Water Is Life: Earth Day Reflection

This Thursday April 22, will be the fourtieth Earth Day I have lived through. But I have lived on this Earth approximately 18,697 days and there has not been one day where this Earth has failed to provide for all of my needs in every sense. And because of this, I pledged a long time ago to do my part as a citizen of this Earth to do all I can to preserve its beauty, mystery, and the systems that provide for our sustenance. That is what Earth Day is all about. It is about remembering all our Earth gives to us and paying homage to her and pledging to do all we can to do the same for her.

However, on this Earth Day as on many other days before I am filled with hope yet sadness at seeing how we humans on the whole do not understand this message. Climate change combined with pollution now threaten to place our Earth on a collision course with catastrophe as we push the limitations of the very systems that give us life. We have become detached from Earth even though we live here. The beauty of a sunrise, a clear mountain stream, a tree, and now even the soul satisfying practice of tilling our own soil have been depraved by those who care little for the essence of Earth beyond what they can sell it for.

So on this Earth Day as I have for almost every other of the approxomate 18,697 days I have lived here, I will pay homage to the magnificence of a planet unlike any other. A planet of unsurpassed beauty and potential.

And I will never give up in doing all I can to preserve this giver of all life.

And I will blog. And I will speak out. And I will take action. And I will fight.

For our Earth. Our home.

For without her, there is nothing else.

P.S. to Mother Earth: Thank you.

Happy Earth Day.

Water Is Life: Women and water: a new beginning

2010 West African Women & Water Training Program from Unseen Pictures on Vimeo.

"We are living in a time when Women's voices must be heard, considered and respected at every level. Recognizing women's vital role in the environment...is essential for a future of security and peace."

Dr. Wangari Maathai
Nobel Laureate

In the previous instalment to this series, the struggles and dangers women face regarding collecting water and living in water stressed areas was illustrated. This entry deals with the solutions and one specific group, the Global Women's Water Initiative that is doing something wonderful to tackle this crisis and to provide the training, skills, networking and funding needed to generate water service projects across Africa.

Women not only play a vital role in the environment but also in the social and economic fabric of the globe. When women are given the tools to lead, change comes. The solutions to many of our world's most challenging crises rest on giving women those tools. Clean water leads to education, which leads to economic freedom, which leads to progress, health, food, and peace.

This uplifting video shows the beginning steps of what should spread like wildfire across our planet...turning stories of hopelessness and struggle into stories of hope and triumph.

World Water Day-March 22nd

World Water Day

What will your contribution be?

Excerpt from link:

Water affects every aspect of our lives, yet nearly one billion people around the world don't have clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation. World Water Day, celebrated annually on March 22, was established by the United Nations in 1992 and focuses attention on the world's water crisis, as well as the solutions to address it.

This year, a collaborative of US-based organizations have joined to raise awareness and call for stronger commitments from governments, the private sector, and US citizens for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives in low-income countries.

By deploying the solutions that already exist, we can save the lives of thousands of children each day, advance education and employment - especially among women and girls - and fuel economic growth around the world.

Learn more about the events planned in Washington DC and around the country for World Water Day 2010 and find out how you can take action to help make clean water and sanitation a reality for people around the globe.
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Here is a short listing of water organizations I know of. Of course, as with any charity organization do your own research before donating or getting involved. However, from my knowldege all of these sites are reputable.

Water Partners International
http://water.org

Charity Water
http://www.charitywater.org

Amman Imman
http://www.ammanimman.org

Water Aid
http://www.wateraid.org

One Drop Foundation
http://www.onedrop.org

Food And Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Navdanya
http://www.navdanya.org

Blue Planet Run
http://blueplanetrun.org


What would you do to get clean water?





The Water Is Life Group on Current

http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

I will be joining the world on this day to write Congress regarding this important issue. Instead of spending billions on wars for resources, we should be spending it on what is most important in truly bringing health: our infrastructure and our waterways!

I personally am also doing away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one full month, and placing the money I save in a jar. At the end of the month I will send my savings to a water organization to help them dig wells and give basic sanitation to people in countries that need it. It is reprehensible and immoral to the core to see so many people in our world in this century without the basic necessities of life.

Anyone else interested in taking the same challenge to do away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one month and send the savings on feel free to join in . I will also be posting a listing of different water organizations that are doing good work around the world to provide running water and sanitation to those most in need. Sanitation and clean water for all is the key to an environmentally, economically, and socially healthy world.

