Water: The Hidden Cost of Excess

Squandering water is so profligate due to all the energy and fossil fuels wasted along with the water itself. Wasted energy drives increased climate change. One way the climate crisis damages our ecosystems is by causing drought. This increases water scarcity. We end up with one of the worst positive feedback loops imaginable. Wasteful water consumption, drives additional water exploration and transportation, which drives even more temperature extremes from climate change, which then requires us to use even more energy to prepare water (such as during record cold snaps), which then further requires us to utilize more carbon energy sources to move and extract water as water scarcity rises.

As droughts intensify due to climate change and water resource disruptions become more widespread the importance of water conservation could not be greater. An alternative approach governments consider as groundwater resources diminish is desalinization. It has its own significant downsides that need to be considered though. It consumes large amount of energy and drives further increases in greenhouse gas emissions. We know that as greenhouse gas emissions rise we start to enter a damaging cycle that causes efficiency gains to be largely mitigated. This is another example of a climatic feedback response feedback loop.

Water Losses

Groundwater depletion is causing seawater to contaminate coastal aquifiers and is jeopardizing agricultural production as wells dry up. Many factors determine groundwater levels, including geology, climate and land use. But groundwater levels that are dropping deeper and deeper in a particular location often signal that people are pumping it out faster than nature can replenish it. There are policy changes that can be implemented to reverse groundwater losses and even replenish existing sources. Aside from policy changes decreased water waste will also have a positive impact on replenishment. If excessive amounts of water are pumped from wells land subsistence results. This leaves the land more vulnerable to severe flooding.

Research shows groundwater levels are declining and the effects it's having, "Groundwater resources are vital to ecosystems and livelihoods. Excessive groundwater withdrawals can cause groundwater levels to decline, resulting in seawater intrusion, land subsidence, streamflow depletion and wells running dry. However, the global pace and prevalence of local groundwater declines are poorly constrained, because in situ groundwater levels have not been synthesized at the global scale." Jasechko, S., Seybold, H., Perrone, D. et al. Rapid groundwater decline and some cases of recovery in aquifers globally. Nature 625, 715--721 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06879-8.

Each point represents one monitoring well, coloured to represent the Theil--Sen trend of annual median groundwater levels during the twenty-first century. Blue and red points indicate shallowing and deepening, respectively, of groundwater levels over time, with darker colours indicating faster rates. Jasechko, S., Seybold, H., Perrone, D. et al. Rapid groundwater decline and some cases of recovery in aquifers globally. Nature 625, 715--721 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06879-8

It is also important to reiterate one of the most influential ways we can protect our ecosystems and groundwater reserves is by reducing the amount of beef we eat. Agriculture is a major driver of water losses. Accelerated groundwater decline is common in dry climates where large swaths of land are used for agriculture. This suggests a potential link between groundwater-fed irrigation and intensifying groundwater depletion.

Cold Showers

Minimalists understand that taking care of oneself sustainably is essential to the well being of ourselves and the ecosystems we depend. Decrease the amount of water you use in all ways possible. When washing yourself, when washing dishes, when watering the lawn. Capture the water you can and use it for your garden.

Daily people around the world will turn on their bathroom spigots and wait for the water to heat up before beginning to wash themselves. What most don't realize is that taking a cold or lukewarm shower is better for their health, complexion, and the environment. Getting used to using room temperature or colder water is a useful tool in sustainability and health endeavors. Washing ourselves with tepid or cooler water is better for your health and also saves energy. This results in us having less of an adverse effect on the health of our climate and planet. These are both fundamental tenets of minimalism.

Cold water increases alertness

Nothing wakes me up better than a cold shower in the morning. Sometimes I'm not able to endure the intensity of the cold for the duration of the shower, but even a brief moment exposed to it can heighten my alertness for the entire day.

Improves Immunity and circulation

Cold water can strengthen immunity by encouraging blood to surround our organs. This can help us combat problems with our skin and heart. When cold water strikes the body, its ability to fasten the circulation of blood leads to our arteries to more effectively pump blood. This can help clear blocked arteries and improve immunological health.

