The Last Drop (a book to help the world water crisis)
Turn on a tap and it’s easy to think water problems are far away. Yet the world water crisis is already here for millions. In simple terms, it means not enough safe drinking water, not enough sanitation, and too much water lost, wasted, or polluted.
Climate change shifts rainfall and drives harsher droughts and floods. Ageing pipes leak treated water back into the ground. Farming demand stays high, while pollution makes rivers and groundwater unsafe. Fast-growing cities also strain systems built for smaller populations.
The Last Drop is an important book. looking at solve the lack of fresh water (most is held up in glaciers, and the rest is often polluted). An environmental journalist meets experts, victims, activists and pioneers to show how we can solve the water crisis, to ensure that everyone on earth (along with our animal friends) have access to fresh clean water.
In South Africa, more than 30,000 people in the agricultural sector have lost their jobs, because there’s no water to irrigate the crops.
Some farmers are cutting the buds off orchard trees because if there’s fruit and no water, it could damage them irreparably. And people from outside Cape Town are donating food for livestock, because there’s a shortage of fodder.
Tim Smedley is an award-winning environmental journalist, whose book Clearing the Air was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. Air pollution kills 19,000 people each day worldwide (more combined than car accidents, malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS).
