Unsafe water already kills millions, while scarcity, PFAS, endocrine disruptors, industrial waste and AI’s thirst are turning clean water into a global crisis.

Clean, safe water is a universal human right. Despite this, the state of the world’s domestic water supplies, rivers, lakes and groundwater is growing steadily more foul as the right we share is withdrawn by out-of-control industries and failing governments.

Warnings of a world water crisis have echoed through the corridors of power for more than a decade, to little effect. In 2026 they shifted from short-term crisis, usually regional, to an era of “water bankruptcy” affecting three quarters of the human species.

Since the start of the 21st century, the focus in world water policy has, rightly, been on poor sanitation and waterborne diseases affecting 2.1 billion people, which are the main killer of children in many countries.

Lately, the water crisis has manifested two more apocalyptic horsemen. These are water scarcity, driven chiefly by swollen megacities, unconstrained demand for food, groundwater depletion and climate change – and a massive increase in the volume of toxic chemicals being dumped regardless into the environment by industry and other human activities such as waste disposal.

For a generation the water crisis has been regarded as a problem chiefly for developing countries, smugly disregarded by much of the developed world with its 19th-century water treatment methods. Today water is an emerging threat to every country, all societies, each person. We simply do not know what we are drinking, nor how deadly it may prove.

Take paper for example. Typically, it requires up to 15 tonnes of water to make a tonne of paper. In some countries, as much as 30 to 100 tonnes of water. The highly poisonous wastewater from........

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