Stimulates Weight Loss

White fat is the type that accumulates around our waist, neck, back, and thighs. It is the type of fat that is difficult to part with. Brown fat is a good fat that is generates heat warming out bodies. It is activated by exposing ourselves to extreme cold. A 2009 study found we could lose up to 9 pounds in a year by activating brown fat through extreme cold exposure. Cypess, A. M., Lehman, S., Williams, G., Tal, I., Rodman, D., Goldfine, A. B., Kuo, F. C., Palmer, E. L., Tseng, Y.-H., Doria, A., Kolodny, G. M., & Kahn, C. R. (2009). Identification and Importance of Brown Adipose Tissue in Adult Humans. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(15), 1509--1517. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa0810780

Speeds up muscle recovery

Decreases the duration of soreness - Ice baths are known to reduce muscle soreness after athletic training. Surprisingly a quick cold shower after physical exercise can be just as effective.

Eases Stress

Going into the shower before the water heats up or going for a swim with acclimating to the water helps promote hardening. Hardening is the exposure to a natural, e.g., thermal stimulus, resulting in an increased tolerance to stress, e.g., diseases. This is accomplished in the body through decreasing plasma uric acid levels.

Relieves Depression

Cold showers have been shown to relieve depression symptoms due to the intense impact that cold receptors have on the skin. There is an enormous amount of electrical impulses in the peripheral never endings connected to the brain. You get a sort of antidepressant effect. Boosting mood. Cold hydrotherapy also has a sort of analgesic effect. According to the study, "Additionally due to the high density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect." Shevchuk, N. A. (2008). Adapted cold shower as a potential treatment for depression. Medical Hypotheses, 70(5), 995--1001. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17993252/

Refines hair and skin

One of the most natural ways to maintain your appearance is through taking cold showers. Hot water tends to dry out your skin, especially on your scalp and face. Cold showers help the cuticles and pores tighten preventing them from getting clogged as easily. Pores will start to take on a more sealed appearance. This lowers their vulnerability to dirt and other contaminants.

If cold showers are too radical for you try lukewarm showers. Also try to turn down your water heater's temperature slightly. Doing something will help more than doing nothing towards improving outcomes.

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Be clever about how you can save and reuse water like when you try to clean a dish or clean a bottle or a container to be recycled. You can switch the water around a little bit before throwing it out or switch it back-and-forth between bottles. Try to minimize the amount of water wasted in all types of imaginable ways. Start with the way you clean yourself. The way you clean your dishes and pans after cooking. The way you can preserve and reuse water for watering the lawn. Capture the water you can and use it for your garden. Decreasing the amount of time spent in the shower is a powerful way to utilize minimalism to help the environment.

Bringing water to our doors consumes an incredible amount of energy. It's easy to overlook how much goes into just getting water to our doors. The energy required to pump water to our households can be calculated using the hydraulic formula. The formula depends on a few variables such as the height the water needs to be lifted h, Q the flow rate of water, the efficiency of the pump η, and any losses in the system.

The other thing to think about is the amount of temperature change required to get the water from the source temperature to the target temperature for a shower. Let's say the water is 20°C at the source and the ideal shower temperature is 40°C. That would be a temperature change of 20 degrees C. In the winter the amount of energy required to heat the water up for a shower would be even more

• Pumping energy: Approximately 0.00086 kWh per gallon of water.
• Heating energy: Approximately 0.088 kWh per gallon of water.
• Total energy required: Approximately 0.089 kWh per gallon of water.
• Natural gas required to heat: About 0.00303 cubic meters per gallon of water.

It isn't just wasting the water itself that is problematic, its the energy used in obtaining and transporting the water. It's the energy used to heat the water as well.

Step back a bit. Think about where water comes from. How it arrived at your faucet. The complexity of the infrastructure used to deliver water to you. The power used to pump and extract groundwater. The energy used to pump water to your doorstep.

• Try to imagine how the imagine how the water heater works.
• Try to feel the flow of energy used to heat the water up for your use.
• Try to visualize the gas burning in the water heater now.
• Imagine the energy or electricity being generated to boil the water. First think about it within your home itself, then step further back and reflect on the power plant burning fossil fuels nearby to provide power. Do you need to have the water that hot? It's worse for your skin and health to shower in hot water anyway.

Another beneficial visualization technique is to reflect on the source of the water. Thinking deeper meditate on how the water came to you for consumption. What methodology was used to extract and prepare it for your use? Consider the scarcity of the water and the impact its extraction and preparation has on ecosystems from which it was removed from.