No more Drip, Drip! No Water Scarcity in Trump’s America.
Water scarcity has been a growing concern across the globe, but not any more in Trump’s America. The US President is so gifted that he can create natural resource like water from thin air, the American golf courses hardly need any water, it’s just blessed. There are 16,752 golf courses in America and accounts for 43.10 percent of total golf courses in the world. Japan has second highest number of golf courses with 3,169 (1). Each American golf course consumes around 312,000 gallons or 11.8 million litres water per day (2). But is abundance of water a reality or a distorted perception of the US President and reluctance of his cabinet to say anything else but “Yes, Master!”.
At the global concern about water
scarcity, especially drinkable water had Governments, professionals and
concerned group identifying various ways to reduce water wastage and one of the
methods identified was to design sanitary products such that water flow per
minute is controlled, especially for the showerheads.
All countries across the globe
have little dispute regarding scarcity of water and need to use different ways
to avoid wastage. Based on research on showerheads to reduce waterflow most
countries opted for water policy to reduce water flow from showerheads
(irrespective of design or nozzles used) to 8 or 9 litres per minute, all over
Europe water flow is regulated at 8 litres per minute, in India it is 9.5
litres per minute, in China 9 litres per minute, except for instance for
Austrian showerhead water flow is 12 litres per minute.
In America around 2.2 million
people do not have everyday access to clean water or any type of plumbing
services (3). Probably for billionaire President Trump this is not an issue as
most of the 2.2 million people who face water shortage are poor or members of
migrant population legally settled in US. But then there are states that face
severe water shortage in America, they include California, Arizona, Colorado,
New Mexico, and Nevada. These states consider water shortage such a major issue
that they have reduced the standard water flow set for showerheads by the
Federal Government. These States have opted for water flow of 1.25 gallons per
minute or 4.731 litres per minute, instead of 2.5 gallons or 9.4litres per
minute for showerheads set by the Federal Government.
It is under President Obama’s
Administration based on water concern in different parts of US and the global
move towards reducing water flow from showerhead, the US administration put in
place regulations to redesign showerheads and ensure maximum water flow of 9.5
litres per minute. This amount is fixed for showerheads irrespective of its
design.
President Donald Trump was
concerned about the need to increase water flow per minute in showerheads even
during his previous term and during his first term he changed the regulation
regarding water flow especially for high pressure showerheads. After President
Trump previous term was over, President Biden brought back the regulation put
in place by Obama’s Administration.
Now, back at the oval office,
President Trump is concerned about his beautiful hair disfigured by dripping
shower, so he is removing the regulation on water flow per minute. According to
him those who want and can afford should have freedom to opt for heavy water
flow per minute from showers. What he is basically aiming at is that high pressure
showerhead with many nozzles can have maximum capacity of 38 litres flow per
minute, so President Donald Trump can enjoy his bath. Just curious, Mr.
President Donald Trump, when you travel to other countries would you be
ensuring the host country changes their water policy for your personal
preference?
Mr. President are you also hoping
that water shortage faced by states can be addressed by shift towards fully
digitised farming, which would be concentration of farmland in a few hands or
corporates and use of drones and other gadgets for precise spot watering. This
may be the reason you are discarding farmworkers with such confidence. Think
again Mr. President Donald Trump you may throw out small and medium size farm
owners out of business, and the country has not thought through the implication
of energy consumption when shifting to total digitisation and use of IoT
(Internet of Things) will mean, for each action on digital world there would be
need for accessing present, past and related data and this may be a 24x7
reality. Besides data cooling would also be needing energy, for unlike the
fancy term cloud storage, in reality the action is land based and mundane.
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/golf
2. https://www.npr.org/2008/06/11/91363837/water-thirsty-golf-courses-need-to-go-green
3. https://www.cdcfoundation.org.blog/addressing-growing-water-crisis-us
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