Today, 1,000 Kids Will Die from Drinking Unsafe Water
By Chris Baskind in News
Today — Sunday, March 22nd — is World Water Day. You may be reading this article after the fact. It doesn’t matter, because the state of affairs today will be largely the same as each day since the event was created in 1993: Every 24 hours, one thousand children will die from drinking unsafe water.
They’ll die from diarrhea, the result of drinking water so filthy most of us would be shocked to see it even in our toilets. They’ll die in remote villages and crowded urban slums. They’ll die in areas too poor to afford the inexpensive medicines which might save their lives, or the $200 it takes to dig a safe and modern water well. Mostly, they’ll die in the Southern Hemisphere.
And these are just the children. Here, almost a decade into the 21st century, humanity’s most pressing health need remains access to sanitary fresh water. It sounds like such a simple thing. But without clean water, economies crumble. Livestock dies, and it becomes impossible to grow even basic staples. The lack of safe water is the mother of famine, disease, poverty, and warfare. Some 2.6 billion people live in squalid conditions, without access to even basic sanitation.
It can happen to you, too
While water issues are particularly acute in the developing world, shifting climate patterns and soaring demand are creating significant shortages across the planet. In 2007, the city of Atlanta was nearly brought to a standstill when Lake Lanier, the area’s primary water supply, dropped to its lowest levels in a century.
In the U.S., Southwestern states are contending with a multi-year drought that threatens the region’s growth. Depletion of groundwater resources in Mexico City has gotten to the stage that geological faulting has damaged portions of the city’s historic center. And hundreds of Australians died this summer when lack of rainfall created the conditions for devastating wildfires.
What you can do
World Water Day is an opportunity to step back for a moment and consider a commodity many people take for granted. It’s as easy to forget water’s value when have it as it is to never forget your thirst when you don’t.
Want to help set things right? Consider some of these actions:
- Respect your water. If the water that comes out of your tap is clean and affordable, be thankful. Be thankful when you drink it. Be thankful when you wash with it. Be thankful when you cook with it. Every time you open a faucet, remember that you’re doing something beyond the reach of almost 3 billion people.
- Conserve. An ample water supply today is no guarantee that it will be there tomorrow. Groundwater aquifers take hundreds of years to replenish. Do your part — you’ll be saving money, anyway. Install water-saving showerheads. Plant drought-resistant gardens, and irrigate them — if at all possible — with harvested rainwater. Find leaks in your home and repair them. Take shorter showers. Replace old washing machines and dishwashers with water-saving, ENERGY STAR rated appliances. Never send anything to a landfill you wouldn’t want in your drinking water ten years from now. There are plenty of water conservation resources on the web. Here at Lighter Footstep, we’d like to recommend our own Five Cheap Ways to Save a Thousand Gallons of Water.
- Support organizations which bring fresh water to people who don’t have any. Groups such as Water for People, the Blue Planet Run Foundation, and H2O Africa are all working to make every day World Water Day. Find an organization whose efforts excite you, and help provide what they need.
Share this article (or one like it) with others. Involve friends and family. There are a thousand reasons for you to take action today. And tomorrow — another thousand.
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24 Responses to “Today, 1,000 Kids Will Die from Drinking Unsafe Water”
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Irony: the Google ad at the bottom was for fiji water delivery service… which is one of the worst of the bottled water options, period.
Unbelievable! I never thought of it this way, though I knew how critical water resources are. Attaching kids in a personal way like this brings the point home. About 35 years ago, I had a geography teacher who said freshwater would be fr more valuable than oil or gold one day. Thanks for doing the right kind of article Chris.
Always,
Phil
Shocking article. I srill for water here but i can't help this kids. Water drilling should be promoted by authorities.
The truth that are still have a kids without water. Unbelievable. I could imagine how they will survive for life everyday.
I posted in various forums about how people in the United States have their water shut off, even though in some cases water was sold for $86 a year to commercial bottlers while people in the very same are were charged thousands of dollars for the water to survive. Profit is the king and it hurts far too many people. And, in the forums where I posted the Christian Republicans attacked me, saying that after all it was the fault of people who didn't pay.
http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com/Water.html
Wow that kid around that water barrel is ridiculously cut, and how in the hell is that little kid carrying that metal tub filled with water, on his HEAD no less…
That’s the point, it’s not the amount of water some people have it’s the quality of the water, there are places where water is abundant to the point of people dying from floods, but there isn’t any water that is safe to drink.
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I think population growth is the worlds top issue.
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My church participates in donating to this organization in a big way. Every year all of the "tithes" or gifts during the Christmas services are given to this charity. It doesn’t take a lot to change a ton of lives through giving clean water!http://www.water.cc/
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There are a lot of innovative devices out there now that, once they hit mass market, should help many people in poor areas get access to fresh water. I saw one the other week on digg called the Water Cone or something like that. The guy that invented the Segway also has a device coming to market.I love innovation.
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Ah, world water day… didn’t know about that one.But that would explain the radio story this morning about some restaurants charging for tap water and donating the proceeds to that group, UNICEF… which I believe I recall is in itself a controversy.
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actually, some people complain about the recession because they’re out of a job with no prospects in sight and the gas bill can’t be paid. not quite as bad as not having clean water, but borderline survival (in our country) nonetheless.
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The problem is finding a place to dig where a well wouldn’t be polluted. There’s lots of wells in Africa, it’s just most of them aren’t clean.Also boiling water doesn’t make it safe to drink, and can in fact make it toxic.http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=69403 …
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I can’t speak to the quality of these organizations, but these came up right at the top of a Google search for "clean water organization":http://www.globalwater.org/http://www.cleanwateraction.org/Be sure to research charitable organizations before giving. The Living Water organization I know as fully legitimate due to seeing video footage of pastors at my church on trips to new well diggings, so I have no question my money is going to a good cause with them.
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Did reading this article make anyone else thirsty?
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You know how you get water spots on your glasses from well water? That’s from iron and other minerals in your well. You know what they get in African well water? Arsenic!
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About 60,000 according to my sums which are estimated using Wikipedia comparing the population levels of 1999 and 2008.
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you can use the dirty water to grow the crops. once you boil the water all the crap inside will die. you can sanitize the bottles with alcohol or heat.beer
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What a great article, everyone should help support these kids by donating for World Water Week
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Today 140,000,000 animals will be unnecessarily murdered to feed humans who don’t need meat to survive. Why is that not on Digg’s front page? They are living beings just like those kids. Why such disregard for them? One word - speciesism - http://www.watchearthlings.com
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Actually, if you look at those countries where water has been privatized, the cost has skyrocketed, the availability of clean water plummeted and the incidence of cholera and other water-borne ailments has increased dramatically. The profit motive is no guarantee for the consumer, as our recent economic disaster should have proven.
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It is tragic, and the tragedy is compounded by the fact that no one has to die; with more conservation efforts and charitable contributions to clean water-promoting organizations, we could truly save so many lives.Water is our most sacred resource in more ways than one. We just put up a blog entry about the connection between water conservation and charities that help implement safe water systems. It can be seen on the Cyber-Rain, blog, the address of which is listed below.Unfortunately, the funding isn’t always readily available to educate the public on the many water conservation programs out there. Many also may not realize that saving water means saving money, which everyone can afford to do these days!http://blog.cyber-rain.com
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This is horrible, we don’t realize how lucky we really are.
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