Thirsty Planet
Today is World Water Day, and we’re facing a global water crisis.
Over 1 billion people lack access to a safe supply of drinking water. The leading causes of deaths in the world, water-related diseases are responsible for the loss of 14,000 lives a day and 80 percent of illnesses around the globe.
Increasing pollution is making existing water sources undrinkable, and our demand for water is rapidly outstripping its availability. Water is being privatized and commoditized as bottled-water and soft-drink giants are draining the groundwater of drought-stricken indigenous communities, even as they publicly laud their own water-advocacy efforts, dem scurvy scallawags!
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Starbucks has even branded its image of water responsibility, selling its Ethos Water with the promise that 5 cents from the $1.80 sale of each plastic designer bottle goes to “Helping children get clean water.” The normal profit margin on bottled water is an astounding 50 to 200 percent, which leaves Starbucks with a per-bottle profit more than 20 times its much-publicized largesse.
Pious Starbucks isn’t alone. On World Water Day, multinational water companies have their public relations departments working overtime selling their clean, pure, healthy water “product,” while the companies make billions, deplete aquifers and pollute the environment with, among other things, 30 million plastic water bottles a day in the United States alone.
While a lack of political will is partly responsible for the mismanagement of water resources and the worsening crisis, surely our first-world fixation on bottled water, in countries where tap water is safe to drink, is preventing available water from reaching populations that need it more.
Drink from the faucet today. And tomorrow.
Rinse, repeat.
Richard said,
March 23, 2006 at 10:48 am
Water bottles are a huge problem and they may even be poisoning us, with the chemicals leaking into the water from the plastic, but what can you do if the tap water where you live is really foul? water filters only trap a few things… hormones and many of the worst chemicals are left in the water. And still quite a bit of that terrible tap water taste is there too.
Jasmin said,
March 23, 2006 at 11:22 am
Posting what I replied through e-mail, in case it helps anyone else.
Jasmin said,
My parents have this fancy water filtration system with several layers of sand and minerals that’s pretty nifty. Water tastes good too.
Richard said,
hey! when you said that it was like a light came on in my brain - i
remember this thing I saw years ago. It was like a big bee hive made
of ceramic. I will try find out more right now.
The Worsted Witch » Deranged Stalker, Thy Name is Bloglines said,
March 26, 2006 at 12:29 pm
[...] It’s just come to my attention that Bloglines thinks my World Water Day post is such a thing of beauty and pathos that will MOVE PEOPLE TO REDISCOVER RELIGION that it hasn’t been listing any new posts since. Either that or it’s insanely jealous and covetous of my corporeal form and is retaliating in the most passive-aggressive way possible before it finally SNAPS and pops my cat and my mini plastic dinosaurs into the microwave. [...]
The Worsted Witch » Green: The Color of Money said,
March 30, 2006 at 2:52 pm
[...] I’m getting MUCH better at managing my anger these days, but two, three … um, maybe four … days out of the week you’ll still find shaking my fists at the heavens, as I mentally berate the general populace for its apathy toward global warming, our dwindling biodiversity, and famine and drought in much of the developing world. (I mean, nothing depresses me more than watching my husband down a bottle of Diet Coke. Okay, maybe baby seals getting clubbed to death depresses me more. Let it be known that the day my Paxil and Effexor quit on me will be a very dark day for humanity.) Times like these, I tend to forget that there is a sizeable population that can’t afford to be environmental, or have it in their power to make greener, socially conscious choices. [...]
The Worsted Witch » Singing in the Rainshow’r said,
June 22, 2006 at 10:06 pm
[...] I’m usually disinclined to order anything off the Internet these days because of the additional fuel and pollution burden this extra route creates, not to mention the typically unecological packaging the product is enbalmed in. Yet, possibly at this moment, a low-flow dechlorinating shower head that you can pause mid-lather is trucking its way to us from California—a genius of an attachment that has been on my to-buy radar forever. (I’ve been pretty crummy at conserving water in the shower because I’m loathe to “lose my place” once I’ve found the right delicate balance of hot and cold water, which makes me feel like a giant jerkwad.) [...]
The Worsted Witch » Lawn & Order said,
July 20, 2006 at 10:57 pm
[...] Chez Chekhov is on the second floor of a rented apartment building, and other than the jungle wilds of darkest Sumatra our laissez-faire landlord allows to flourish unbridled in the backyard, we have no greenery to speak of. Yet color me unsurprised when I discovered that lawns are the single most irrigated crop in terms of surface area in the U.S.—about 128,000 square kilometers or 40 million acres in all. NASA researcher Christina Milesi estimates we pour as much as 238 gallons of fresh, usually drinking-quality water per person, per day, to keep our lawns pert and verdant. Now consider that more than 1 billion people lack access to a safe supply of drinking water, holding water-related diseases responsible for 80 percent of illnesses around the globe and the loss of 14,000 lives a day. [...]
The Worsted Witch » World Water Day 2007 said,
March 22, 2007 at 1:46 pm
[...] Read what I wrote about World Water Day, a year ago. [...]
Jean Paul Van Derdys said,
March 22, 2010 at 6:16 am
I use a water distillers to clean my water, is the natural process and clean 99.9% of the water.