Each year we set aside only one day to acknowledge a part of our lives that we cannot live without. One day to bring awareness of our failure to preserve it and provide it. One day to show that we still would rather support money going to wars than going to clean water for all. The year we don't need a World Water Day will be a year of triumph indeed.

Taking The Pulse Of Global Freshwater Issues

http://www.circleofblue.org

By 2030 people worldwide will withdraw more water than the planet can replenish.

March 22, 2010 marks World Water Day, a 24-hour observance held annually since 1993 to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in the world. In recent years it has focused global concern on the dwindling supply of clean water.

With governments from Australia to India feeling the heat of dryness like never before, multinational corporations pledging to become better global water citizens, and a multitude of nonprofit organizations gaining position in the councils of influence worldwide, the global freshwater crisis is steadily becoming a top public priority.

In January, global business and elected leaders assembled in Davos at the World Economic Forum learned one more striking fact that underlies international concern. By 2030, WEF experts said, people will withdraw 30 percent more water than nature can replenish. Unless practices for using and conserving water shift dramatically, shortages will hit communities and businesses, especially agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.

Here is some of what we expect in what promises to be a busy year in the world of water:

Contents

■Awareness and action
■Business of water
■Bottled Battles
■GE: One company’s approach, inside and out
■Water Disclosure Project
■United Nations CEO Water Mandate
■Water and Global Health

Awareness and Action
A team of researchers and advocates that includes the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute and the Stakeholder Forum, have been working with hundreds of smaller groups to rally support for water’s role in international climate change negotiations this year.

The work was prompted by the disappointing outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, when water was left out of the Copenhagen Accord. The non-binding agreement calls for modest action on global warming.

If the international climate treaty doesn’t better emphasize the water-climate intersection, people living in vulnerable coastal nations, such as the island of Maldives, and farmers facing volatile rainfall, such as those in Australia, will be unprepared to face major catastrophes, Stakeholder Forum Policy Coordinator Hannah Stoddart told Circle of Blue.

At the international level, Stoddart and her team work directly with UN officials, and also are coordinating an unofficial international water day in Bonn, Germany in June. They are arranging high-level round table discussions that will rally more support for water issues in the months leading up to the next climate change summit in December, in Mexico.

“The eventual goal is for a recognition on an international level that there are currently no operational international treaties addressing water issues specifically,” Stoddart said. “We’re at the beginning of quite a long journey.”

Garnering local support is an important component of making sure the issue gains global prominence, according to marketing experts who work on environmental issues.

“It’s so hard to make people realize that they have a connection to the issue, to the sources of the problem,” said Joel Finkelstein a senior vice president and head of the environment team for Fenton Communications, a U.S.-based firm.

Water offers an even bigger challenge in some ways, he added. It’s still extremely difficult to illustrate the consequences of our current water consumption in countries like the U.S., where citizens can turn on the tap without thinking twice.

But the consequences of water scarcity are more powerfully conveyed through emotional stories than statistical reports. And Finkelstein believes that social media promises new ways to humanize water and environmental issues.

continued.

))))))))))))))
This is the test of our generation. As predictions state, by 2030 we will be drawing out more water than the Earth is able to replenish. Rivers worldwide are drying up and many no longer flow to their source. Glaciers are melting worldwide threatening water sources for millions of people which will in turn affect agricultural output. Privitization continues at a rapacious pace thus perpetuating disease, water scarcity, and an erosion of our freedom. We as humans have affected the hydrologic cycle through contributing to global warming and in also causing scarcity mainly due to mismanagement, wasteful agricultural irrigation practices, water pollution and toxification rendering water unusable and threatening marinelife, and privitization which keeps it in the hands of greedy water barons who refuse to acknowledge that water is a human right.

This is why on this World Water Day this coming Monday we must be resolved as every day to speaking out regarding declaring water a global human right. This action will go far in holding corporations accountable for their pollution and manipulations in commoditizing a resource that is a public trust and is essential to human life. And we must also reach people to make them understand the importance of water in their lives. It is true that especially in the US and other developed countries that people simply turn on a tap and the water comes out, so they don't think about what is going on a world away or how what they do affects that very hydrologic cycle.

We are entering a time in our history as a species where we are being tested as to the limits of our moral courage. We can explore and find new planets, send men to the moon, and yet we still cannot provide adequately for life on Earth. This speaks volumes about our true humanity and if we are to survive we must make the connection of how crucial it is to preserve the life we have here on Earth.

