Water Conservation

Did you know that billions of people lack clean water? As many as 2 billion people don't have adequate sanitation facilities to rid their water of diseases, and another billion don't even have access to clean water at all. It is no surprise that this is due in large part to the fact that 95% of the world still dumps their sewage into their water sources. In fact, 80% of illnesses worldwide can be traced back to impure water. Sometimes this is hard to believe, living in the United States, where we have plenty of water to drink from hot and cold running taps and water bottles available for purchase everywhere. But it is important to remember that there are billions of people who do not have this opportunity. We need to remember to conserve our water to save it for everyone. Research shows that 80 countries have water shortages.

One of the main causes of the global water shortage is the ever-growing population. As the population increases, the need for drinking water, and water for growing crops. Studies show that the need for water doubles ever 21 years. But, population increase is not the only reason for water shortages. Another important reason that the demand for water has increased so much is due to standard of living; as people eat more meat (as shown in previous posts, meat requires much more water than grain does) than grains, there is more water being used. And, as countries develop, there are more homes with running water, which leads to people using water with greater abandon. Many researchers believe that soon the most valuable resource in the world will become water.

We can all do our part to stop this overconsumption of water; the world's most important resource. We need to stop looking at water as something that we can use recklessly. This means, fixing leaky faucets, switching to water saving shower heads, and buying water-saving laundry machines and dish washers. Also, people can cut down on their meat consumption and stop buying bottled water- refill the same one again.

Like my last article, where I included an environmental themed article from the New York Times, I have written another summary of an article from today's paper. I have decided to include one of these article summaries in each of posts.

In the New York Times today, there was an article, Less Water Vapor May Slow Earth's Warming written by Sindya Bhanoo talking about a recent study that shows that areas with less concentrations of water vapor are contributing to a slowed rate of global warming. This is because water vapor is a heat-trapping gas that absorbs the light from the sun and emits it as heat. Over the past 10 years, water vapor levels in the upper atmospheres have decreased by 10%, causing the Earth's warming rate to slow by 25%.

links to water information:
1, 2

-Morgan