Hey everyone,

My name is Elon and I’m one of the 4 million residents down here in Cape town, South
Africa that are quickly running out of water. Currently our Day Zero is set at May 11 of this year,
on that day all of our cities water will be shut off and we will only be alloted 7 gallons per person
per day that we have to pick up from designated centers. The problem with this is there is only
going to be 200 centers opening so people will need to take time out of their day and water just
receive barely enough water to survive, this is going to be very problematic for our country to
say the least.
We are currently being asked to limit ourselves to 27 gallons of water person per day
and to the average person you may think that is plenty of water to get by. When you compare
these numbers to the fact that in 2005 a study showed that Americans were consuming 87-100
gallons a day per person!
This is a relatively new issue since a drought that started in 2015 has only intensified
and dropped our rainfall levels to virtually nonexistent. This is very much directly connected to
changing climate conditions and is not something that is unique to South Africa. Out of the 500
largest cities in the world one in four would be classified as “Water stressed” and most likely
headed down the same path as Cape Town if we continue at the current pace we are at.
What follows in the wake of day zero should be used as both a cautionary tale and case
study, similar cases already exist in cities like Sao Paulo where since 2015 they drought issues
that resulted in looting and riots. As of January of this year Sao Paulo is 15% below expected
water levels and is getting ever closer to a drought epidemic. Beijing is a similar position in the
fact that they have upwards of 20 million people but more than 40% of their water is polluted
beyond any kind of use.
Some examples closer to the United States would be cities like Miami and San Diego
both having water epidemics of different kinds. San Diego is going through an intense drought
only worsened by the rampant pollution and Miami is experiencing rapid sea level rise. San
Diego has implemented desalination plants similar to what is purposed as the solution to Cape
Town’s epidemic and it has helped create fresh water on a small scale but at the cost of
pumping highly concentrated saline solutions back into the ocean as well as being very energy
intensive and generating high emissions.
So I sit here on a corner in my city staring at the coffee I’m drinking and wondering how
much water went into making it, it seems my only option is to wait and see what this rocky and
unstable future holds for me. I’d like to think that we humans can pull a 180 and save our planet
and ourselves but sometimes you have to wonder are we already in too deep?

Cooley, H. (n.d.). Key Issues in Seawater Desalination in California: Marine Impacts. Retrieved
February 11, 2018, from https://pacinst.org/publication/desal-marine-impacts/
Morin, M. (2014, March 03). Americans use twice as much water as they think they do, study
says. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-
americans-underestimate-personal-water-usage-study-says-20140227-story.html
The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water - like Cape Town. (2018, February 11).
Retrieved February 11, 2018, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-42982959