One World Essay free essay sample

Water, is essential to all forms of life. Water plays a huge part in our lives whether you realize it or not. It ties in with many different factors, some being political, social, environmental and ethical. Singapore has her own water issue as well. Science plays a major role in today’s world this also includes issue of water and the benefits and limitation science can provide for Singapore in her water issue. Water is extremely vital for our survival. According to (Water Partners International. We will write a custom essay sample on One World Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 2008), only about 0. 07% of all water on earth is ready to be consumed by a human and that without water, a human can only live for three days, approximately 2. 6 billion people on Earth lacks access to a safe supply of dirking water which leads to the fact that water-related diseases are one of the leading causes of disease and death in the world. According to (Water Partners International. 2008), every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. This shows us the extreme importance of water in our lives and without it we will perish, so we should not be taking what we have for granted. Singapore is a young and small country who gained her independence from Malaysia in 1965. Singapore had to rely on Malaysia for water since then till today due to her size and the amount of people living in Singapore. Singapore has advanced from being a third world country to a first world country in the past century however she still lacks the ability to produce enough drinking water for the population which according to the (CIA. 2008) is 4,608,167 people. Thus till today, Singapore still acquires water from Malaysia. According to (Lee, Poh Onn. 003), Singapore depends on Malaysia for nearly 40% of her water supply. This turns into a political issue when Malaysia threatens to cut off Singapore’s water supply from time to time. However according to (Lee, Poh Onn. 2003), â€Å"the Malaysian authorities have made repeated assurances that Malaysia intends to observe the 1961 and 1962 water agreements made with Singapore up to 2011 and 2061 respectively. † These agreement made between the two countries allow Singapore to acquire up to 1. 55 million m3 of water per day (Lee, Poh Onn. 2003). Unfortunately, it does not end here. In January 2002, the Malaysia government noted that they would like to secure a fairer price for raw water from Singapore (Lee, Poh Onn. 2003). Thus in result to the new demands of pricing, Singapore started to resorts into finding new ways to acquire water. In April 2002, they came up with the NEWater and desalination ideas which seemed as an alternative which would lessen Singapore’s present reliance on Malaysia (Lee, Poh Onn. 2003). However this play would only be in full motion in the year 2011. So as for the time being, the political tension for water continues. So the Singaporean government realized that depending on other countries for water put them in a very vulnerable position and if by any chance Malaysia suddenly decided to cut off our supply of water, what would become of the nation? This led to the creation of NEWater, to serve the purpose of the being the fourth national tap to fulfill the growing water consumption of Singapore (RGS. 2007). Science can help solve this water issue as technology today is advance enough to be able to convert sea water into drinking water, through desalination and by that producing clean drinking water. The production for clean drinking water goes though a number of processes. Below is the process of which seawater is turned into drinking water: What we can benefit from science is that we are able to treat our water to reuse and recycle it again and again. We are also able to convert sea water into drinking water if needed. However, the limitations are that the process is very costly and it might upset the balance of density and temperature in the sea which might lead to other issues such as global warming. Another limitation links in with a social issue which is if the people would comply to drink the water which has been processed. This diagram below shows Singapores current plan of maintaining a sufficient amount of water for the population: (Singapore Public Utilities Board (PUB). 2008) The idea of NEWater is very appealing and ideal. However there is a social issue it has to deal with. Singaporeans are very â€Å"kiasu (picky)† of what they consume. So the idea of drinking water which was once from their own toilet bowls doesn’t really matter to them weather it has been purified or not. This leaves the government in a very tight position. After much debating and convincing, â€Å"82% of Singaporeans are prepared to drink NEWater, while 16% of the people are prepared to drink NEWater if it is mixed with reservoir water and the remaining minority of 2% of Singaporeans still cannot accept NEWater into their daily lives. Therefore, the government is planning to progressively increase the amount of NEWater injected into our reservoirs so as to allow people to get used to drinking NEWater and accepting it into their daily lives. (RGS. 2007). Apart from local issues, water plays a very important part to the environment. Without water, everything would be dry as sand. Without water we wouldn’t be able to breathe as plants require water to photosynthesize. Without water there would be an almost instantaneous change in global temperature. However, even if somehow we lost all the water in the world and still could miraculously survive, we would lose a huge beauty in ou r world. Water not only brings us life, it gives us an environment to live in. Without water we lose: the wind, clouds, oceans, waterfalls, rainbows, snow, ice, diving, coral reefs, diving, swimming, surfing, ice cream, even centuries of tradition like the Winter Olympic Games. Anything that is required of water we lose. That is why we must preserve our oceans and water even if science allows us to somehow live without water. Water also plays a major part in ethical issues such as religions. In many religions, water is used to cleanse the soul. Or purify a being. For example, when being baptized in Christianity, holy water is sprinkled over a person (Farlex Inc. 003). Due to the all the facts given and discussed, I believe that it is safe to conclude that water is not only one of the main essence of life to us and all living things but also a beauty of which should never be taken away.