Water Culture Essay

The United States of America and other developed nations have somewhat blindly adapted a highly wasteful and unsustainable culture completely revolved around water use. Water is essential to human civilization’s existence and it plays a crucial role in almost everything we know or create on planet earth. However, water has become very much taken for granted in the last 100 years by most if not all of the first world countries. Historic civilizations such as ancient Greece have worshiped water gods such as Poseidon by building great temples, shrines, and aqueducts to praise the availability of fresh water. Native Americans performed dances and rituals to call on their gods for rainstorms so they could maintain a healthy plant and animal harvest, and have fresh drinking water for their family’s nutrition and survival.

When we fail to value and appreciate our water sources and systems we put our future generations and ourselves at great risk. When water is viewed as the most important resource available to humans and is taken seriously with a focus on its future health and longevity we can avoid catastrophes in hydration, irrigation, agriculture, and energy needs. When we mismanage or misuse water due to its previous or current conveniences the general population suffers and the quick fixes are often times temporary and extremely expensive. We should start educating more children and adults on ways to better use, conserve, and waste less water, while working to change the public’s view of recycled wastewater. We can learn from the mistakes made by local, state and national municipalities by making the security and sustainability of fresh water more of a top priority. Our culture’s success and health is all built upon the availability and consistency of clean water, it’s time we started to acknowledge and care for it that