World Water Day
March 22nd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Canal Off the Pascagoula River, Mississippi, October 2010
Today is World Water Day. I thought I’d take a moment to write a post about it and share this image in honor of our honoring of our water – fresh, salt, running, pooling, underground and above ground.
I am reminding myself today of a few things.
1. Human beings are about 60% water – lungs are 90% water, brains 70%, and blood 80%.
2. Humans need about 8 cups of water per day minimum to function – about 20% of that we can get from food.
3. Nearly 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. Only about 2.5% of that water is fresh water and only about 1% of that is available for human use.
3. Nearly one billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water.
4. Nearly two million children die of dehydration each year.
5. The most efficient way of helping our water resources go farther is to reduce our water use.
6. Other ways to help the Earth’s water resources are:
A. Eat more vegetables. It requires about 20 times more water to make a pound of meat than a pound of vegetables. In addition, buy from local farmers and get to know your farmers and how they treat the land and water. Encourage sustainable and healthy farming practices.
B. Buy things that last and that can be recycled. Our throw-away life creates much pollution of ground & surface waters with huge landfills leaking & factories spilling waste that ends up in our water.
C. Reduce electricity. Water is used and damaged by cooling nuclear power plants and dams for hydro-electric plants.
D. Drive less. In and of itself, a car uses 7-14 gallons of water for every 100 miles driven. Then there’s the issues with our petroleum drilling and spilling that I don’t think I need to mention.
7. How I live in each moment, determines the quality of the world around me.
