Water Threatened for 80 Percent of World Population"
From: Dave Their, AOL News.
Published September 30, 2010
2010. Copyright AOL Inc.
Summary
Not half, but more three quarters of the water that all humans have to drink has pollution in it. That is about five billion people in the world with unclean water. Clean water is needed even more and more with the population bursting. It is being stressed that there is clean water all over the world.
Countries like China, that have a population that is bursting, have very limited clean water. The citizens who live in Beijing have to depend on the amount of water bottles in the city because the water is so dirty.
There are many countries, like China, in Asia that are spending billions of dollars on working toward getting cleaner water. With our generation use to clean water everywhere we go, it sometimes doesn't occur to us that there are people who spend billions of dollars on the water so it can be clean. It is estimated that it would cost roughly $800 billion dollars to cover the whole world's water infrastructure.
What we don't realize is that it is not only Asia that has water problems. It is happening our own backyard. At the base of the Mississippi River is a dead zone. The size of Massachusetts. Because of all the farms, fertilizer, and other sources, the Mississippi river is polluted immensely. The Rio Grande river is listed as an endangered river and the Colorado River sometimes can't make it to the ocean.
Opinion/Reflection
Water pollution is a major problem in our world. We may not use every ounce of water in the world, but there is some creature somewhere in the world that uses the water that we polluted. Every living creature needs water to survive and it isn't fair that we are destroying where they live by our carelessness. There is a dead zone the size of Massachusetts in the Mississippi river. I'm sure there was some creatures living there at sometime and now they are either dead or were forced to move out of that area. They didn't cause the dead zone either; we did. It is our responsibility as humans to make sure water is clean for all other creatures on this planet.
Questions-
- What is one way you think we can work on making cleaner water?
- Why do you think water is so unclean in Asia?
- Would it be possible to get $800 billion to get a water infrastructure for the whole world?
- Why do you think Beijing needs to use water bottles for a water source?
By Katie Abraham
I feel sorry for the people in asia and all over the world who don't have easy access to clean water. Knowing that China is a very developed country, I was surprised by the fact that their water is very unsanitary. But when i thought about it, I remembered how the Beijing Olympics had a huge controversy about the pollution in China.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to a related blog that I found:
http://blog.sierratradingpost.com/in-the-news/world-water-day-2008-focus-on-sanitation/
It is unimaginable for us to think about the water problem because many of us do not know why water is so important. We grew up will water overflowing in our sinks and using gallons of clean water in our bath tubs that we can not even imagine the problem that the other nations are facing. As we waste and pollute the water, people are limited with very few amounts of water. Even now, there is a dead zone in the Mississippi River the size of Massachusetts. I think we need to conserve the use of our water supply and pollute less into the water system because people are suffering every day from this.
ReplyDelete1) One way we can make cleaner water is to stop the source of pollution. We got to make the law more strict so the people will take it seriously. We got to ask for the people's help. Another way is to control the non point source of the pollution coming into the water. To control that, the people will have to use less if it is not necessary.
This is a site about the water pollution and about controlling our planet earth.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/earth/pathtocleanwater.htm
I think it is a shame how many people are suffering from unclean water. I feel bad for the people that don't have clean water in their country. They don't deserve to have unhealthy water. We need to try to stop polluting the water so much, and get this problem under control. I really hope that the water around the world becomes cleaner in the future.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to a website about poor drinking water in other countries.
http://thewaterproject.org/how-to-give-clean-water.asp?gclid=CMy8g4rX9qQCFdV95QodXkb5HA
Through this article, I learned that 5 billion people is drinking unclean water, when I always waste unfinished water bottles and forget about them. I knew that the process of making water clean to be able to drink it was expensive but I didn't know it would cost over $800 billion dollar's to pay for the world's water infrastructure. This is a LOT of money and I wonder how they can use so much money for one thing, however it is very important that all humans and animals live in habitats that have access to water. We need to stop using fertilizers that runoff to rivers like Mississippi River, this can damage the river system pretty badly and can influence other biotic/abiotic factors of the environment. I agree with Katie, it is our, the humans', responsibility to take care of our own world if we still want to live in it for a longer period of time.
ReplyDelete1. I can start by not wasting water bottles and make sure I drink them all, because when water goes to waste, it takes a long time for them to be drinkable for others. Also by having a ban of fertilizers and other chemicals that runsoff into the rivers and other bodies of water.
2. Asia has a lot of developing countries and does not have many resources or the money to have clean water. Also Asia is the biggest continent in the world with large areas of land and huge amount of population. With a lot of people, there is a lot of pollution, eventually leading the countries to have unclean environment and undrinkable water.
http://www.cibmagazine.com.cn/Print/Show.asp?id=983&water_world.html
This link is about how China's bottled water consumption has increased over the years. This shows that the people in China are drinking a lot from these bottled waters, probably because the water quality is not so good in China from what Katie has found.