Drop a frog into a vessel of water and heat the vessel slowly. As the water turns lukewarm, the frog moves around enthusiastically, enjoying the swim and unaware of the lurking danger. As the water turns warmer, the frog's natural instincts to escape are dimmed and hence it moves about frantically. As the water comes to a simmer, it gets hugely uncomfortable, but the frog just doesn't jump out. Finally, as the water hits boiling point, the frog, having lost its instinctive, emergency response just gets boiled, and turns up dead.
The "boiling frog syndrome" is a popular experiment in behavioural psychology. Now, lets look at one of its many parallels in the human realm.
Not too long ago, we had access to free and clean water, all that we needed and more than that. Over time, we started running into acute shortages, but these were random and very uncommon.
Fast forward few years and water shortages became a regularity, albeit at few times of the year, such as the summer and only in certain geographical areas.
Enter the current times and scarcity of clean water is a daily issue, through the year. Most natural water sources and underground water levels have dried up, and we regularly pay to secure partial supply. This isn't too different across the world and the water-abundant regions are now the exceptions.
The surprising part in all this is that, we have become inured to the rapid depletion of this natural resource, and for some strange reason this doesn't sound as alarming as it should be. Apart from the occasional news stories, NGO research reports or apocalyptic movies, this issue doesn't seem to merit much attention. Just as was the case with the frog, when this reaches a boiling point, it might be too late for any response.
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