FLUID THINKING
Water. It’s so essential to life that in a matter of three days or less, most human beings will die without it. Depending on age and gender, the human body is made up of between 50- and 75-percent water. Nevertheless, many of us take water for granted. The latest medical statistics show that about three quarters of Americans are frequently dehydrated, shocking given our country’s widespread availability of clean water. The tragedy, however, is that for many in this world, procuring potable water is an all-day chore, making it a resource more valuable than gold.
What most Americans don’t realize is that our world is in a serious water shortage crisis. Seventy percent of our planet is covered by water, so it may be easy to think that this resource will always be plentiful. Fresh water, the water we drink and bathe in, is very rare, by comparison. Only 3 percent of our water sources on Earth are made up of fresh water, according to the United Nations. Most of that fraction can only be found in glaciers, making it fairly inaccessible.
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) estimates that almost 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water, while another 3 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Many in the world are exposed to water-borne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, while over 2 million people — most of whom are children — die each year from diarrhea due to water-borne pathogens. By 2025, the UN estimates that almost two thirds of the world’s population will live in areas of the world that suffer water scarcity as our ecosystem adversely changes. This growing problem can be attributed to several factors.
Climate Change
Over the past few decades, we’ve seen