This will be the defining issue and crisis of this century. And people will be fighting over this precious resource as they have been for years as governments position themselves to control the one resource that gives them control of our lives. Are you willing to just allow them to take it? I'm not.

Water Is Life: Women-waterbearers of life

Women all over the world are living in slavery. They are slaves to the backbreaking often dangerous job of providing water for their families daily. In countries whose governments are corrupt, the environment is devastated, and the water is not fresh and in many instances in scarce supply. In households where traditions preclude them from education, economic opportunity, and equality in any form. And they are the missing link in regards to the economic success they and many of these countries could have if only this tragedy were given the attention it deserves.

The typical day of a woman living in one of these countries begins at about 2AM every morning. She awakens to make a trek to a water source with her five gallon Gerry can in order to collect water for the family for the day. It won’t go far depending on the number of children she has, and she may even have to forfeit using any of it in order to provide for their needs first. She treks along rocky terrain with her can sometimes with others, sometimes alone, or with her daughter who doesn’t attend school in order to help with this task. The trek can be dangerous, with them taking a chance on being raped, robbed or worse. Once she reaches the water source she must stand in line waiting for her turn to fill her can of what is many times polluted water that may well give her children dysentery. But it is all they have.

Once she fills her can she must then make the backbreaking trek back to her village once again. Her trip can take her anywhere from six to nine hours a day not including her other chores in bringing up her children, providing for them, many times harvesting any crops grown, feeding them whatever they have, and providing spiritual guidance. This then takes time away from her and her daughter having opportunity in education or in pursuing any sort of life where they can contribute to advancing their own lot in life.

And this is their life, every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, every year.

It is hard for many in this world of plenty to relate to the lives of women who must struggle for all they have and who are denied their identity and their dreams. For us, getting up in the morning and turning on our showers or our taps is something we don’t even think about because the water is always there. We don’t think of the water used for cooking or bathing, or washing, or doing other tasks that people in these countries wouldn’t ever have a chance to do. While we waste water on golf courses, in pools, and to build desert resorts, water is gold to those who live in countries where there isn’t even enough for the basic necessities of life.

Which is why in this age of climate change, global warming, population increases, and agricultural challenges, the plight of women in regards to water and how it relates to global poverty and injustice must be addressed in order for us to begin to see the solutions to the social ills that have plagued all of us for so long to bring us true freedom. It may be hard to think that a toilet or a water pipe could be the key to such freedom. Perhaps that is because it is so simple, so easy, so logical, and so morally right.

No one should go without the basic human right of water, and particularly no one should have to work so hard every day risking death to obtain it. My hope is that in this century, we can finally realize our true potential as humans, and finally recognize why we are here and see the day when no woman has to risk her life to have the basic necessities to live and not just survive.

This is why I am starting this weekly series on Current for the month of February in the Water Is Life Group. To give attention to those in our world who are too often forgotten.

To my sisters around the world who do so much for so many with so little.

This entry has been an introduction with an explanation of what women face in regards to the time spent collecting water. Next week I hope to present some stories of women who live this life, and to end it with showing what some groups are doing through sanitation and access to clean water that then gives them the chance to get the education and opportunity they need to lift themselves out of poverty and into hope.

Edit: This is still a work in progress, not forgotten.

Water is the lifeblood of Haiti now: how you can help

Water in Haiti

On 12 January, Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In September 2009, Water.org announced its commitment to bring safe water and sanitation to 50,000 Haitians over the coming 36 months. We will implement a staged plan to respond to this natural disaster, building on this existing effort.

As part of that plan, our most immediate concern is helping to restore the ability of our local NGO partner and potential partners to respond to the crisis by repairing and expanding water and sanitation facilities for people in need.

Water.org’s strength is long-term water and sanitation projects. Sustainable access to such basic necessities will be the area of greatest need as Haiti recovers from the earthquake.

If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find a list of potential organizations to support at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting Water.org’s efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, we would gladly accept your donation: http://donate.water.org/haiti.

Our heart goes out to all of those affected by yesterday’s earthquake and we thank you for keeping the people of Haiti in your thoughts at this difficult time.

Q&A on Response to Haiti Earthquake
How is water affected during a disaster like this?
Underground water and sanitation pipelines and concrete water storage tanks are highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and will likely need to be repaired or replaced.

