A ‘FIRST’ BLOG
24 Dec 2021
‘There has to be a beginning to most things, and this blog is no exception’.
The way I see it is that a blog is a way of providing readers with some
informal as well as formal information. Typically it covers a sequence of
insights, suggestions, concepts, thoughts and ideas that summarise the thinking
of the blogger on a particular topic, whether it is significant for the points
raised, or as the blogger I have already given my initial ideas on water and
the Bible in my original book on the topic. But whereas that book, and
subsequently the revised edition, (which is the focus of our attention now),
give an introduction to the topic of water and the Bible, it becomes obvious
that there are many more points to be made about the value and benefits of
water and its references in the text of the Bible. There are a number of
references in the Old Testament which are coupled with particular activities of
human beings interacting with each other and with God. The details of these
instances are not necessarily explored adequately in the books, and lessons
that normally emerge with the joint analysis of events or circumstances and
consequences remain to be deduced at some future time.
Then again there is some degree of anxiety that I, as author of the original
book, may not be able to produce new, stimulating items for the blog fast
enough to satisfy my readers. However, just as it has taken 40 (reasonably
short) chapters of the book to lay out the scope of the topic, I have been
selective about what I write about. In particular, I have focussed my writing
on topics about which I may have a different point of view than is normally
found in most other books on a similar subject. In other words, I endeavour to
provide a basic coverage of the more significant topics to do with water and
the Bible, leaving open the inclusion of other topics in the blog. This opens
up scope for having a fair number of possible blog contributions. However, it
will take a longer list of significant topics to provide the next level, and
therefore the blog should hopefully not run out of ideas for some time.
I am really surprised by the continuing enormous interest in water management
and engineering by, for example, engineers, designers, manufacturers,
investors, politicians, and consumers. The proper management of fresh water
supply is critical to the health and wealth of the community. Mostly, fresh
water is harvested from groundwater by pumping through wells with access to the
aquifer. The wells should be carefully distributed to minimum pumping costs.
Meanwhile, the managers look at the oceans covering 71% of the Earth’s surface,
and wonder when this water will ever be available to drink without danger. This
could possibly be achieved by scaling up a suitable desalinisation technology.
The problem is that appropriate technologies that could remove salts and other
impurities from ocean water, and then deliver an adequate flow of fresh water
for a city with, say, 500,000 population consume so much energy that they
cannot compete with the Earth’s hydrological cycle. Driven by the Sun, this
cycle generates sufficient fresh water precipitating on the land surface of the
planet to support the present Earth’s population. Fresh water is required
principally for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. To replicate the
performance of the hydrological cycles with current technologies cannot be
done: it is far too expensive. This is ironic for the water professional, in
that the ocean water is undrinkable for human beings, yet there are extensive
resources of Deuterium in the oceans which is the proposed basic element for
nuclear fusion. This technology, once implemented at city scale will generate
almost unlimited energy, and enable a range of present day technologies to be
scaled up to generate even more fresh water than is available globally today.
It is not surprising therefore that so many different categories of
professionals are interested in water management. This lays the subject wide
open for the emergence of new opportunities for managing water as well as abuse
of these opportunities. We are told by the historians that there has never been
a war over water resources. There have been however, a large number of local
conflicts over water. Fighting for access to wells was certainly an issue in
the days of Abraham. Such conflicts may be due to the limited supply of water
from wells because of the over-extraction of water by pumping directly from
groundwater, or diverting water for storage in reservoirs giving possibilities
for hydropower, while there are also improvements in wastewater management,
which increase the possibility of using rivers as receiving waters, and
protecting urban infrastructure using flood alleviation schemes, just as today
the allocation of the groundwater resources beneath the land of Israel,
determined by the government of Israel-and its water authority, Mekorot, is
bitterly disputed by the Palestinians. The consequences for water supply and
irrigation to both sides in the conflict are profoundly serious.
Finally, for this initial blog contribution, we do well to reflect on the
number of times and occasions in the Bible where water is an important
complement to the Word of God spoken. We will explore this aspect of water in
the Bible more thoroughly in the days to come.
So I leave you with a question: How does water influence the spread of the
Omicron virus?
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