“As I became aware of the mounting global water crisis, I realized that it represented a clash of cultures – between a culture that values water as a shared sacred source of all life and a corporate culture that regards water as a commodity to be bought and sold.”

Quote from Shalini Kantayya, director of A Drop of Life – a futuristic sci-fi flick about the mounting water crisis winning Best Short Film at Palm Beach International as well as the Audience Choice Award at the IUOW Film competition. Will check it out some time (two years late anyway).

“Who controls water controls life”

Photo credit: Marshall Astor – Food Pornographer

Kathy Freston, a “self-help author and personal growth and spirituality counselor”, has posted an interesting article over at the Huffington Post about the consequences of eating meat. Or in this case if we didn’t:

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

• 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
• 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
• 70 million gallons of gas–enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
• 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
• 33 tons of antibiotics.

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There are many environmental problems caused by human but not widely known. One of them is eutrophication. This phenomenon cannot be entirely characterised as water pollution, as it mostly describes the process of too many plants growing in lakes, rivers and sometimes in the sea.

When household and industrial wastes are disposed into the water, they increase the quantity of germs in it. Germs threaten the health of the organisms living in the water, drinking it or feeding on organisms that live in it. Moreover, huge quantities of nitric and phosphoric salts enter the ecosystem. Phytoplankton, the tiniest sea organisms that can photosynthesize and depend highly on those salts, start to grow in population at top speed, consuming oxygen. As a result, zooplankton which feeds on phytoplankton starts to increase in numbers, again consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide.

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A currently running advertising campaign from Brita, a German company that specializes in water filtration products, says in its ad slogan that “last year 16 million gallons of oil were consumed to make plastic water bottles.”

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This graphic clearly shows the scarcity of water, especially drinkable freshwater, and what increasing global temperatures can result in.

The graphic comes from UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme.

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Do you like to take long, and especially hot, showers regularly? Besides making your skin dryer you will also waste money and water (30% of all home water consumption is in the shower) on those long hot showers.

But fear not! Technology in form of “high-tech” sandglass timers is here to help you.

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Did you know that it takes 15 000 litres of water to produce one kilo meat from an animal who is being feed with grains. 150 litres of water is needed to produce one kilo of grains.