This posting is all about water, our most precious and dwindling natural resource.
I have commonly heard the argument "I don't see how water is of issue, the water that is on the planet now, is the same amount that has been and will always be on the planet."
True, the water table remains the same. The earth is a closed ecosystem.
The problem arises when we consume water at unsustainable rates, which we have been. Think about it like this: you live in a house with 4 people who all depend on a well for fresh water. The ecosystem is able to replenish the well (via rain and groundwater) to sustain the water needs of these people. If an entire village starts using the same well and it is then depended upon for a large scale farming operation, the well will be depleted before it can naturally be replenished. Now apply this same scenario on a global scale. Now add in the rise of the middle class on a global scale, population growth, industrial agricultural methods, and global climate change (rising CO2 levels and hotter temperatures)... Houston, we have a problem.
Nearly 1 billion people lack access to safe water, and experts expect this number to rise within this century.
Less than 1% of the worlds fresh water is readily accessible for direct human use (World Health Organization, 2008).
We need to be (re)thinking about how we use water now.
GET SOME FACTS (HERE)
Video about water contamination, NY TIMES (HERE)
Beautiful photos about world water, TIME (HERE)
About Geo-Engineering, BBC News (HERE)
Jen Silverste
ReplyDeleteWATER- POST 4
I was truly shocked and appalled by the facts listed in GET THE FACTS. The two facts that stuck out to me as the most shocking are that 884 million people, lack access to safe water supplies (approximately one in eight people) and that every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. The fact that hit closest to home is that an American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. This statement draws me personally in to the issue as part of the problem. Reading this fact immediately triggers guilt, because of the 10-15 minute showers that I take on a daily basis. I also cannot believe that the water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns; when “world peace” is such a commonly discussed goal, and “world water crisis” is definitely not.
However as I continue reading, I become increasingly confused with the general environmentalist concerns. In lecture, we see dozens of graphs depicting how the world population is on an extreme dangerous rise. Professor Trumpey has made a point to explain to us that the world cannot and will not sustain this rising population. Yet, the big impact of this water facts article is the number of human lives that are lost to this issue. Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease, that’s 4 children a minute. What if we did conserve, and as a planet we used only the amount of water that could be replenished at the same time? And what if we worked to fix the sanitation issues world-wide? Those four children a minute would live, and reproduce. Wouldn’t this be sending our country straight to over-population dooms-day as well?
It’s unfortunate to know that every fifteen seconds, a child dies from a water related death. Though, our population is sky rocketing fast enough as it is, and as mentioned in the prompt, water cannot replenish itself fast enough to accommodate such a growing population. Is it possible to have the best of both situations? The article also mentions that humans can live longer without food, whereas without water we would only last a few days. Is there a possibility for fundraisers to cut food slightly and gear the money raised towards work for cleaner, more accessible water projects? I think that in addition to conserving water in places where usage is fairly high, we should help the developing countries build a clean sewage system. Regardless of how we deal with that situation, we should be aware of what we dump into our bodies of water. One picture in the Time World Water Crisis website displayed an image of a faucet in West Virginia spewing out brown water. A nearby coal mining company was dumping coal slurry into nearby streams, causing the water to carry a reddish brown color. That is disgusting.
ReplyDeleteI stayed with my grandparents for a week while in China two summers ago, and I remember the water system wasn’t that great. All of the water faucets, showers, etc carried rust. Any water that we used had to be boiled first, if not, we use purified bottles of water. It made me appreciate the cleanliness of water back at home in the states. I remember one public restroom was just a long ditch separated by stalls. We had to stoop down to relieve our bladder and every so often a flush of water would carry all the waste to one end. Certainly there are parts of China where the faucets do not reek of rust, but even so, my relatives cautioned me to always boil water first before drinking it for safety reasons. And there are definitely parts of China that do have restrooms with toilet seats, but these aren’t staples. I stopped by the Tokyo airport on my way back while transferring flights, and I noticed that their toilets had additional showers attached. With a press of a button on the toilet, it would start to shower. I’m not sure how practical these methods are, but I believe that there is always a little something we can learn from observing other countries.
Daisy
Week 4
Water is an incredibly important resource that is not given nearly the attention it deserves. After all, a human can live only a few days without water, while they can live much longer without sleep or food. However, the fact that many people all over the world are in need of clean water is mentioned much less than people who are starving, or people in war, or any number of different problems in the world today.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason for this is just the fact that for people like ourselves, living in the United States, we can’t imagine someone not having water. We can connect with starving people, and we can connect with violence, but for some reason, I don’t think we can quite wrap our westernized heads around the concept of not having water available to us. Maybe it’s all the running water, the prevalence of water fountains, the coolers of bottled water in every gas station stop or convenience store. However, the need for clean water, and problems related to this plague much of the world and cause many unnecessary deaths.
I also think that it’s a problem that could be solved without unreasonable effort. Is it so difficult to come up with a cheap, efficient method of water purification? I’m sure if we devoted a few teams of scientists to this task, we could drastically improve the quality of life in countries that deal with problems with respect to their water source.
Another problem is overpopulation, but this is a more generalized problem, and one that is at the root of many of the issues we have environmentally in the world today. Overpopulation is slowly killing the earth, and we either need to find a way to adapt to the amount of people living, or we need to figure out a way to control it.
Really, on the most basic level, we just need to start living more in harmony with Earth’s natural working order, and to stop trying to take advantage of it or improve it.
