Super Eco

Photo credit: jude, flickr

We take clean water for granted. We turn on a faucet and it's there. Sure, we might turn up our noses at the chlorine taste and turn to eco-unfriendly bottled water or filtered water instead, but ... we HAVE water. Water that we didn't have to walk a mile while carrying a jug to fetch. Water that doesn't make us sick.

Over a billion people around the world aren't so lucky.

5000 children die every day from waterborne illness—from lack of adequate clean water. Five million people die every year from it.

World Water Day, observed around the globe every March 22, grew out of a 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) intiative and was declared a world day the following year. Countries are encouraged to devote the day to implement UN water recommendations and to set up concrete activities to support them. This year's theme is "Transboundary Waters: Sharing Water, Sharing Opportunities," with a focus on the water in lakes, rivers, and oceans that transcend political boundaries. Events are taking place all over the globe that celebrate, inform, and educate people about the problem of the appalling lack of this basic necessity (one that, interestingly, isn't mentioned secifically within the UN Declaration of Human Rights—why?).

Even though water may not be an issue where we live (although the story behind your water may be as interesting as New York City's), it still affects us. We are interconnected, we seven billion humans, and we are interdependent. Extreme poverty experienced by those with no clean water is our problem, too. And clean water is a basic step on the way out of poverty, helping people everywhere build better lives.

It's not too late to get involved and help.