It's all about balancing our needs with our wants.
Water is essential to life. We need it, because without it, everything else becomes null and void.
Oil, and the many, many, many products that are derived from it are supplements to a potentially more pleasant life. We want them to live well, but we don't need them to live.
With that it mind we should be doing all we can to protect and conserve the earth's environment and everything within it in the hopes it continues to provide resources, including fresh water, for future generations.
However, as it stands, oil extraction companies, with the blessing of governments, continue to expand at an unruly pace, using more and more water and in the process contaminating the used water to a point where it has to be completely removed from the ecosystem forever – if that is even possible.
We have seen the advent of using brackish water and recycling water in oil production, which are both avenues worth exploring further. But those do not automatically equate to the opportunity for further growth of these industries.
Perhaps in a better planned resource-based economy we would only produce the oil we need, as opposed to just following the trend of unfettered growth to meet corporate and government wants – which tend to include an economy based on the flawed and unsustainable concept of unending growth.
And conceivably, by producing only what we need we will began to recognize that earth has an abundance of resources, which are here to be used wisely, not abused endlessly.
Everything on earth is connected. The actions we take now will have repercussions in the future. So, perhaps by initially taking a more thoughtful, conservative and positive approach to our actions now, we will benefit in a deeper and more positive manner than we have been so far.
Compared to the place we're at right now and where we might be heading, it's worth a try.
