Many scientists do not put political spins on environmental issues. A small group of such experts recently expressed serious concerns regarding the availability of clean drinking water for the global population.
Approximately three questers of the earth's surface is covered with water, albeit the biggest bodies of water are salty. Only about three percent of all water is drinkable, and most of this is frozen in polar caps and glaciers. Only a tiny fraction (approximately 3 of 1000 liters or 0.3%) is actually useful drinking water.
This small percentage of potable water would be suffice to quench the thirst of the world's population, but unfortunately, the sources are not evenly distributed throughout the globe. It is a fact, that more than one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. The population explosion during the past fifty years resulted in four times increased water consumption. In addition, too much "dirty" water is being returned untreated to the rivers and the oceans resulting in further depletion of safe drinking water sources. It is sad that in many countries people are forced to drink polluted and unsafe water just to survive.
The United Nations (a bloated and impotent International bureaucracy) published a report that suggests that by the year 2025, two thirds of the world's population will be without adequate sources of safe water to sustain life.
Canada has been blessed with an abundance of lakes and rivers and we have an obligation to protect theses resources. Perhaps the time has come when blase Canadians have to recognize the seriousness of future water challenges by starting concrete actions now in their own backyards.
Therefore,we need to do all we can to properly protect all our water sources and change our wastewater discharge habits.