What Happened to the Water?
The short answer is: The Industrial Revolution.
The long answer is: A course in the history of Water Chemistry. After Chem 1+2, Organic, a few others.
Or, a Library Card.
Here's an in-between answer;
Less then 50 years ago the idea that water on the earth might get rare, or even scarce, was deemed absurd but many, including a good chuck of the Scientific Community.
Hey, well just look around! I mean, it's everywhere. Lakes, streams, rainfall. run out? How? Well, while we were rejoicing water's uses we were reproducing. During Johnny Carson's tenure on the Tonight Show, the population of the earth Doubled. Too many people in a given place, and the amount of Clean, Fresh, potable water decreases, and then disappears, leaving water fouled by the wates of humans, bodily, and the garbage we throw out. The garbage, itself, wasn't necessarily harmful, but they could allow the water to become filled with aerobic, and then anaerobic bacteria [think Methane, Hydrogen Sulfide [the stuff in stink bombs], and Ammonia]. And we share the planet with other animals, and eat them, and breed them, and they make waste too. This is the Centuries Old problem.
Alonside these events, the Industrial Revolution, which was, in part, the Revolution in Chemistry, specifically in manufacturing. And the New Problem.
We got good. At inventing things. Real good. All the Technology of the past Century alone, the Chemists had their Golden Age and just invented all of the coolest stuff in the world; the World of Chemistry. Nylon, plastics, big steel, clothing, Kevlar, Chem-Lawn, Semtex, MDMA, Cell Phones, Computers, artificial hearts, Pharmaceuticals, paints, nuclear power, tampons, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Palm and/or Vegetable Oil [you eat gobs of both of the former every day, not the tampons.], Pesticides, lasers, TV, Radio, and of course, Cherry Flavored Pez. We literally transformed the world around us, from huts to Condos, from Hunting Game to Meat Sections, from Cotton to, Micromesh and Spandex. And it all rocked, and made things easy, and cool, and fun.
But there was a problem. Big Time. Some of the chemicals we made, and used, and invented, were found out to be harmful. Some we knew about; some we never saw coming. But we found out some chemicals were toxic. Some were insidious, harmless when ingested, but harmful if allowed to build up in the body over time. Others caused caners; Carcinogens. Some caused genetic mutations; Mutagens. Some, like Mercury and Thalidomide, seemed ok for adults, but were horrifically harmful to a developing fetus; Teratogens. And some were harmful in quantities so small as to be next to nothing.
Take your everyday paper clip. It weighs about one gram. Imagine dividing that paper clip into one million pieces; 1,000,000. A millionth of a gram is 1 Microgram. If that's tough to imagine, take the paper clip and cut it into 1,000 pieces, and then ONE of those bits, and cut IT into 1,000 pieces. The invisible speck you would have would have a mass of a Microgram, and there are substances that are toxic, or carcinogenic, at quantities that small. No Way? Way. Think about taking 10mg of Valium, and how that affects a body. 10mg is just 10 of the pieces you cut above, when you cut the paper clip into 1,000 pieces. 10mg of some substances will Dr0p a human like a bullet to the medulla.
Toxins, Carcinogens, Teratogens, Mutagens, Radioactivity [there's a radioactive substance used in just about every single Smoke Detector made today, for example], we had all us this happening around us, and hence to us.
Bad water isn't new. 400 Years ago the Deaths in London from the horrific pollution in the Thames were well documented. That's simply too many people using the water, which is the other big problem today.
Blame? Ethics? I just teach the science, so for now, there you go.
http://www.miketheteacher.com
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