Water is the common denominator of life.

All around the world, water is a precious resource, the common denominator of life. When it’s reliable and clean, people tend to take it for granted. When it’s the opposite, it can become the crucial fact of a person’s existence, something that, if left unaddressed, prevents anything else from happening.

United States, Flint, Michigan

Roughly 2 billion people don’t have reliable sources of clean drinking water and one child every minute dies from preventable waterborne diarrheal disease. Read more

Environmental activism in China in recent years has mostly focused on air pollution.

In some of China’s cities the air tends to be filthy, while the water is clean. In the country’s rural areas, the opposite appears to be true.

According to a study reported by Chinese media, more than 80% of the water from underground wells is not safe to drink or bathe in because of heavy contamination.

An earlier report by the Ministry of Water Resources said that of 2,071 wells, nearly half had “quite poor” water quality and 36% had “extremely poor” water quality. Read more

Water is kind of a big deal

WATER. You know that thing that makes up over 60 % of your (and every other human’s) body. Not to mention that we can’t live without water for more than a week or so. So, water is kind of a big deal.

In light of World Water Day, I want to talk about some innovative ways that help people, who otherwise wouldn’t have access to safe water, access it.

While water is a big deal for all of us, it’s safe to say it’s an even bigger deal to the 750 million people around the world who don’t have access to safe water. That’s 2 and a half times the US population. Let me say that again, 2 and a half times the US population cannot access clean and safe water! Read more

A discussion on the damages of disposable water bottles and why you should get something reusable.

In 2010 I bought my first reusable water bottle.

It was big, metal and red from a Walgreens in Chicago for about six dollars, (not including taxes). I didn’t do it to save the planet, and it wasn’t to reduce waste. I hadn’t suddenly grown a conscience and decided to stop using plastic for the rest of my life.

It was convenience.

Lollapalooza was that weekend, and to my surprise they weren’t selling water anywhere in the festival. Instead, they had water bottle refilling stations everywhere. The concept was completely foreign to me. I hadn’t really thought much about reusable bottles before, but after three days of music and free water I was a convert. I brought it home and the tradition continued. In one week I said goodbye to Poland Spring, my favorite brand, and said hello to the reusable world.   Read more

Clean water is essential for life, but most people in the developed world don’t think much about the water they use for drinking, food preparation, and sanitation. In developing nations, however, the search for safe drinking water can be a daily crisis. Millions of people die each year, most of them children, from largely preventable diseases caused by a lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation.

Children play and bathe in an irrigation water tank for rice fields in Punjab, India.

Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project and the National Geographic Society’s freshwater fellow, said freshwater scarcity presents a growing problem to be addressed during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil from June 20 to 22. “It manifests itself in the depletion of groundwater, and the drying up of rivers and lakes upon which people depend for irrigation to grow their food,” she said. “The intersection of water scarcity, food security, and a changing climate on top of it all raises a suite of water concerns that urgently need to be addressed.” Read more