasingly, their industry. Humans can live for a month without food but will die in less than a week without water. Humans consume water, discard it, poison it, waste it, and restlessly change the hydrological cycles, indifferent to the consequences: too many people, too little water, water in the wrong places and in the wrong amounts.

—MARQ DE VILLIERS,
Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, 2000

FACT
97.5 percent of all the water on earth is undrinkable seawater. Of the remaining 2.5 percent, nearly two-thirds is locked up in polar ice caps. The remaining third is all ours, except half of that is considered polluted by most international standards.

2

It’s So Wet

Okay, so maybe you want to know a little chemistry. Water consists of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. There’s no shortage of these elements in the universe. Yet, for reasons that remain largely unknown, very few planets have such an abundance of liquid water. One theory suggests that the earth was basically pelted early on by extraterrestrial snowballs the size of Manhattan. As things heated up, the ice melted, and oceans formed.

Water is fundamental for life and health. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a healthy life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite to the realization of all other human rights.

—THE UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL RIGHTS,
Environment News Service, November 27, 2002

Water is the basis of life and the blue arteries of the earth! Everything in the nonmarine environment depends on freshwater to survive.

—SANDRA POSTEL, “Global Water Policy Project,” Grist Magazine, April 26, 2004

FACT
Water is the essential ingredient to life as we know it—and most likely a common requirement for life elsewhere. Scientists believe that Europa, an ice-encrusted moon of Jupiter, may contain life because it has heat from volcanic activity to maintain liquid water and dissolve chemicals essential for living organisms.

3

Now That I’m on the Water Cycle, How Do I Get Off?

Our advice is: Once you find a good thing, stick with it. Our water cycle has given us a pretty good ride for millions of years. It’s like a self-cleaning sprinkler system with four parts. Each part involves changing the state of the water. And as it passes from state to state, it generally becomes purer. For example, as it evaporates, it becomes a gas. When things cool down, it liquefies again and, with some help from gravity, falls back to earth as rain, where it collects into lakes, rivers, and aquifers.

Only 2.5 percent of the world’s water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is trapped in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20 percent is in remote areas, and most of the rest comes at the wrong time and in the wrong place, as with monsoons and floods. The amount of freshwater available for human use is less than 0.08 percent of all the water on the planet. About 70 percent of the freshwater is already used for agriculture, and a recent World Water Council report says the demands of industry and energy will grow rapidly. The report estimates that in the next two decades the use of water by humans will increase by about 40 percent, and that 17 percent more water than is available will be needed to grow the world’s food…. The commission concludes that “only rapid and imaginative institutional and technological innovation can avoid the crisis.”

—“Water Arithmetic ’Doesn’t Add Up,’”
BBC News, March 13, 2000

FACT
Although there is relatively little water in the atmosphere compared with the earth’s total supply, nearly 119,000 cubic miles of water are cycled through the atmosphere every year! However, when water takes a shortcut through the water cycle—when it is sprayed directly onto lawns or golf courses—it evaporates directly into the air, and bypasses rivers and wetlands. And that spells trouble for wildlife in those habitats.

Instead of writing a thank-you letter to the water cycle, practice at least one of the tips we’ve provided throughout this book every week. (Yes, it’s a self-cleaning system, but as you’ll see in the pages to come, with water consumption tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Getting Your Feet Wet
• Part II: What Are You Calling a Bad Habit?
• Part III: Go with the Flow
• Part IV: A Global View
• Part V: Strange Weather Ahead
• Afterword
• Appendixes
• Glossary
• Resources
• About the Wyland Foundation
• About the Authors