Either I’m getting older and more sensitive to the state of the world, or we are truly lurching from crisis to crisis.

Petrol prices in Australia are $6.00 a gallon. China is digging out from under a killer earthquake. Iowa is flooded and the price of corn and soybeans has shot up. (Iowa is a “breadbasket” state that is now a “basket case” state.)

Then this morning on ABC Radio National came an interview with author Maude Barlow. She’s just released a book, Blue Covenant. Here she outlines the globe’s water shortages and predicts massive dislocation and conflict over access to clean water.

Seems our grade school lessons of constantly recycling water were false (remember condensation, rain, condensation, rain?).  Groundwater is being sucked faster than it can be replaced. Mexico City is sinking as a result. Pollution has made most of Northern China’s water non-potable and it’s beyond recovery.

So add this to the list of concerns that imperil our life. Kind of makes me wish I’d slept in today - after all it is reaining and it is cold and the world is coming to an end.

As a member of the human race I do probe crisis issues like the lack of water. But I switch off if there’s no solution. I don’t expect anything simple like a magic trick - Voila! - however the dominoes of doom crashing over and over feel unstoppable.

Can’t we just get Mother Earth safely out of this mess with a little smoke and mirror? On the count of three, everyone say “Abracadabra!” Problem solved? Or is that a sleight of hand to make us feel a little better…