MMeM, Vol. 15 Issue 6 – “Desal”

MMeM, Vol. 15 Issue 6 –  “Desal”
…with a pinch of salt…

N

o matter which direction you turn these days, there seems to be bad news. So, we are terrible human beings. We get it. We have destroyed the Earth and will reap the results of our over-populated doings. Moreover, even when we try to do seemingly “good” things for our fellow human beings, we end up screwing something else up anyway.

Water. We’ve learned how many people in the world need clean water and don’t have access to it. It’s always seemed a bit of a paradox since 70% of this planet is covered in water. The problem is, of course, that the overwhelming majority of said water is salt water. Well, with our technical and science skills these days we have begun to install desalination stations to get water to people who need it. Turns out that we’re good at this process, so good in fact, that there are currently 16,000+ desalination stations around the world churning out salt from water, otherwise known as brine.

That’s great right? WRONG! What to do with the salt? This salt that is extracted from the now freshwater is basically concentrated brine which is dumped back into seawater and is so salty that it kills and becomes toxic to marine life and vegetation.

We can’t win. It’s so depressing. So, as this article says we’ll have to take Desal, “with a pinch of salt” to see where this leads in the future. Ugh.

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Blogger, in search of humor, always. Writer of MidwesternMeditations.com, formerly hosted on Blogger.