Danielle Battaglia
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement 4
Considering that water is this week’s topic, I want to talk about Australia’s water supply, quality and effects on the land that I read about in Chapter 13 of Collapse. I always knew that Australia has a lot of desert and not a lot of freshwater, but to learn that on top of that, Australian’s way of life is depleting this small amount of freshwater, was stunning to me.
First of all, Australia has a very small amount of freshwater to begin with. The main cause of that is that the rainfall over most of the continent is very unpredictable from year to year within a decade, and from decade to decade. This principle is called the ENSO or El Nino Southern Oscillation. The effects of the unpredictable and low rainfall is that most of Australia is unable to have successful farms. The unpredictability of rainfall can lead to soil erosion, high concentration of salt in soil and can be costly for farmers who spend a lot of money plowing only to get no crop yield in years of little or no rainfall. The eroded, salinized soil then runs off into Australia’s rivers, and eventually into the ocean, which then damages the Great Barrier Reef.
The unpredictability of rain also leads to irrigation, which has a whole host of problems. Most farmers use broadcast irrigation, which is basically flooding the land or using a sprinkler to distribute water over a large area. This causes the ground to get saturated with more water than roots can hold. The unused water goes down to the deeper layers of salty soil and either comes up to the plants and kills them, or seeps farther down into the groundwater and creates these highly salinized underground rivers. These rivers are the large problem because they can flow into rivers such as Australia’s Murray/Darling, lakes and other farmer’s soil and kill their crops. Australia’s Murray/Darling River is a major source of drinking water for the city of Adelaide, and is becoming salinized by these underground salty rivers. This will then require a process known as desalinization, which can be very costly. The salinization is also killing Cod and Golden perch, two of Australia’s major freshwater fish species.
The low runoff of nutrients into the rivers and sea also leads to poor marine life, and slow growth rate of fish, which easily leads to overfishing. The abundant ship trade that goes on in Australia’s waters also poses a problem. Foreign “marine pests” arrive on ship hulls, water and on imported materials. Some include jellies, crabs, shellfish and Japanese starfish. These new species sometimes overtake the native species, and control of them can be very costly. The other problem is that Australia is the continent with the least freshwater. Humans draw off two thirds of the Murray Darling River each year. However the Murray Darling river contains toxins, pesticides and salt from upstream that goes into drinking water and agricultural irrigation downstream. Australia will always face natural problems such as salinization, purely because of the continents location. However if Australia can be more careful and conservative with its water supply, most of these problems can be controlled. We as a country should observe what is happening to Australia and learn from it so we do not encounter the same problems.
It’s not that far from home – these water problems are here in the U.S. What is scary that they happen in normal suburban towns where families watch their children drop like flies while not knowing whatsoever the cause of death. The answer is simple and it is in the water. While most of us may not drink directly from the sink, we still use tap water and it can get into our bodies through other means. For example, when we shower or wash our plates and glasses. The toxins remain on our skin or cups and later enter our bodies poisoning us. If something we use everyday and can’t live without is killing us, what are we supposed to do?
ReplyDeleteThe most common culprit is usually mining which releases toxins into nearby water tables, which in turn are used to supply water to nearby towns. Most companies do very little if nothing at all to prevent that toxic waste from entering public waters. They usually refuse to take responsibility or claim that it is too expensive for them to do so. Although the U.S. government has created the Superfund which is allocated money to clean up environmental and social disasters such as this one, most of the time it is still not enough and many cities have not even realized that they have such problems with their water until more sicknesses show up.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that no one is taking action to prevent such pollution of our waters – our most basic necessity in life. And it is always sad to hear that in American families in such “normal” towns have to suffer the loss of their child or loved one just because a mining company wants its profits and refuses to take action to make their practices safer or at least environmentally sound. An interesting fact that the New York Times brings up in an article is that across the nation, the Clean Water Act has been violated over 500,000 times. Not everyone is a life and death case but a lot have ruined teeth or other side effects from the toxins that are present in the water. The toxins are usually heavy metals such as lead, nickel, copper and so on. If the mining company owners wouldn’t want their children near such deadly substances, then no other child should have to be either. Although the Clean Water Act is already instated, more stringent actions should be taken that all tap water everywhere is safe enough for a child to touch or drink without health repercussions. As one of the most developed and richest nations in the world, we should be able to assure that much.
So, for the past couple days my roommates and I have been eating strictly local and plan to for the following weeks. Thus far, it has been an extremely enlightening experience. And as we practice this ourselves, we’re reading Animal, vegetable, miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This book has been a terrific reference and I highly recommend it to everyone. I know it has only been a short period of time, but already I feel so much better, just physically and mentally healthier. The food is so enriched with flavor, and I feel great knowing where it came from, who made it and how it was produced. We visited the farmer’s market on Saturday and were able to talk with multiple farmers. Calder Farms, just outside of Detroit is where we purchased our meat, cheese, butter and milk. We plan to actually visit the farm and see just how they run their land, but already we’ve learned that they name every single one of their cows and allow them to roam freely and graze on grass. I am anxious to test out our new beef; the taste is going to be vastly different from what I am used to.
ReplyDeleteIn Kingsolver’s book, she addresses numerous points that need to be brought to light. For instance, if every US citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels a week! That’s not gallons, but barrels. Each food item in a typical US meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles, and about 17 percent of our nation’s energy use is for agriculture! It is so easy for people to make a difference. Eating locally is not only better for your health but for the planet and local economy as well.