People
with arthritis get advance weather warnings and when I was awakened in the wee
hours by shooting pain from my elbow up my arm, I got up to take ibuprofen and check
the weather radar on line. Surprisingly a huge storm was moving over eastern
Wyoming, western Nebraska, and northwest Kansas. It was sailing eastward as if
in a hurry to be on the east coast to greet the rising sun.
Watching
the mass moving on radar I tried to calculate whether the southern edge of the
storm would hit Paradise if it were to follow its trajectory. Probably not, I
thought, and went back to bed and deep sleep.
This
morning I woke to the patter of rain against the window. I thought it was a
nice little shower, but Dennis, who was already up making coffee, informed me
that a big storm had passed through. Small tree limbs were broken and lying on
the ground. The
rain
gauge read 1½ inches. In the garden one six-foot tomato (our best one) and its
cage were lying on the ground. Other tomatoes and pepper plant branches were
broken and leaves littered the soil. There must have been a heck of a blow
driving the rain. Our garden needed the rain, though, to continue producing
vegetables for our table.
I
happen to be in the midst of reading Rain:
A Natural and Cultural History*, by Cynthia Barnett. It is a strong
reminder of life’s dependence on rain. Without Earth’s moisture-trapping atmosphere
there would be no life on earth. Every living thing depends on water.
Earth
has a closed system when it comes to water. There’s a finite amount of water in
and around our beautiful blue planet. Under certain temperature, wind, and
other atmospheric conditions, rain falls from the sky. The earth retains water
in soil, underground chambers, lakes, reservoirs, oceans, and ice caps at the
poles. Water is recirculated into the atmosphere through evaporation at the
earth’s surface.
Only
about one percent of all the water in and surrounding our planet is available
for our use. The remainder is either inaccessible to us or unsuitable. Think of
“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink,” and humans’ costly efforts
to desalinate ocean water.
Given
our finite supply of water we are well advised to care for it as the treasure
it is, safeguarding it for ourselves and for the various forms of life on which
we depend for food. Mighty civilizations have died for lack of rain, such as Ur
in what is now Iraq, where no rain fell for 300 years. Cities were abandoned
and eventually were buried beneath the sand. Our civilization could die, too,
if we spoil all of our available water through chemical contamination.
An
enormous amount of water is being infused with a chemical cocktail to be used
in fracking, the chemical process that frees oil from shale. Afterward, that
once-good water is injected deep into the earth to protect us from
contamination. That water is gone from our limited supply for a long, long time
– perhaps ever.
Scientists
have found disturbing evidence that 40 percent of our rain now contains
glyphosate, the cancer-causing chemical in the herbicide Round Up. They also
have shown that the chemical is in the water we drink because it has been found
in human breast milk.
Glyphosate
and other chemical wastes in the water I drink probably won’t be the death of
me (after all, I’ll soon be an octogenarian) but I worry about what they will
do to my grandchildren and their offspring. Stewardship of water is a virtue we
must to practice for the sake of both ourselves and posterity.
In
spite of wind damage I’m thankful for last night’s rain, and fervently hope it
didn’t rain very much glyphosate.
*Another
good read on this subject is in Bill Bryson’s chapter on water in A History of Nearly Everything.
Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer
