Asimov and the infinite water of the Balearic Islands

In 1952, when Elizabeth II ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom, Isaac Asimov published a story whose plot was based on the struggle for water between Earth and the colonies of Mars. In other words, more than 70 years ago, Asimov already understood that a water crisis could endanger an entire planet. Or two. And that water is not a resource that can be squandered. In fact, from ‘Dune’ (Frank Herbert) to the screenwriters of ‘Mad Max’ (George Miller and Byron Kennedy), many science fiction authors have seen in the possibilities of water scarcity an apocalyptic plot.Well then, the Islands are already living an apocalyptic plot: there is no water, but we continue growing, building, expanding airports and increasing the number of tourists as if we had water. What could go wrong?At the beginning of this year, the United Nations, in a landmark report, declared that the world has entered an era of global water bankruptcy. In other words, many ecosystems have reached the point of no return, because human demand, with its unsustainable progress, has exhausted aquifer savings and dried up the wells of the future. The entire planet's water system is at risk. And, on this desolate map, we can understand islands like the Balearics —located in a Mediterranean that is warming above average and sold to tourism and unbridled concrete— as the paradigm of shipwreck in dry dock, the small-scale experiment of the consequences of the policy of excess. What happens when a society behaves as if a finite resource were infinite?Thus, amid the widespread absurdity, the Archipelago rises, once again, as the champion of nonsense. Attila preventing the grass from growing. In the Islands, we still don't understand what we're playing with regarding water. And this despite all indicators showing we're reaching a very dangerous limit. Water reserves are not reaching 40% on any island. Menorca's reserves have fallen to historic lows. In Ibiza, the largest part of the underground water masses are overexploited and salinized. And the precipitation regime is disrupted due to climate change.It is true that many municipalities have established restrictions — supply cuts or restrictions on irrigation and swimming pools — but if construction continues and human pressure increases, these measures will be like putting band-aids on Smith and Wesson .45 wounds.We are living a water crisis within a climate crisis that threatens our future. And, in reality, it's not that we don't understand it (I think many of us do), it's that whoever sets the agenda for our rulers is a business sector that, in its infinite arrogance, believes that money buys everything and that their navel is above all things in the universe. One fine day I reproached the person in charge of the company that brings us water to our homes —the water oligarchs— that, with the critical situation of the aquifers, they didn't turn off the tap (never better said) to those who ask for five trucks a day for swimming pools and gardens. He answered me that, in reality, he should offer these wasters a better price than me, because they are their best clients. And this is the philosophy. The laws of the market applied to a resource of all that they have privatized without anyone setting limits. Suicidal capitalism, once again.And, ultimately, the limits, of course, are always for those of us who already save water. Individual consciousness as an alibi for not discussing the decisions of those who truly waste. And if not, just ask the pharaoh of Sant Antoni de Portmany (read Mayor Marcos Serra), who, in full drought alert, authorized a party where an Egyptian setting was recreated with a lake that required 170 tons of water to be poured. Water as decoration; the shape of the water we were missing to see.In Asimov's story, titled Martian Way, Earth is about to stop supplying water to Mars —and I don't know if this will be a spoiler, but the book is from 1952—, so the Martians, to avoid depending on Earth's water, decide to go search for an enormous block of ice in Saturn's rings. What some would call technological solutions. And perhaps they themselves will tell me that, after all, an Archipelago is surrounded by water, and that the solution is desalination. But if anyone still thinks that way, I will recommend a short trip to Talamanca, where Ibiza's desalination plant discharges the brine from the desalination process through an outfall under a cliff. There, right there, there should be a splendid seagrass meadow. But the desalination plant has destroyed it. The ecological cost of desalination is too high. And until we can go get ice from Saturn's rings, we either stop building or die of thirst.