Blog Action Day 2010 is here! WATER!

This image is an entry that I sent to a Mail Art call entitled "World Without Water."  Who can even think about a world like that?
        And yet, there are parts of the world where clean water, safe for drinking, is unavailable or difficult to come by, so it's as if there was no water in the world. I am among those fortunate enough to have clean water come out of faucets in my home. 
     I've become sensitized to wasting water so I don't run water while brushing my teeth and have a toilet that uses less water, but oh my, in the big picture, this is like nothing!
Here are some facts -   African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
- Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.

While the developing world faces challenges like the above, the industrialized countries consume loads of water.
Check out these facts -
- It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe.
- That cotton t-shirt you might be wearing right now took 1,514 liters of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 liters.
AND this fact which really disturbs me:
- The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.

So what can one person do? It seems crazy to think that I can do anything about this. However, if we each vow to cut down on wasting water, not buy bottled water (I got this really nice metal bottle to refill from my tap,) figure out for yourself how to conserve water (more here)in your own life, and maybe even write a bit about this in your own blog, or share with your family and friends, we can as a multitude, make a difference.
Here's something that I didn't know about until I signed on to blog about water:

 Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war?

Did you know this? Pretty amazing and horrifying.

Please do something in your own life, and take action. Besides conserving water, you can take action by signing the petition via the link to the right, or do some of your own research to find another group through which you can take action. Spread the word. This is our world and it's hard to image it without water. 

Check out what's happening on other blogs here. You'll be amazed at who's participating.