From space, our planet appears to be more ocean than Earth.
But despite the water covering 71% of the planet’s surface, more than half the world’s population endures extreme water scarcity for at least one month a year.
And current estimates predict that by 2040, up to 20 more countries could be experiencing water shortages.
Taken together, these bleak statistics raise a startling question: are we running out of clean water?
Well yes, and no.
At a planetary scale, Earth can’t run out of freshwater thanks to the water cycle, a system that continuously produces and recycles water, morphing it from vapour, to liquid, to ice as it circulates around the globe.
So this isn’t really a question of how much water there is, but of how much of it is accessible to us.
97% of earth’s liquid is saltwater, too loaded with minerals for humans to drink or use in agriculture.
Of the remaining 3% of potentially usable freshwater, more than two-thirds is frozen in ice caps and glaciers.
That leaves less than 1% available for sustaining all life on Earth, spread across our planet in rivers, lakes, underground aquifers, ground ice and permafrost.
It’s these sources of water that are being rapidly depleted by humans, but slowly replenished by rain and snowfall.
And this limited supply isn’t distributed evenly around the globe.
Diverse climates and geography provide some regions with more rainfall and natural water sources, while other areas have geographic features that make transporting water much more difficult.
And supplying the infrastructure and energy it would take to move water across these regions is extremely expensive.
In many of these water-poor areas, as well as some with greater access to water, humanity is guzzling up the local water supply faster than it can be replenished.
And when more quickly renewed sources can’t meet the demand, we start pumping it out of our finite underground reserves.
Of Earth’s 37 major underground reservoirs, 21 are on track to be irreversibly emptied.
So while it’s true that our planet isn’t actually losing water, we are depleting the water sources we rely on at an unsustainable pace.
This might seem surprising – after all, on average, people only drink about two liters of water a day.
But water plays a hidden role in our daily lives, and in that same 24 hours, most people will actually consume an estimated 3000 liters of water.
In fact, household water – which we use to drink, cook, and clean – accounts for only 3.6% of humanity’s water consumption.
Another 4.4% goes to the wide range of factories which make the products we buy each day.
But the remaining 92% of our water consumption is all spent on a single industry: agriculture.
Our farms drain the equivalent of 3.3 billion Olympic-sized swimming pools every year, all of it swallowed up by crops and livestock to feed Earth’s growing population.
Agriculture currently covers 37% of Earth’s land area, posing the biggest threat to our regional water supplies.
And yet, it’s also a necessity.
So how do we limit agriculture’s thirst while still feeding those who rely on it?
Farmers are already finding ingenious ways to reduce their impact, like using special irrigation techniques to grow “more crop per drop”, and breeding new crops that are less thirsty.
Other industries are following suit, adopting production processes that reuse and recycle water.
On a personal level, reducing food waste is the first step to reducing water use, since one-third of the food that leaves farms is currently wasted or thrown away.
You might also want to consider eating less water-intensive foods like shelled nuts and red meat.
Adopting a vegetarian lifestyle could reduce up to one third of your water footprint.
Our planet may never run out of water, but it doesn’t have to for individuals to go thirsty.
Solving this local problem requires a global solution, and small day-to-day decisions can affect reservoirs around the world.
As an artist, connection is very important to me.
Through my work I'm trying to articulate that humans are not separate from nature and that everything is interconnected.
I first went to Antarctica almost 10 years ago, where I saw my first icebergs.
I was in awe.
My heart beat fast, my head was dizzy, trying to comprehend what it was that stood in front of me.
The icebergs around me were almost 200 feet out of the water, and I could only help but wonder that this was one snowflake on top of another snowflake, year after year.
Icebergs are born when they calve off of glaciers or break off of ice shelves.
Each iceberg has its own individual personality.
They have a distinct way of interacting with their environment and their experiences.
Some refuse to give up and hold on to the bitter end, while others can't take it anymore and crumble in a fit of dramatic passion.
It's easy to think, when you look at an iceberg, that they're isolated, that they're separate and alone, much like we as humans sometimes view ourselves.
But the reality is far from it.
As an iceberg melts, I am breathing in its ancient atmosphere.
As the iceberg melts, it is releasing mineral-rich fresh water that nourishes many forms of life.
I approach photographing these icebergs as if I'm making portraits of my ancestors, knowing that in these individual moments they exist in that way and will never exist that way again.
It is not a death when they melt; it is not an end, but a continuation of their path through the cycle of life.
Some of the ice in the icebergs that I photograph is very young -- a couple thousand years old.
And some of the ice is over 100,000 years old.
The last pictures I'd like to show you are of an iceberg that I photographed in Qeqetarsuaq, Greenland.
It's a very rare occasion that you get to actually witness an iceberg rolling.
So here it is.
You can see on the left side a small boat.
That's about a 15-foot boat.
And I'd like you to pay attention to the shape of the iceberg and where it is at the waterline.
You can see here, it begins to roll, and the boat has moved to the other side, and the man is standing there.
This is an average-size Greenlandic iceberg.
It's about 120 feet above the water, or 40 meters.
And this video is real time.
(Music) And just like that, the iceberg shows you a different side of its personality.
Thank you.
(Applause)