Blog Action Day 2010: Water

Today is Blog Action Day, "an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day" to raise awareness and global discussion.  This year's topic is water.

As a resident of Southern California, water (or lack of) is often on my mind.  Whether it be news reports of drought or people complaining when we finally do get a downpour, water is a large topic of discussion here.  Water conservation is a part of our daily lives, right down to what times you may wash your car.  (I choose to just not wash it and let nature take it's course.  Unless I'm going on a job interview, I'm not worried about impressing people with my vehicle.)

Even with all the rules of how we use water in the US, we still have it.  This fact is not true for many people in other parts of the globe.  Here are some chilling facts about water worldwide, taken from Change.org's Blog Action Day site:

• 40 Billion Hours: African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
• 38,000 Children a Week: Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.
• Wars Over Water: Many scholars attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa.
• Water & Poverty: A lack of water contributes to poverty, with parents and children too ill or too busy collecting water to go to school and work. Water poverty also undermines progress poor countries are making on health - with half of hospital beds taken by people suffering with diarrhoea and dysentery.
• Bottled Water: Even though people in the US have access to clean water from their taps, they drink an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.
• Uninhabitable Rivers: Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. That’s not surprising considering the fact that 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually.

So what can we do?  I for one will continue to stick to my "no washing my car" plan (no matter how much my dad may complain).  My family also owns a Brita water pitcher, which we use rather than drinking gallons of bottled water.  I am also working on taking shorter showers, something I'm sure my family will appreciate.

LIttle by little, we can ease the burden we force on our planet.  Small changes to our everyday lives can equal huge improvements.