22/03/2014
It's the 22nd of March - Happy everyone !
Let's take a moment to appreciate this magical liquid that seems to be in major abundance everywhere we look.
Not so strange, considering oceans make up over 70% of the earth surface.
After all, there's a reason it's called the Blue Planet?
Still, did you know that only 1% of all the water on earth is accessible fresh water?
We are now using this precious water at a record-breaking and highly unsustainable rate.
What has changed significantly over the course of the last 50 years or so is the increased use of pesticides, cattle for meat production and the phenomena of bottled water.
Bottled water, while in handy for some countries and areas, makes up for a pretty useless carbon print in much of the western world.
Especially when presented the actual evidence of a 1/2 liter bottle fillet with 1/4 gasoline: that's how much fuel the average water bottle requires from the stage of bottle production, sale and disposal.
Cattle for meat production, while also a threat to the environment because of the sheer scale of the industry in 2014, has a big impact on our overall fresh water supply.
Did you know that it takes about 5000-20.000 liters of fresh water to make 1 kg of meat?
This may sound unlikely, but again, you'd have to calculate the water required to make the produce for their food and their consumption during their whole (sorry) life from birth to packets of beef in the supermarket.
I'm aiming now to be at least a "weekday vegetarian" - for my health and our environment.
Pesticides and other chemicals are continuously polluting fresh water supplies all over the world. A lot of big agriculture pesticide brands is already well on their way of eroding good soil for food production; soil that actually takes nature an average of 10.000 years to finish and perfect for this purpose.
During rainfalls, the chemicals in these eroded patches of land then leeks out in nearby rivers and lakes, wrecking what could be usable drinking water.
Recently, a chemical spill from a coal factory in West Virginia (US) into the Elk river had 300.000 people needing bottled water as the gooey mess coming out of their taps reportedly both looked and smelled a bit weird (despite industry "researchers" claiming it to be perfectly safe).
I was a bit more shocked than I should have been to find that our beloved Nestlé taps their "Pure Life" in a well in the outskirts of Brazil, threatening an already limited recourse for the people dependent upon this source.
The most contaminated place on earth is a lake.
Lake Karachay in the southern Ural mountains of west Russia, dubbed "the concrete lake" is so packed with radioactive waste, it is said that an hour standing next to it is guaranteed to kill you off by radiation in less than 2 weeks. A hopeless effort to stop it from leaking out in a nearby river was made by filling the lake with concrete, thus it is commonly known as "the concrete lake".
On this little blue planet, we have 1% percent water to drink. Desalination plants and filtering for re-use is already trending, but my key principles still apply:
1. Support those of us that have no access to clean drinking water. Today, my support goes to www.waterislife.com and their magnificent Life-Straw which helps millions of people.
2. Use a minimum-to-none bottled water, and try to limit my indirect use of water like cutting down on meat on weekdays.
3. Appreciate the abundance of -and access to this magical liquid in my own life.
Support WaterIsLife.com and join UN-Water World Water Day
I plan on writing more on water and other stuff that gets my attention, so please give The Cheez Grater a good ol' LIKE if you'd like* to read more.
Cheerz ! (with a water glass) - have a great Saturday, and remember: the people you love are all 70% H2O :))
//tcg
Some links:
Un Water website:
http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday
Water facts:
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html
Site about bottled water:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-29/280000-mark-water-look-inside-bottled-water-industry
