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The Compass: Water: Too Much And Not Enough: Solutions

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Alok Jha shows how water itself may offer solutions to give us hope

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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.

The Compass: Water: Too Much And Not Enough

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.

14/04/2021 GMT

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

Water is at the heart of many of the most serious ecological crises we face, including the biggest one of all: the climate emergency. Alok Jha shows how water itself may offer solutions to give us hope.

Alok witnesses nuclear fusion in action at an experimental reactor in England. Simple seawater provides the fuel for this futuristic technology that has the potential to solve the world’s energy problems and eliminate fossil fuel power generation. 

Meanwhile chemist Fernando Romo walks us through the fascinating science of artificial photosynthesis, which allows humans to mimic plants, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing energy in the process.

But water historian Terje Tvedt cautions that the more reliant human societies become on water technologies, the more vulnerable we make ourselves to changes in the water landscape. An innovative 3D mapping project by activist geographer Hindou Ibrahim shows how technology must be married to grassroots organising and political action if it is to break out of the lab and help secure our water future.

(Photo: Water droplets on a leaf. Credit: Getty Images)

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