It’s time to get serious about what’s left of our water

The drought in the Northern and Eastern Cape is already a disaster of R1.3 billion proportions, according to farmers’ organisations … and there appears little relief in sight for the parched lands, according to weather predictions.

Awful though the situation is, perhaps now is the time that South Africans should start looking at these terrible droughts and hammering heatwaves – which are also plaguing Australia at the moment – as not an actual disaster, but as the “new normal”.

It is true that climate goes through cycles and oscillations but, more and more, it seems the dire predictions by the climate change lobby are coming true before our eyes.

Within 10 years, the demand for water will exceed supply by 40% – making water possibly the most dangerous destabilising element in the coming decades.

We need to realise that South Africa is, largely, a semi-desert … and we should start living accordingly.

We should reconsider our lush gardens and, if we must have vegetation, let it be indigenous and adapted to live on little water.

Do we need year-round green lawns, or golf courses? Do we need our private swimming pools?

Water is precious and people must start treating it with reverence, not disrespect.

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