Support World Water Day!
As an energy worker, I know how important it is to keep hydrated. Clean water - and plenty of it, is absolutely necessary for the health of the organism. Withold water, confusion, headaches/fuzziness and systemic faults occur that given time, magnify into serious dysfunction. Clean water is a very important thing for all human beings to have, yet some in the world have polluted water, or none at all.
Yvonne Divita writes in to Andy Wibbels’ blog http://andywibbels.com/post/1070:
WaterPartners International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping fight unsafe and inadequate water supplies. World Water Day is quickly approaching and will be celebrated on March 22, 2006! The Global water crisis is the leading cause of death and disease in the world, taking the lives of more than 14,000 people each day, 11,000 of whom are children under age 5. Did you know that the average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 kilometers? In addition to the health problems, more than 200 million hours are spent every day by women and girls walking to collect water from distant, often polluted sources—time that could be better spent on more productive endeavors such as work and school.
Andy comments: "Few things drive me nuttier than this and water privatization. Is clean fresh water a right or a privilege? You’d think the answer would be easy."
I agree with Andy. I intuitively *feel* that clean water is a right. But I also know that the concept of "rights" is an exclusively Western one in many ways. I can ask the same question of clean air.
I believe it is my right to breathe clean air. The many smokers of cigars and cigarettes who actaully seem to delight in blowing their smoke in our faces and watching us choke, say that we have no such right. THEY on the contrary, have the "right" to smoke as and when they wish and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to walk down the city street they happen to be walking on. But they’re everywhere and as outdoors is the only place smokers in California can legally smoke, it is impossible to get away from them. Same debate, different substance. Each feels they are right. Who is?
Who can say.
.jpg)
