Water Photoshoot - Kivrin

 

Writing about water in a way that doesn't touch on cliche is difficult and especially impossible for an amateur writer like myself. So when I describe what water means to me, I have no choice but to mention its role in life.

Water is a chemist's dream. In both organic and inorganic chemistry water is one of the most important materials of all time, primarily due to its simulations stability while also being an incredible solvent, a surprising rare combination of traits. These two primary traits, as well as it being liquid between 0-100C in Earth's atmosphere make it extremely useful for earth life. 

We are meat bags of chemistry, and with 60% of our body being nothing but water, it drives every single chemical reaction in the body. This is even more striking when looking at plants, whose biomass is made up of anywhere from 85-95% water by weight. Photosynthesis and its derivatives, the source of energy for nearly all life on the planet, uses water as one of three ingredients creating sugars, the only usable energy within the body, and oxygen, what we breathe. By far, water is the most important molecule to life, and no one would be here to think about life without it.

But water isn't just a molecule used in chemical reactions. It permeates the air, covers the majority of the earth's surface, and is a home to millions of species living both in and around water. It exists in all forms on earth, ice, liquid, and vapor all playing crucial roles in the way organisms live their lives. Being the largest source of erosion on the planet, it has physically shaped our world to an extent second only to plate tectonics. If you take a look outside at any area of land and ask, "why does it look like that? Why is this ravine here? Why do these caves exist? Who smoothed the mountainside?" Water is nearly always the culprit. 

Earth wouldn't be Earth without water. Water gives the Earth its breath.