Save Water and It Will Save You

By Kaylee A.

 

Have you ever just stopped and thought about how your everyday actions could affect anyone around the world? Even things like brushing your teeth, taking a shower and washing your hands can really take a toll on others' lives.

          For example, an article published by Water for People tells the story of

Peter living with his family of six that has to hike two miles everyday to gather his water for the day. Peter's youngest of his five children is only four years old and is already in the habit of hiking the trip everyday. Peter states, "My children have not really had the time to play and simply be children," along with the overall 450 million children around the world in hardship, from lack of clean water.

All of this could change, considering the average amount of gallons used per day by the average American is 82 gallons of water, and 30 gallons of that is being wasted and could be going to families just like Peter’s. Maybe we think this is acceptable because it typically does not affect us living in the U.S, but by the year 2050, around half the population will be living in areas with high levels of water scarcity, and every two minutes a child your age, even younger, could be dying from water carrying a variety of diseases.

Half the reason many people around the globe experience water scarcity is because of climate change. In a study done by Stanford University, “if temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, rainfall will increasingly become a beast of extremes.” Director of the Global Freshwater Initiative, Steven Gorelick, says, “Rainfall is somewhere between beautiful and a nuisance.  It’s not something you immediately drink, so when water supplies come up short, it’s often a slow-moving disaster.” We can't blame everything on climate change as we are also a major cause of this world wide disaster due to us over using fossil fuels, which are a type of hydro-carbon material, produced underground from leftover dead plants and animals that are used by humans to burn and produce fuel; this causes altered weather patterns and climate activity, limiting the amount of water around the globe. This also isn't completely ideal because although 70% of Earth is made up of water, only 3% is fresh water, meaning we can drink it.

Do Qatar, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, United Arab Emirates, San Marino, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Oman and Botswana sound familiar? Well, these are only some of the many countries that have high levels of water stress today. This is a big problem because the effects could spread like wildfire, even to countries less likely to be affected. For example, if water is low in all of these countries, economic decline may occur, leading to serious supply and demand issues around the globe, cutting off all sorts of necessities like food, clothing and much more.

So what can we do about this even from halfway across the world? Even donating to a local charity could help tremendously like generosity.org, which is a non-profit organization committed to ending the clean water crisis in developing countries.

Now that you know the effects of water scarcity, it's time to wake up and make a change. Remember, even the smallest of things can make the biggest impact.  Together we can solve this world wide problem as a worldwide community.

  “Rainfall is somewhere between beautiful and a nuisance.  It’s not something you immediately drink, so when water supplies come up short, it’s often a slow-moving disaster.” We can't blame everything on climate change as we are also a major cause of this world wide disaster due to us over using fossil fuels, which are a type of hydro-carbon material, produced underground from leftover dead plants and animals that are used by humans to burn and produce fuel; this causes altered weather patterns and climate activity, limiting the amount of water around the globe. This also isn't completely ideal because although 70% of Earth is made up of water, only 3% is fresh water, meaning we can drink it.

Do Qatar, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, United Arab Emirates, San Marino, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Oman and Botswana sound familiar? Well, these are only some of the many countries that have high levels of water stress today. This is a big problem because the effects could spread like wildfire, even to countries less likely to be affected. For example, if water is low in all of these countries, economic decline may occur, leading to serious supply and demand issues around the globe, cutting off all sorts of necessities like food, clothing and much more.

So what can we do about this even from halfway across the world? Even donating to a local charity could help tremendously like generosity.org, which is a non-profit organization committed to ending the clean water crisis in developing countries.

Now that you know the effects of water scarcity, it's time to wake up and make a change. Remember, even the smallest of things can make the biggest impact.  Together we can solve this world wide problem as a worldwide community.