Clean water is necessary for a happy healthy life; even in the Western world clean water is not always guaranteed. There are communities without a reliable supply of water and yet golf courses and agriculture continue to use water at an alarming rate. California is now in its fourth year of drought, much of the produce we eat in North America comes from California. In the future we must find a way to continue to feed ourselves and at the same time use less water for our agricultural needs.
Water privatization is not the answer, if the motives for clean water are profit driven, than those with more money will drink clean water and those without money will drink unclean water. The desire for profit will trump the need of the many for clean water. When we allow water to be privatized we allow corporate interests to control one of the most basic necessities of human life. Clean water is a basic human right, water is also necessary for a healthy environment and ecosystem for both humans and the natural world.
It does not matter what your religion or ethnicity, political beliefs, or whether you are a man or a women, we all need clean water to survive. Environmentalism is often cast against jobs and prosperity, the truth is we can have good jobs and a clean environment and clean water. World Water Day March 22nd allows the worlds focus to be put on issues related to water.
According to UNICEF 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and over two billion lack access to proper sanitation, also up to 6000 children die every day from water related diseases.
When humans die of thirst organs begin to shut done starting with the kidneys, however dirty water kills many more people than no water. Cholera is typically caused by water that has been contaminated with human feces; today we know better than to drink our own excrement. But for some people, they simply do not have a choice; their only option is to drink from a river or lake where raw sewage has been pumped. Either die of thirst or drink what you have available, poverty at times demands ignoring the basic principles of survival. No one wants to see their kids die from water born disease. Simple tools such as ultraviolet light and water filtration straws can drastically reduce the number of deaths caused by water born diseases.
The lack of clean safe water for drinking, combined with a lack of proper sanitation, is a problem that can be fixed in our lifetimes. It will take the will of people to force political action. Our blue planet is covered in water, but only about 2.5% of all water on Earth is fresh. There are 7 billion people and counting on planet Earth and unless a comet carrying ice crashes into us, than we are not getting any more water. It is time to start making better use of what we have.
