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