As DAY ZERO looms for Cape Town, the blame game goes into overdrive, but blame won't solve the water woes.
For those who are not aware of what Day Zero entails, it is the day taps run dry for all but essential services such as hospitals in Cape Town. This specific day is recalculated all the time, but as of now is about mid April this year. When the taps run dry people will have to personally collect water at water collection points, and will be allocated 25 litres per person per day. As of 01/02/18, water restrictions have already been tightened to 50 litres water per person per day, but this can be abused, as water is still available in the taps. Unfortunately it is partly this abuse of scarce water resources which has resulted in the looming Day Zero. Another major contributing factor is one common to our country, and that is utter bureaucratic incompetence. Just this week I was listening to a story on the radio where a politician apparently blamed the Weather Service for not predicting the drought!
Beautiful drought wastelands, but wastelands none the less.
A Newcastle acquaintance, with whom I connected on facebook, works for the WWF. He was in Cape Town recently, and informally documented what he saw while he was there. He posted the photos on facebook to spread awareness, and kindly granted me permission to share them here on Steemit.
Even while suffering under one of the worst droughts in history, Cape Town and surrounds are still deceptively green. This is due to a combination of water efficient indigenous plants and ground water, which can't be used for residential purposes.
Astroturf and borehole water are used in this property.
Signs of a reality that is looming on a much larger scale.
What South Africa fails to realise is this is a problem that is going to affect us all at some stage, as we are not preserving our natural resources. A small town near where I live (and I am sixteen hours away from Cape Town) has already run dry in sections. I have a regular customer who said they had no choice but to sink numerous boreholes in his area, at a personal cost of about R50 000 ($4200) each. Several dams in my province are very worryingly low, despite recent torrential rainfall. Globally we have to appreciate what we have, and preserve what we have, because DAY ZERO looms for us all. And our children.
Please note!!! All photos in this article were taken by Angus Burns of the World Wildlife Fund, and were previously shared on facebook. I have been granted permission to share them here. A very recent article, also using one of these photos, can be read here https://www.bolanderlifestyle.co.za/news/day-zero-looms-large-13026272
All liquid proceeds from this article will be donated to the WWF.
