WHENEVER a reporter pops up on the TV standing in a dried-up river or reservoir I think immediately of WH Auden who once memorably said his own wrinkle-ravaged face looked like a wedding cake left out in the rain.
Rain, or rather the lack thereof, is what causes river and reservoir beds to resemble old paintings whose oily surfaces are covered in cracks. It is a familiar and chilling sight in sub-Saharan Africa. For lack of water animals die and crops fail. Nor is the future much brighter for people. In some parts of the globe drought is as big a killer as disease. Water and life are synonymous; there cannot be one without the other. Take the former for granted and the latter's days are numbered.
Why selling our water isn't such a wet idea
WHENEVER a reporter pops up on the TV standing in a dried-up river or reservoir I think immediately of WH Auden who once memorably said his own wrinkle-ravaged face looked like a wedding cake left out in the rain.
Rain, or rather the lack thereof, is what causes river and reservoir beds to resemble old paintings whose oily surfaces are covered in cracks. It is a familiar and chilling sight in sub-Saharan Africa. For lack of water animals die and crops fail. Nor is the future much brighter for people. In some parts of the globe drought is as big a killer as disease. Water and life are synonymous; there cannot be one without the other. Take the former for granted and the latter's days are numbered.
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Don't show me this again.