Blog Action Day: Water

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I don't know if you pay attention to things like the links on the side of my blog or not.  I totally understand if you don't.  But, if you do, you may have noticed that I added a second 'advertisement' this week.  Up until now the only banner has been for Compassion International.  However, I signed up to be a part of "Blog Action Day" and so I added their widget as well. 

Well, now the day has come.  Today is blog action day! And our topic is water.  Basically, clean water is super important (if you didn't know that, then I advise you to stop drinking out of those muddy puddles in your curb) and a lot of people around the world don't have it.  You thought that joke about muddy puddles was funny?  People actually drink from water like that, and as a result, among other things, 38000 children die every week.  Think about that.  The number is simply staggering and heart-breaking.  I saw a bumper sticker today, and I liked it.  It said this: "If your not OUTRAGED then your not paying attention."  I don't think you can say that any better. 

Or try this one on for size.  Did you know that more people have access to cell-phones than toilets?  Which would you rather have?  (If you answered cell-phone then I would like to invite you over to just change one poopy diaper.  Just one.  See what you think about not having a toilet then)

In July of this year the U.N. declared access to clean drinking water and sanitation to be a basic human right. This in a world where approximately 884 million do not have clean water and 2.6 billion do not have basic sanitation.  To follow up this declaration, the U.N. has also released several MDG's (millenium development goals) whose purpose is to halve those numbers by 2015.  

There is so much to learn about water and the world situations surrounding it.  The Blog Action Day website has a list of suggested topics to blog on, complete with links to follow for more information, here.  Check it out, and learn some for yourself. 

In the meantime there are a few things you can do.  Support organizations that drill wells for communities around the world.  Stop drinking bottled water.  Don't waste water (we all do it, so just stop :).  Buy locally grown food (bet you didn't see that one coming. But transporting food from around the world doesn't just use up oil).  Look it up; ways to save water abound. You could start here or here or here.  I could go on, but you get my drips.


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