McHugh’s Miscellany - Water, water everywhere but . . . then it simply vanishes!

It is nice to see the warm weather again and the fact that it coincided with the recent public holiday weekend, makes it all the more appealing. 

But for a country that is rained upon, night and day, I am often baffled that within a few short days of a dry spell, the powers that be are talking about the need for water conservation and soon thereafter hose pipes bans etc.

There were a number of locations in the south of the country that required night time water restrictions to counteract lowered water availability over the weekend. Already!!!

It is totally acceptable, indeed essential, that such matters are dealt with most seriously and that general water conservation is important for all of us, but these water crises seem to occur with a regularity that does not appear to equate with the copious amount of water we have, compared to other countries. 

Is it that they think we open the taps and let the aqua flow into the drains to our hearts content, for the other eleven months of the year . . .  I think not! 

We are constantly reading and watching terrible stories of water shortages and drought around the world, but usually these events follow many months of no rain and in regions that are far removed from the normal Irish Met Éireann weather forecast. 

Or is it that our pipes are so antiquated, that we just lose so much water through a poor infrastructure, rather than always giving the impression that people generally abuse the water supplies themselves.

Well actually, Irish Water (now rebranded Uisce Eireann) tells us that this is also the case, “water shortages are also caused by leaks, old pipes, increased demand, growing population and poor infrastructure.”

Have you noticed the subtle way over recent years that we are no longer households that are supplied with water, one of the core essentials of survival on this planet, but now rather, mere customers of a water utility that makes you feel that you are being hustled with another way of paying for just about everything.

Again, these huge Data Centres that have been all the rage over recent years in Ireland also use huge reserves of water, but as totally commercial entities, set up to make profit, for a very limited number of individuals, are they really shouldering the full brunt of their responsibilities as well?

The water is used to cool down their data systems, with some using the same amount that a large town’s population would use.

And like ourselves, the warmer these systems get, the more water that is required to cool them down.

And what kind of data are we keeping these coolers on for anyway? 

Yours and mine and others around the world that have been harvested from ‘cookies’, that make ‘Big Brother’ feel like an innocent fairy tale. 

The sad thing is that at least in the past we realised we knew we were being exploited, both politically and economically, now we do not even realise how manipulated every part of our lives are, by corporations and elites, that don’t even need to pander to most governments anymore.   

And as our climate gets hotter and skies become more polluted, you can be sure that the next items will see tank bottles of oxygen, for non medicinal requirements, hitting the shops.

In some of the swankier places, oxygen bars already exist, so this is not some flight of fancy on my part!    

Meanwhile the rest of us will be turning off the tap when brushing the teeth as well as taking shorter showers, so that the Data Centres can remain functional in the hot weather.