What is water?

Pangaea Earth

“All the water that will ever be is, right now.”

― National Geographic, October 1993

Historic water

“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.”― Rachel Carson

Roman AqueductWater System ruins

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.”

― W.C. Fields

Municipal Water Meter

“The day, water, sun, moon, night – I do not have to purchase these things with money.”

― Plautus

Water Fluoridation 1945Grand Rapids, Michigan

“Water is the only drink for a wise man.”

― Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist, Poet, and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

Scientific water

“Water is the driving force in nature.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

H2O molecule

“Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes water and nobody knows what that is.”

― D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Pansies, 1929

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3D_model_hydrogen_bonds_in_water.svg

“The upholder of the cycles which sustain all Life is water.”

― Viktor Schauberger

“Earth as we know it came into being through its four great components: land, water, air, and life, all interacting in the light and energy of the sun. Although there was a sequence in the formation of the land sphere, the atmosphere, the water sphere, and the life sphere, these have so interacted with one another in the shaping of the Earth that we must somehow think of these as all present to one another and interacting from the beginning.”

― Thomas Berry

Sanderson Hope iceberg

“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.”

― Stewart Udall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iceberg_with_hole_near_sanderson_hope_2007-07-28_2.jpg

Christian baptism

“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”― Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1893-1986 (Hungarian Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine)

Makah WhalingPacific Northwest Canada

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Great Lakes For Sale” book cover By Dave Dempsey

“Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy.”― Author unknown

Negro River in the Amazon Basin 2010

“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” ― Thomas Fuller

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/photogalleries/101206-freshwater-amazon-drought-pictures/

“Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.”

― Wallace Stevens

Wastewater treatment plant

“Filthy water cannot be washed.”

― West African Proverb

http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/newsletter/june_9_2008.htm

Water treatment plantDurham, North Carolina

“The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water.”

― Akira Kurosawa, Yume

Agricultural Irrigation

“Water is essential for all dimensions of life. Over the past few decades, use of water has increased, and in many places water availability is falling to crisis levels. More than eighty countries, with forty percent of the world’s population, are already facing water shortages, while by year 2020 the world’s population will double. The costs of water infrastructure have risen dramatically. …

Confined animal feed lot

“… The quality of water in rivers and underground has deteriorated, due to pollution by waste and contaminants from cities, industry and agriculture. Ecosystems are being destroyed, sometimes permanently. …”

Fish kill

“ … Over one billion people lack safe water, and three billion lack sanitation; eighty per cent of infectious diseases are waterborne, killing millions of children each year.”

― World Bank InstituteWATER POLICY REFORM PROGRAM - Nov. 1999

The “Blue Revolution”: Modern Aquaculture, China

“Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.”

― ISAAC ASIMOV, Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988

Rice paddiesIndonesia 1967

“Many estuaries produce more harvestable human food per acre than the best mid-western farmland.”

― Stanley A. Cain,testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Merchant Marine and Fisheries subcommittee, March 1967

“…we have never really learned how important water is to us. We understand it, but we do not respect it.”

― WILLIAM ASHWORTH, 1982

Non-potable water sign

“More than one-half of the world's major rivers are being seriously depleted and polluted, degrading and poisoning the surrounding ecosystems, thus threatening the health and livelihood of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water.”― Ismail Serageldin, Chairman of the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century- Water Forum, Netherlands, November 30, 1999

Ocean Freight

“Water is the best of all things.”

― PINDAR (C. 522-C. 438 B.C.), Olympian Odes

Portsmouth

“Water has become a highly precious resource. There are some places where a barrel of water costs more than a barrel of oil.”

― Lloyd Axworthy, Foreign Minister of Canada (1999 - News Conference)

USS Theodore Roosevelt

“The ability to breathe the air and drink the water will be what the wars will be about from here on in. And it’s coming with alarming rapidity.”

― William Shatner

Three Gorges DamSandouping, Hubei Province, China

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.”

― Rachel Carson

Ganges River at Varanasi, India

“Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything - even mountains, rivers, plants, and trees - should be your teacher.”

― Morihei Ueshiba

Rio de Janeiro Brazil

“Nothing in the world is more yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.”

― Lao Tzu 600-531 BC (Chinese taoist Philosopher, founder of Taoism, wrote "Tao Te Ching" ("The Book of the Way")

“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” ― Edwin Louis Cole

Source: EPA Water Quality Assessment, National Summary

“If the states were divided by watershed boundaries voters would exercise complete control over their water resources. They would also be self-responsible for a multitude of environmental concerns as well with ability to operate on the premise that local people are best able to decide how to manage their own environments. It makes good sense.”

― The Daily Paul, 2010

Natural (logical) versus Political borders: “The 18 States of America”

Ancient Stromatolite ReefsShark Bay, Australia

“Microbe-rich stromatolite reefs, like this one in Shark Bay, Australia, were among the first sources of oxygen on Earth. They flourished throughout the planet's shallow waters 3.5 billion years ago, but are extremely rare today.”

― National Geographic, The Ocean

Tierra del Fuego, Cape Horn, Chile

“Surf froths: This archipelago, which means "land of fire" in Spanish, is the meeting point of the world's two largest oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

― National Geographic, The Ocean

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina 2005

“Of all our planet's activities--geological movements, the reproduction and decay of biota, and even the disruptive propensities of certain species (elephants and humans come to mind)--no force is greater than the hydrologic cycle.”

― Richard Bangs and Christian Kallen, Rivergods, 1985

Rolling thundercloudEnschede, Netherlands

“In every glass of water we drink, some of the water has already passed through fishes, trees, bacteria, worms in the soil, and many other organisms, including people...Living systems cleanse water and make it fit, among other things, for human consumption.”

― ELLIOT A. NORSE, in R.J. Hoage, ed., Animal Extinctions, 1985

Wetland life: Fish, fowl, frogs… bugs, bugs, bugs

“Wetlands have a poor public image.... Yet they are among the earth's greatest natural assets... mankind's waterlogged wealth.”

― EDWARD MALTBY, Waterlogged Wealth, 1986

Golf course La Quita, California

“High quality water is more than the dream of the conservationists, more than a political slogan; high quality water, in the right quantity at the right place at the right time, is essential to health, recreation, and economic growth.”

― EDMUND S. MUSKIE, U.S. Senator, speech, 1 March 1966

Junction, TX Swimming pool

“Water which is too pure has no fish.”

― Author Unknown

Bottling water plant

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.”

― Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790), Poor Richard's Almanac, 1746

“Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”

― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Indian Ocean

What is water?