What is the response plan to get people safe water?
The short term response typically includes bottled water and the use of high volume purification equipment. While this is expensive, it can be quickly deployed as a short-term solution. There are many relief agencies involved in these types of efforts. The response of organizations like Water.org involves the rehabilitation and expansion of sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure.

What is Water.org doing to help?
We will provide assistance to our local partners so that they can restore and expand water and sanitation infrastructure.

How is Water.org coordinating with other agencies?
Before the earthquake, Water.org was already coordinating with the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, and other agencies. On the ground, Water.org will work with local NGO partner organizations, consistent with our approach over the past two decades.

How has this affected Water.org’s work in Haiti?
It had made the need for safe water and sanitation even more urgent and will likely mean our focus will initially be rehabilitation, and then expansion of water services.

Is Water.org’s staff safe?
Four of our staff members returned from Haiti on Saturday. We’re in touch with our local partner but do not currently know the status of its staff members.

Where can I get additional information and what can I do to help?
A. If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find more information at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, you can donate at: http://donate.water.org/haiti.
_______________
And for those who are rightfully skeptical, water.org is a reputable organziation that has been around for years and proven their dedication and passion for water issues. Water is now critical to the survival of the people of Haiti as well as many other developing countries. Without it there is no food or medical care.

Water is the lifeblood of humanity.

Please do all you can to help no matter how small.

Also, please be careful what organizations you send money to. My rule of thumb is to stick with organzations that are already trusted. Doctors Without Borders is without a doubt the most trusted organization I can think of to get your donations to where they are needed fast. I donated to them in this case as well.

Doctors Without Borders

Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

By Dr. Paul J. Sullivan
Special to Circle of Blue

As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.

About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.

Water is not just income and jobs in Sudan. It is life, most particularly in the dry areas of the country: in Darfur and in the north while most of the wetlands are found in the south. This huge country has many climate and water zones. It has massive underground water reserves that are part of the largest source of freshwater in the world, the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer. It also has the large Umm Rawaba and other aquifers. Sudan has the Nile, the Atbara and many other rivers coursing through it. The country is also blessed with the Nile River Basin, which is a watered, mostly underground area that can stretch to 80 percent of the country. As much as 80 to 85 percent of Sudan’s population used the Nile Basin waters. Most of the rains happen in the south. Much of the Nile water comes from other places, like Ethiopia, Uganda and more. The waters from the White Nile and The Atbara in the south and west rise and flood at different times from the Blue Nile and other sources in the east and central parts of the country — no real efforts have been developed to coordinate and better manage these flows and stocks.

Sudan not only faces down the threats from a potential new civil war, it also faces external tensions that could build over the sharing, use and abuse of the Nile across countries in the region. There is only one agreement between the many nations who share the Nile and that was established in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt. As the other countries along the Nile, including the most likely new Sudan in the south, want to develop, demand on the water of the Nile for electricity production, irrigation, industry and more will grow greater. Sudan also shares groundwater resources and sources with other countries. Though the ground water flows, the data on this is as scarce as good management of it.

Astonishingly little of its recharged groundwater and its surface water are used in this often water stressed country. What is used is often wasted with inefficient irrigation methods and even quite destructive rain fed farming methods, and livestock overgrazing. Meanwhile the extraordinarily destructive mechanized agricultural system that is causing huge deforestation, land and river bank erosion, salinization, and more negative effects. Water treatment is almost unheard of in the country, especially in the south. Water-borne diseases are rampant and pesticide poisoning via the water-food chains are likely quite common in some areas. The growth of the mesquite tree and water hyacinth has also wreaked havoc on the country’s water systems.

The precious water of Sudan is being degraded in many areas and wasted in others. Basin and catchment degradation are the norm in many parts of the country. The country is, on average, water rich, but it is management and maintenance poor.

Siltation near small and large dams is common. Suspended solids and stagnant water are common near the dams. Sudan needs the hydroelectricity — it is constantly in a severe energy crisis, but the dams could be more costly to the water and the environment than many may think.

Then there are the very difficult problems of what to do with the huge numbers of returning IDPs and the possible movement of southerners from the north to the south. Also, how are the north and the south to coordinate their water management and water uses? These are very big issues that need to be resolved, or at least managed better.
end of excerpt.

Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace
____________
An excellent article on the challenges awaiting Southern Sudan in its referendum. It will be interesting to see if this referendum goes off without fraud and what will then become of the water resources of the Nile. You can find more information on this story at the link for Current.com:


Current: Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace