World Water Day is March 22nd
From mountaintop to abyssal plain, water is the great circulatory system that connects all things.
We pay homage to water, without which we would not exist. Think about it: where and when is water not present in our lives?
March 22 is World Water Day, UN designated, as a public relations tool to bring one seminal natural resource issue into global focus at one moment in time, as if that concentration will amplify the global understanding of the value of something as pervasive and essential as water and its universal implication for health, wealth, and social welfare worldwide.
I often quote Jacques Cousteau who contextualized the beginning of his exploration of the ocean as follows, “We are about to enter the great hydro-sphere.” He descended into the ocean deep and brought images and observations that, through the growth of television as a visualization medium, introduced millions of people, many who had never seen the ocean, to the wonders of “the undersea world.” A generation of ocean scientists, filmmakers, and tourists followed, and suddenly the ocean, misunderstood as a remote, dark, and empty place, became visible in the form of sea creatures, corals and other underwater plants, the sounds of whales, the unexpected life on the ocean floor, and the creative force of fecundity and value in “black smokers,” underwater vents supporting biodiversity and unexpected life and connected downward further still into the core, the center of the earth never before perceived, much less understood.
But the hydro-sphere is so much more. It is, in effect, the controlling system of all Earth’s utility, from underwater rivers, reservoirs in rock, seeps and springs, aggregating to swamps, ponds, and lakes, to rivers that have fed and powered the growth inland settlement and expansion, to the ocean and its super-volumetric connection to every land mass, every human endeavor, every iteration of community from coastal village to nation state. And then, there is the sun and atmosphere, wherein that water is heated, circulated, and evaporated into patterns of weather and climate that are the completed circle, the cycle of plenty that connects all things, past, present, and future.
We do not exist without water. We are circulating pumps. We are sponges, We are cooling systems. We are air-conditioners. We are laboratories. We hoard water. We discharge water. We filter water. We mix water with nutrients that pervade our bodies and make us well.
We take to the water for exercise. We pass by the water in search of solace. We bless and mark our children with water. We revel in the fog, the rain, the sleet, the snow, and all the other physical, ephemeral forms of water. We bathe our bodies, we slake our thirst, we clean our wounds, we grow our food, we shed our grief with water. Think about it. Where and when is water not present in our lives? Even in the desert, water lives in our madness as idea and our hope for survival.
This hydro-sphere has no limits. It exists in space and, in formation, in distant planets and unseen galaxies. It irrigates our souls and without it we are parched, desiccated, and desperate. Why would we not protect and sustain all water as sacred?
Sadly, the news of the day is drenched with water, or its lack thereof: exhausted drinking water in Mexico; hostilities over access and rights to water in the United States and Middle East; pollution of water in our industrial cities in Asia and Europe; contamination and appropriation of our water in the great watersheds, in the Amazon in South America, in the Himalayas in Tibet, India, and Southeast Asia. And now, the melting of polar ice and correspondent infusion of our water in the Arctic and Antarctic with predictable, today evident, consequence worldwide. Where can we be sure that the water is safe, secure, and sustainable? No where.
I often write that the ocean is the great commons. True…but, as a system that collects water from mountain top to abyssal plain, the ocean is just one part of the totality of water in, on, and around the earth; it is but an outward sign of an universal, inner, pure democratic grace, that is the true essence of our commonality, our relationship with Nature, and the privilege of our lives.
Peter Neill is founder and strategic advisor of the World Ocean Observatory. He is host of World Ocean Radio, a weekly series of five-minute audio essays upon which this post is inspired.
Back in March 2023, the world united at the UN 2023 Water Conference and produced the Water Action Agenda. The Agenda is the collection of more than 800 existing and new commitments on sanitation and water from governments, companies, organizations and other institutions.
