Do You Really Understand How the Five Essential Facts about Water are Ethical?

Do You Really Understand How Five Essential Facts about Water are Ethical?

Water, water, everywhere, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, everywhere, 

Nor any drop to drink.” ― 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner  

Water is everywhere…in the seas and oceans, groundwater or aquifers, polar ice caps,  lakes and streams, atmospheric moisture, locked within the bodies of living things. It is a transparent, tasteless and odorless chemical substance without which Life on the earth would not be possible and, therefore, must be protected with ethical responsibility by every person.

The more we can learn about water, the more precious and inviolable it becomes. Here are some interesting facts, some which you may commonly know and some which may open a greater awareness of water’s importance as they did for me.

Fact 1 - CYCLE: Water moves around the earth in a water cycle with 5 parts: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration and surface run-off.  Water helps to regulate the earth's temperature.

In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere. Groundwater can take a human lifetime just to travel a mile.

The overall amount of water on our planet has recycled to remain the same for two billion years. There is the same amount of water on earth as there was when the earth was formed. The water that comes from your faucet could well contain molecules that dinosaurs drank.

Fact 2 - QUANTITY:  Earth is largely water at 75% with 25% for land mass. Apparently 97% of the total amount of water on earth is found in oceans, 2% of which is frozen. It doesn't take much salt to make water "salty." If one-thousandth (or more) of the weight of water is from salt, then the water is "saline."  Saline water can be desalinated for use as drinking water by going through a process to remove the salt from the water.

Of all the water on earth, only 2.5% is fresh water. Less than 1% of the water supply on earth can be used as drinking water to be used by a huge population all over the world dependent for their survival.

Fact 3 - FORMULA:  Water is the only substance that is found naturally on Earth in three forms: liquid, gas, or solid depending on how far apart the molecules are…densest in ice, farthest apart in gas. Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius and vaporizes at a hundred degrees Celsius.

The water molecule consists of three air atoms, 2 Hydrogen atoms and an Oxygen atom that are bond together due to electrical charges. Weight of a water molecule depends on the number of molecules present; one molecule is 18 grams. A liter of water weighs about 2 pounds (1.01 kilograms).

Fact 4 - HUMANITY:  Clean pure water is essential to humans. Approximately 66% of the human body consists of water including all organs as they perform their physical functions.  The total amount of water in the body of an average adult is 37 liters. Human brains are 75% water.  Human bones are 25% water.  Human blood is 83% water.

A person must consume 2 liters (8 glasses) of water daily to live healthily. You can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water. If a human does not absorb enough water, dehydration is the result. Humans can drink an average of 75,000 liters of water throughout their   lifetime.

Humans use about 190 liters or 50 gallons of water every day.  An automatic dishwasher uses 9 to 12 gallons of water. A small drip from a faucet can waste as much as 75 liters of water a day. 

Two thirds of the water used in a home is used in the bathroom. To flush a toilet we use 2 to 7 gallons of water. A five-minute shower takes about 25 to 50 gallons of water. Brushing your teeth can use 2 gallons of water unless you fill a glass to rinse your teeth instead of running the tap.

You should never drink water straight from a lake or river, as it can cause serious health damage if it is contaminated by bacteria and other micro-organisms. In most cities and towns, drinking water from the tap is treated so that people don't get sick with diseases such as cholera and typhoid, which are caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites found naturally in the water.

Bottled water can be up to 1000 times more expensive than tap water and it may not be as safe. Besides, there is the unsustainable problem of thrashing the plastic bottle and polluting without biodegrading. 

Unfortunately, more than 2 billion people on earth do not have a safe supply of water. Today, at least 400 million people live in regions with severe water shortages.  Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water. Each day almost 10,000 children under the age of 5 in Third World countries die as a result of illnesses contracted by use of impure water.

Fact 5 - POLLUTION:  Because water molecules have both polar and adhesive properties, they are attracted to other molecules as a simple access to water pollution. Water quality is affected because humans dispose of their waste in water and because industrial uses add all kinds of substances and contaminants that are not naturally present. There are at least 70,000 water pollutants with more than 500 new chemicals are developed each year. For example, 1 gallon of gasoline can contaminate approximately 750,000 gallons of water.

Public water supplies must consistently supply water to cities requiring over a hundred different standards for drinking water quality including lead free pipes as a minimum standard to start with.

Oceans and coastal areas are especially impacted because of more concentrations of pollutants from normal water sheds and run-offs.

How about this interesting fact?  A chicken is 75% water and takes 120 gallons of water to produce one egg.

What about this fact:  It takes 1,850 gallons of water to refine one barrel of crude oil. Any kind of industrial use also hugely impacts our supply of fresh water.

So next time you feel a raindrop on your nose, or take a swallow of cool clean water, pay attention to the myriad of links to this most precious life-sustaining commodity resource we have. In fact, a few lifestyle changes can help to preserve your own personal use of water: such as, keep taps from over rinsing, use water efficient appliances, wash with phosphate free detergents and clean with nontoxic biodegradable household products.

Take time to watch water trickle through your fingers. This is where life comes from. It seems without form but can split the hardest rocks over time and reshape the geology, habitats and communities with floods and droughts.  No one living plant or creature can live without it. Strange to think that human beings are frail and small in comparison but are largely in the control of the taps and its utilization. 

Yes, the more we know, the more we need to manage water from a sense of accommodating to its cycles and truths rather than controlling its powers for selfish agendas. Yes, we are totally, deeply dependent on the bounty of this natural cycle and each one of us has the responsibility to respect and protect our planetary shared precious water.

PS: It gives me great pride to be the author of a special e-book called The Incredible Journey of a Water Sprite with Roots on his mission to discover Cyclical Truths … 

Imagine for a moment that there is a character who personifies this most valuable, but limited resource, known as pure, fresh water. He is unique because he is also part plant with retractable roots and cellular chloroplasts with which to make his own food from the sun's energy.  This gives him a unique perspective on the symbiotic interdependence among plants, animals and even micro-organisms at the four important levels of healthy ecosystems.

Read more about the introduction  how and why this story was written 

Read more about the Most Common Questions about the Incredible Journey of The Water Sprite with Plant Roots and a Table of Contents

   

Excerpt: My thoughts wander about the kind of ecology that humankinds believe in, as I have witnessed. Do they get it that natural life begins with DNA in a nucleus, one celled animals and plants, then species and then an ecosystem? Do they know that every small ecosystem is part of the total large biosphere on Earth that connects them all; water, air, food, resources, and shelter? Do they realize that perpetual growth, industry or destruction of any habitat is not sustainable on a limited planet?

Download here: 50% of profits is shared with water conservation agencies and more.