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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
They say that oil and water don’t mix. They say than nitrogen and glycerin mixed can be one of the most explosive combinations in the world. Today’s events signal a toxic admixture than cannot bode well for the conflict in the Middle East or for the future of civilized restraint and concern for the seen and unforeseen consequences of war.
Today, desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain were bombed by opposing forces. The cause for that conflict are long-standing and complex, but the outcome of hostile expression – the destruction of entire cities, the murder of innocent civilians, the futile, brutal inevitability of unthinking ignorance, and the terrible human detritus – must be unacceptable, prohibited, and prosecuted to assign accountability and punish what is “ecocide,” the deliberate destruction of biodiversity, all forms of life including human – in effect, the self-effected death of a civilization.
Today, more and more widespread, the decline of water, as the essence of life, is a crisis of immense proportion worldwide, indeed of history and the future. Climate change, drought, pollution, over-consumption are the no longer secret threats to the quality, if not longevity, of our existence. We are experiencing it everywhere, and it remains the single most dangerous challenge to our near-term, and long-term survival. This is NOT the rhetoric of panic; this is the fact that we must understand above all others. We cannot live without water: how many times must it be said to be understood?
Desalination of ocean salt-water to fresh is the ONLY choice available to meet this challenge. And yet, the technology is still confronted by ignorance, vested interest, yes, in oil, and deliberate prolongation, indeed purposeful indifference of those who believe the supply insatiable, or at least always available to them, mostly free, clean, and clear. What blindness!
To destroy the primary source of water anywhere, anytime, is a crime against humanity. To deny the essence of life, with pre-meditation, without conscience, is suicide, genocide, responsibility from which no one can escape. When I read today of bombed desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain, I can only think of the functioning plants in Israel, in Australia, in India, even in the United States, vulnerable to similar acts of sabotage and destruction. What’s to keep us from transforming water from sustainer to destroyer, as a new super-weapon, equally as destructive as nuclear weapons, as the precursor to ensuing pandemic disease, as primary cause of global extinction? Oh, the irony: a conflict over the local control of oil leads to a catastrophic regional admixture, and the explosive dissolution of momentary, tactical opposition first, then, second, of self, and finally, third, of family, community, religious beliefs, the integrity of nation-states, and the transformation of a regional dispute into a palpable threat to world peace. Once this battle is enjoined, there is no victory to be had. No one will be immune. Those who think they will be protected will be disabused by their delusion. So many will suffer, perpetrators and victims alike. And, sadly, there will be no one to understand the absurdity of this self-defeat -- not even a poet to write “look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
Water is life. The sea connects all things. They are a gift, and can it be that we are beyond that understanding, and cannot give back?
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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