H2O

Through my research on Sandra Postel (my chosen subject of my in-class presentation) I have been thinking a lot about water.

            What is water? Quite simply, it is the nectar of life without which all life will parish.   Here in America, I don’t think that urgency of the world’s water supply is regarded as dire and important as it is.  This is because we live in a place where we have access to bountiful amounts of clean, fresh water to drink, bathe, wash our cars, and water our plants and lawns.  But in other corners of the world, clean fresh-water is scarce.  We have all seen the commercials on TV for children.org where the advocate is holding a dirty but beautiful child, talking about how she lives in a place where she is forced to drink and bathe in dangerously contaminated water, and play in under-managed leach fields…When here in America we flush our toilets with water that is more suitable for those children to drink.  My point being, we do not see on a daily basis, the urgency of the situation.

            Postel’s contributions to research on water include causes such as the Global Water Policy Project: http://www.globalwaterpolicy.org/ and the Worldwatch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org/.  I encourage everyone to check out these sites!

            Eventually our attention must shift to these issues, before it is too late.  That day is rapidly approaching and the consequences of non-action are even more undesirable than we can imagine from our comfy lives in America where we are sheltered from the extremes of this dire situation.