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With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about society

Surprising stories from unusual places. With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about the environment and politics, culture and society.

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The Compass: Water: Too Much And Not Enough: Ecological crises

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Lake Chad

07/04/2021 GMT

Ecological crises

Water: Too Much And Not Enough

BBC World Service - The Compass, Water: Too Much And Not Enough, Ecological crises

The ecological crises threatening water supplies from the lakes of Bangalore to Lake Chad

The ecological crises threatening water supplies from the lakes of Bangalore to Lake Chad.

Journalist Alok Jha argues that if humans are to survive and thrive for the rest of the 21st Century we must urgently transform our relationship with water.

Many of the serious geopolitical tensions over water as a resource that we looked at in the previous episode of this series are rooted in worsening ecological crises. In this episode, Alok shows how the global water crisis is inextricably linked to the climate crisis – and how neither can be dealt with alone.

In Bangalore, we hear how incredible pollution levels led to a lake catching fire, before revealing how local water management decisions play into the global groundwater emergency. Then former Nasa scientist Jay Famiglietti provides a satellite perspective on the problem, showing how water disasters are both a result of the climate crisis and help fuel it.

Back on earth, we hear what this means for Hindou Ibrahim’s pastoralist cattle herder community living on the edge of the rapidly shrinking Lake Chad, and Alok puts water lobbyist Maggie White on the spot to ask why water is not the urgent global priority it should be for leading politicians and policymakers.

(Photo: Aerial photo of the Lake Chad, in the Bol region, 200km from Chad capital city N'Djamena. Credit: Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)

The Compass: Water: Too Much And Not Enough

Alok Jha argues that we must urgently transform our relationship with water.

Journalist Alok Jha argues that if humans are to survive and thrive for the rest of the 21st century we must urgently transform our relationship with water.

We are in a global water crisis. Water is crucial to every aspect of the global economy, but we are rapidly depleting this precious resource. Water is our most basic human need, but over half the world’s population will live in a water-scarce region by 2050. We feel the effects of the most serious ecological crises mainly through floods, storms and droughts (too much water and not enough), but we are not acting with urgency to change course.
There is no global political consensus or clear strategy to address these threats. All too often, water becomes a source of geopolitical tension or conflict, rather than an opportunity for cooperation. At the highest levels of policymaking, water is routinely sidelined.

Science journalist Alok Jha, author of The Water Book, passionately believes that if we are to survive and thrive for the rest of this century, we must immediately recognise the global water crisis and transform our relationship with water.
Water: Too Much and Not Enough explores this ever-changing relationship with the element that covers 71% of our planet, from its role in shaping major religions through to futuristic water-based technologies. It encompasses compelling personal stories, vivid location recordings, fascinating history, surprising science, terrifying ecological crises, and the role water itself can play in solving some of humanity’s most serious problems. 

Episode One: How Water Shaped Us
Journalist Alok Jha argues that if humans are to survive and thrive for the rest of the 21st century we must urgently transform our relationship with water.

If we are going to change our relationship with water, then we first need to understand how that relationship evolved. So in this first programme of the series, Alok looks at cultural history to understand how water shaped our deepest psychology.
Alok finds that our relationship with water – always struggling for a balance between too much and not enough – fundamentally influenced the religious and spiritual worldviews of early civilisations. And we still feel the effects of this in our attitudes towards water today.

Alok uncovers a dark and compelling story of child sacrifice in 15th-century Peru, hears how the water landscapes of Mesopotamia and Scandinavia shaped very different religious beliefs, and learns that many Islamic teachings about water have been echoed by modern science hundreds of years later.

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