The world is infinitely complex. Our knowledge of the world is finite and therefore always incomplete. The fantastic thing is that we function quite well in the world, even though we never fully understand it.
Benjamin Kuipers.
Perhaps what I am going to propose to you, dear ones readersthis out of place; since I want to invite you to walk with me, a long stretch of lifeon this interesting and vital element that is our main support survival: he water.
The first question is: Do you know the water? We have very diverse experiences to try to answer it: Almost all of us have “faucet” (faucet), toilets and showers.
And, almost all of us have seen a flow river either rain. And many more things related to the blessed water. So we all, or almost all, believe that we know what is necessary about the water. “Water? Of course, I know it perfectly? The answer of the vast majority is that”We drink water”, which in the end “we are all” who presume to know it. However, it is not usually entirely true. For a large majority of humansand much less know it perfectly! beyond the immediate and everyday.
To start this adventure of knowledge, I am going to steal a paragraph from the book entitled: “What’s Next?” by the brilliant writer and polemicist, Denise Dresser: “I once heard the historian Anne Applebaum say that –for many– the democracy it is like “tap water”. It seems like it is always there. You turn the handle and it comes out crystal clear, seemingly ready for you whenever you need it. We think that it is not necessary to take care of it, to keep it clean, to build dams and dikes, and sometimes to go get it, to carry it in a basket on our heads to prevent it from evaporating and becoming scarce. As if it were never going to be at risk.” On the other hand, it is good to know that the supply of energy, waste recovery, communications, logistics, water management… etc., are elements that we use in some way to obtain water. And it is also good that we are aware that all of the above is almost invisible when it works well, and that we realize its importance when it works badly. For water, the saying that says: “Nobody knows what they have, until they see it lost” applies.
On the other hand, it is worthwhile to investigate this very important matter; to study the value of this vital liquid. I will note that the word “value” has two different meanings, since sometimes it expresses the utility of a particular object, and at other times it means the capacity to buy goods… There is nothing more valuable than water, although with it you can hardly buy anything and receive very little in return. A curious approach, because it confronts us with the paradox of water, as the basic support of life and, at the same time, as a product without value.
Water has many perspectives to look at. So, we will first approach it from its historical point of view. That is, how it was used by hydraulic civilizations that made great technical progress through irrigation. Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River Valley are the areas that grew the most as hydraulic civilizations, and because of this they stored it with dams and distributed it through canals and locks.
The desired objective, my illustrious readers, is that when we finish this series of articles we will have understood some new issues and we will be able to say together: “wow, we had no idea there were so many things behind this crystalline and delicious liquid.” Holy water, which refreshes us so much…, and above all that we will have learned a little more, how to take care of it!
To be continue…
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