It’s National Library Week, so I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and the idea that knowledge should be readily available – for all. An informed populace is crucial to the health of the nation and a bulwark of democracy. The ability to think, to reason, to avoid being fooled, all these notions are tied to reading and easy access to the wisdom of the ages.
And this is exactly why libraries – and their contents – are under siege these days.
HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery recently told readers:
“Librarians are living in constant fear. They have become the targets
of Republican politicians and far-right groups like Moms forLiberty
Liberty that are hellbent on burning books about LGBTQ+ people,
people of color and racism. Some librarians are quitting their jobs
because of constant harassment; others are getting fired for
refusing to clear shelves of books that conservatives don’t like.”
If that’s not bad enough – and it is – Bendery informs us there’s another evil twist in the tale: “The GOP’s censorship campaign has shifted from book bans to legislation threatening librarians with jail time.” Idaho’s tried several times to enact such legislation; this February, West Virginia passed a bill “making librarians criminally liable if a minor comes across content that some might consider obscene.” Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia are also considering various means of keeping books they don’t like off the shelves...and they’re not alone.
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom shared some frightening statistics: “The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.”
Given these ever-more-frequent, ever-more-strident attacks, what can a concerned reader do to stem the tide of book-banning?
PEN America, an organization whose mission “is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible,” offers a number of ways to make one’s voice heard. Whether you’re a student, a parent, an author, or a librarian, PEN America provides advice, assistance, and resources to keep you informed and ready to push back.
The need to support the nation’s libraries is more urgent than ever. In Bendery’s HuffPost piece, American Library Association President Emily Drabinski draws a chilling conclusion: “What gets lost in conversations about book banning is that it’s really about eliminating the institution of the library, period. It’s not about the books. Well, it is about the books, but the books are the way in to gut one of the last public institutions that serves everyone.”
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s finest fabulists, the author of The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the worldwide blockbuster Fahrenheit 451. Published in 1952, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future where books are illegal and firemen don’t put out fires – they start them. Printed matter is what they burn.
Bradbury was writing in the tense, paranoid early years of the McCarthy era. But he might as well have penned those words last Thursday.
Support your local library. Speak up for the voices the hate-mongers would shut down. Before – as history’s proven again and again – they try to shut down yours.
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Students fight a book ban by giving away free banned bookswww.youtube.com
The New York Public Library has also weighed in on the matter, you can find its suggestions here.
What happens when the earth's water well runs dry?
We may forget that water is not an infinite source on the planet so what happens when we run out?
While seventy percent of the Earth is covered in water, only about two percent of it is drinkable. On top of this, most freshwater is inaccessible, either frozen in glacial ice or buried deep beneath the Earth's surface. According to several sources, there are currently one billion people in developing nations who lack access to clean drinking water and by 2025, up to two thirds of the world's population could living under water stressed conditions. When looking at the increasing scarcity of usable water, rising populations, and today's volatile political climate,many experts have come to the conclusion that we are on the verge of widespread conflict and many are saying that the next major war will be fought over water.
The preliminary effects of the coming crisis are already being felt all over the world. Economic powerhouses like China are suffering from pollution in their rivers and as evidenced by the Flint water crisis, even the US isn't completely immune to clean water shortages. In the US, most of our problems are due to outdated and slowly crumbling infrastructure and while this is nothing to sneeze at, access to water in the US can be fixed by replacing old pipes for the time being. Whether this is done through public works or private investment is political semantics. Right now, Third World countries are the ones who truly suffer. About 2,300 people die per day from diseases contracted through unclean water and with very little support, these countries don't have the tools necessary to mitigate the effects of prolonged drought. Desertification and global warming are also contributing to water scarcity in a big way, the latter causing about 20% of our water scarcity issues today.
While the situation is dire, we aren't doomed yet and there are several conservation measures being kicked around by the world's top environmental scientists. One solution that has been gaining popularity in recent years is desalination. Israel has successfully used desalination to supply its population with fresh water with 55% of its water coming from the ocean. In the US and many countries in Europe, large scale desalination projects are being funded for a vast array of what-if scenarios.
The problem is, desalination isn't very energy efficient. Desalination requires an enormous amount of energy and although the technology is improving, desalination plants have the potential to become major contributors to global warming in the coming years. On top of this, there are unforeseeable effects on sea life and desalination has the potential to disrupt the fragile balance of the ocean's ecosystem. Significant changes in the ocean's ecosystem means significant changes to the way we fish and subsequently, the way we eat. Since there haven't been many studies on the long-term effects of desalination, it's difficult to say how damaging it is but there does seem to be some cause for alarm with regard to its immediate effect on sea life. Fish, plankton and other organisms are often killed during water intake and processing and at the moment, it's probably safer to look for other methods to fix the world's water issues.
When the well is running dry, it's sometimes better to examine its structural integrity before digging a brand new one. Agriculture accounts for 80% of America's water use. Rather than focusing on desalination, many water activists are looking to fix inefficiencies in the way we farm food. Leaking irrigation systems and the cultivation of non-local crops are wasteful practices that are squandering huge amounts of water. How much? Up to 60% of water used in farming is wasted because of irrigation issues alone. Rather than rushing to invest all of our time and resources into desalination, it might be time that we reexamine the way in which we grow food. In Volgograd, farmers have been using experimental drip irrigation with extremely effective results both in regard to maintaining healthy soil and proper water utilization. The water scarcity issue may have to get a whole lot worse before people start paying attention to it but it's important to recognize the farmers and scientists who are currently making a contribution. The Water Project and other charitable organizations are also doing their part for water conservation.
If the future looks tumultuous, it's because it is, but with the implementation of more eco-friendly farming methods and the use of desalination as a last resort, there is less of a reason to panic than one might think.
- BBC - Future - Is the world running out of fresh water? ›
- New NASA data show how the world is running out of water - The ... ›
- Do you think Earth will ever run out of water? ›
- Exactly what happens if we run out of water? | HowStuffWorks ›
- The World Is Running Out of Fresh Water. Here's What You Can Do to ›