Protect precious water from pollution
Protect precious water from pollution

Water, the marvellous and divine  gift  of nature, is absolutely necessary for sustenance of plant and animal lives  on earth. Scientifically, water is necessary for life to originate.

Great religions too say life originates in water only. About 70 percent of the earth is water and in animal and plant bodies  water is the major constituent.

The human body is almost 70 percent water! This universal solvent has the capacity to dissolve many solid materials by solvation  and can ordinarily exist in three different phases  for service to man in agriculture, art,  industry, transportation, food processing etc.

Ice is solid water and when it  is warmed, it melts to form liquid  water  which in turn  on supplying with more heat energy, water vapour is formed.

Steam is water vapour with higher energy content.  When it rains on a  cold cloudy day, one feels warmth in  the environment as  the stored heat energy in water vapoor of the clouds is  released to the atmosphere!

Water plasma, the fourth  phase of water, is  formed  at temperatures above 3300 degree celsius and it is probably  the best source of energy  for recycling anything without causing environmental  pollution.

Water plasma can disintegrate  even the CFC  gases which destroy the ozone layer  as it  contains very reactive entities such as hydrogen,  oxygen and  hydroxyl  radicals.    

Now what is water all about?   It is a chemical  consisting of many  water (H2O) molecules. In each water molecule, two hydrogen atoms are linked to an oxygen atom. The H-O-H link has a  slight bend and is not straight. As a result,  water molecule assumes polarity. 

Also the  hydrogen atoms of one  water molecule are attracted to the oxygen atoms of  other water molecules  and the process is repeated so as to  establish links  among water molecules.   These links are known as  hydrogen bonds  which help water  to remain as a liquid from the melting point of ice  up to  the boiling point.  It  is interesting to compare H2O molecule  with a  hydrogen sulphide  ( H2S) molecule. 

Even though  sulphur is twice as heavy as oxygen, H2S is a  gas  even  at temperatures near  minus( -)600C. There are no intermolecular hydrogen bonding in H2S!  Here lies the  wonder and magic of the chemistry of water.

One may also wonder as to how  water was born?  The birth of water is  from fire!  The combustion of hydrogen in oxygen produces  water. So there is  ‘fire’ in water too.

Water is precious. Every cell in plant and animal bodies require water.  Since it is available in plenty   people take it for granted and lavishly  use  and misuse it.

In the grand old days of the dawn of human progress, civilizations flourished only  along the banks of the mighty rivers like the Ganga, Sindhu,  Nile, Tigris etc. simply because of the  benevolent support water can give to man to grow rice and other  foodgrain varieties for supporting life.

In India people even worshiped    water sources like the Ganga, Sindhu etc. with great respect. However, as time passed by, the  evergrowing  greed of man  in agriculture and industry polluted all the rivers  by  misuse to such an extent  as to jeopardize  even  the very existence of life on this planet. There is a big threat to plant and animal life on this planet now due to  water pollution. The only remedy now to save life on this planet is to  bring back our ancient culture of love and respect to sources of water especially  the rivers.

Strong measures on the part of the government is absolutely necessary  to protect  rivers  from pollution and exploitation. However, a  permanent solution  to the problem  can be achieved  only by educating people of this land from their early childhood to love and respect our rivers.

(The writer is  former  professor of chemistry,  Calicut University. The views in the article are the writer’s own. Phone: 9847444531. email: [email protected] )

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