By: Emily HolBrook
Published on website in June of 2009
http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPL2298H-0-1067&artno=0000295305&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=lead%20in%20water&title=Water%2C%20Water%20Everywhere%2E%2E%2EBut%20Not%20Enough%20for%20Business&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=N
http://www.calvert.com/water/images/graph.jpg
This picture/ chart shows that there is not much fresh water on earth and that less than one percent of that three percent is actually usable and easy to get. There is barely enough fresh water to begin with and the fact that less than one percent of all of the fresh water on earth is usable is a crazy statistic!
Summary:
This article is about the scarcity of fresh usable water there is on earth and the risk that we are going to use it all up. There are six different sections in the article. Agriculture: The world's sponge is the first one and it basically just states that the agriculture field uses up seventy percent of the world's fresh water! By 2050 they believe that the amount of water agriculture will use will be close to ninety percent! China and India face the harshest water availability challenges due to irrigation projects. Extractive Industries: Dirty Run-Off is the second section of this article. This part of the article talks about how oil and mining industries facing water scarcity. They use water for wells and more. They also use a high amount of water. The third section of the article is called Food & Beverage: A Reputational Risk. This section is about how major food and beverage companies are using enough water by themselves to service the world for a full day. The fourth section is called Semiconductors: Seeking Water From Silicon Valley to India. This section covers the topic of mega- companies like Texas Instruments use close to eleven billion gallons of pure fresh water in 2007! The fifth section is called Apparel: Thirsty Cotton. In order to create cotton you use a lot of water. It takes about twenty five cubic meters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt! The final section is Managing Water Scarcity. This section talks about laws that cover water uses and the amount of water that can be used. This section also is about ways to save water and how major companies are cutting back on water usage.
Opinion/ Reflection:
I believe that it is so crazy that of the billions and billions of gallons on earth that only three percent of it is freshwater and not saltwater. Plus of that three percent less that one percent of that water is available on the surface! I also think it is ridiculous that there is so much of our fresh water being used for things that are not as essential to life as water or food. For example we do not necessarily need oil or coal. They create pollution and then destroy our fresh water even more! I think that we should ban the use of fresh water usage in oil and mining fields. I also think that it is ridiculous that we have used eleven billion gallons of water in the food and beverage field! This does make sense though because we do need water to create food and other beverages.
Questions:
1. How do you think that we can help reduce the amount of freshwater that we use?
2. How, if possible, can we replenish our freshwater that was used?
3. What would it be like on a world where there is no fresh water that can be used?
4. Why do major companies rely so heavily on freshwater and not salt water?
I definitely think that these facts are scary. To think that there could possibly be no way to get fresh water in the future is very scary. We need to make sure that we take advantage of our resources in every way possible.
ReplyDeleteNew Questions:
1.) Is it possible to think of a way to filter the bad water or find a way to more easily bring up water that is underground?
2.) What might happen if we try to even out all of the water resources throughout the world? Would that work?
I found an informational you tube video about water scarcity. Yes it is not a fun video but it really helps on this topic. Also they make it easier to understand by showing graphs and other visuals if you are confused.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGgYTcPzexE
Hope this video helps a lot. It helped me. Check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quesion 1:How do you think that we can help reduce the amount of freshwater that we use? I think that we could use other resources to get the supply of water. Like we could boil salt water to make it fresh. This would save some fresh water.
ReplyDelete3. What would it be like on a world where there is no fresh water that can be used? If there was no fresh water most people would be dehydrated and would die. Our population would decrease and might even go insane with no fresh water.
4. Why do major companies rely so heavily on freshwater and not salt water? Fresh wtaer is a lot easier to use. Rather than fresh water which you have to distil. It is a money save to use fresh water.
I invited a water/drinking water expert for Region 5 of the Environmental Protection Agency named Janet Kuefler.
ReplyDeleteI picked her because she would know the laws on water usage and when she estimates if/when we might use up all fresh water. Another reason I picked her was because she would know how to help (if possible) the leftover water from all of the companies using it. Also she would know how to help conserve fresh water on Earth.
Hello my science class is creating a blog. Here is the link to a blog written about the quality, and quantity of fresh water, the scarcity of fresh water, the amount of water used up by agriculture, and how to help cut back on the amount of fresh water used, http://fivepeoplethatdonthaveaname.blogspot.com/2012/10/water-water-everywhere.html. It would be great if you could look it over and possibly leave a comment.
Thank you,
Kaeli Simmons