I know, I know, the economy and partisan politics have taken over our conversations, leaving little room for anything else, let alone problems that are still removed from the reality of our lives. Huge global issues such as the water crisis. A chance business meeting with a friend, about to launch a new water efficiency venture, got me thinking about water. Just as with deforestation, and biodiversity loss, I am shocked by the magnitude of the problem, and the corresponding relative inaction to curb it.
The water crisis raises some critical questions about water economics, water ethics, water technology, water efficiency, water conservation, water waste, water inequities, water rights, water laws, water politics, water awareness . . . all of which need to be addressed at the various appropriate levels.
As with other global environmental issues, it is easy to feel lost as an individual citizen. Yet, there is lots one can do to favorably impact the situation:
- boycott bottled water
- conserve water at home, and other places
- blog about it, and also comment on other blogs
- support watchdog organizations such as Food and Water Watch
- support legislation to encourage water conservation and efficiency
- share problem and possible solutions with friends
You may also want to go see “Flow”, Irena Salina’s recently released documentary on water,
La Marguerite 
[…] By: La Marguerite […]
Nice article, once again, congrats Marguerite !
The problem with water scarcity is the same one than with the energy scarcity / climate change issue ( the two sides of the same coin, I always pair them since the writing of my Master’s thesis on those issues ) :
The issue is so overwhelming that most people think they can’t do anything about it and thus ask their leaders. Which is totally wrong.
WE can do something about it right now by changing our way of life or at least bits of it.
Conserving water at home is easy. Here is half a dozen ideas to do so :
– repair leaky pipes as soon as possible,
– stop the water flow when washing and showering,
– place bottles in your toilets’ tank,
– water your garden during the evenings only,
– don’t take baths anymore,
– collect water from the rain on your roof…
You see ? It’s nothing much and everybody can start make a difference right now.
Now, of course, governments will have to repair all these leaky pipes making that we waste loads of water each second around the world and so on. (I had at some point an idea of article on that issue. Never wrote it… if you want me to, I will write it.)
hope this helps ! 🙂
What are we thinking and doing? What is to become of our children?
Our children’s future is being mortgaged and put at risk by leaders in my not-so-great generation of elders. Is there no end to arrogance and adamant avarice of the greedy kings of wealth concentration, their bought-and-paid-for politicians, their many minions in the mass media?
Somehow we and our children have got to find more effective ways of communicating about threats to human wellbeing that are being perpetrated before our eyes by self-proclaimed “Masters of the Universe” among us.
Good and able people are not saying loudly, clearly and often enough what they know to be true………not speaking truth to power.
Many too many politicians are posing for the public and pandering to those with great wealth; too many investment brokers are devising economic bubbles and pyramid schemes, skimming millions for themselves…….”breaking” the financial system and threatening the real economy; and the mass media has been turning a blind eye to the entire mess.
Such woefully inadequate leadership needs to be named, shamed and replaced.
Perhaps more people will stand up, remain standing, and speak out loudly, clearly and often about what they see and know to be happening.
Our children could soon be confronted with an economic and/or ecological wreckage of an unimaginable kind; but, because so many people are not reasonably, sensibly and responsibly communicating with one another now, the chances for taking the measure of certain ominously looming economic and ecological challenges and finding adequate solutions to them appear to be diminishing day by day.
Perhaps there are at least three questions worthy of consideration by young people and their elders today.
Is it possible that the wondrous planetary home we inhabit was given unto the stewardship of humankind simply for the purpose of allowing the greediest people on the planet to fulfill their unending wishes and insatiable desires, come what may for a good enough future for their own children, coming generations, billions of less fortunate people in the family of humanity, global biodiversity, Earth’s body and environment? Are the greedy kings of wealth concentration and power politics, who consume, possess and hoard a lion’s share of the world’s wealth, the only people who matter? Are the selfish among us, the ones who are about to be “bailed out” this week despite their unbridled avarice and obscene behavior, supposed to be source of our primary concern?
At least to me, it is crystal clear how so few have stolen so much from so many.
Not ever in the course of human history have so few people been so greedy by having taken surreptitiously and then hoarded so much wealth that rightfully belonged to so many less fortunate people.
Clearly and evidently, the colossal global economy is an ever-expanding, artificially designed, manmade construction. For whom does the world’s human economy exist? To fulfill the wishes and insatiable desires of those with ill-gotten gains? Only to provide security for the greediest among us?
And, of all things, for many too many leaders of my not-so-great generation of elders to extoll the virtues of their unbridled avariciousness and applaud each other by passing out ‘awards’ to each other for the triumph of their greed, all of this is plainly outrageous.
In light of what has occurred in the both the financial system and the real economy in recent years, can someone please explain what the terms “fairness” and “equity” mean? Can anyone find examples of these phenomena in the distribution of wealth by the organizers and managers of the world’s human economy today?
Who knows, perhaps change toward common sense, fair play and sustainable behavior is in the offing.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
Having good advice to point to (like Edouard’s) is very important, but having it in an accessible place is essential to it’s usefulness. So, it relates again to your previous post about wikis – these are the places to ensure that key bits of knowledge are compiled, not forgotten.
And yes, I’m aware I sound like a broken record sometimes ;-).
[…] Officer of IBM’s Big Green Innovations, and the brain behind WaterOrg, must have heard my earlier call . . […]