What about water?

Water is scarce and valuable in Australia. This country, the size of the U.S., is divided into only six states and its population is just under 23 million. One of the fastest growing states is New South Wales, where new homes are now required to have tanks for gray water, which is used for many purposes in the home, and not just watering the garden!

This is not news in South Australia, the "driest state in the driest inhabited continent on earth," says the website www.waterforgood.sa.gov.au

South Australia is "also feeling the added pressures of climate change, drought and a growing population." People here routinely haul water to fill tanks for gray water usage -- it's a generations-old practice, nothing new and nothing out of the ordinary. It's what you do when underground aquifers are non-existent and all water needs are met by the rivers, which in turn are dependent on rainfall to maintain a level that can supply the population with H2O!

The droughts on the past two years are the harbingers of this kind of change in the U.S. if we don't become better stewards fast.