Water on the Brain

I have water on the brain. Most likely due to the Water Resources course that I am taking. Water is something that I'm betting many of you don't give a second thought to. Well, just to get ya thinking, here are some statistics for you, compliments of The International Development Research Centre.

• daily water usage: 10-20 liters / sub-saharan Africa vs. 700 liters / North America
• the price of water is 6 - 10 times more expensive than the average price of gasoline
• humans can survive a month without food but only 5 - 7 days without water
• 70% of the worlds water goes to agriculture
• it takes 39,000 gallons of water to produce a new automobile
• 90% of the diseases in the world are water related with 4 out of 5 deaths in developing countries as a result of water diseases
• 5,000 children die daily due to diarrheal diseases
• 6 million people die each year from contaminated water
• 1 billion people in the world must walk three hours or more for clean drinking water
• African women spend 40 billion hours a year walking for water
• 2% of U.S. citizens do not have running water = approximately 6 million people

Think about these numbers the next time you run the water while brushing your teeth, which uses 4 out of your 700 liters, by the way. And for god's sake, take a moment to reflect on the precious commodity of water before you put in that wall to wall grass carpet. Watering your lawn uses up to 180 gallons of water. Thats about equal to what those families in sub-saharan Africa use in 2 months time!

Maybe those Olympia beer commercials were onto something long ago. "It's the Water." Except now that water is in deep jeopardy. Time to sober up. A change is gonna come whether we like it or not. Cheers.