The Global Water Crisis

Berkey Filter Review

Water is a unique and fascinating substance! Everyone knows that life cannot exit apart from the presence of clean, liquid water. While we are able to live several weeks without food, we can only live days without water. Recently NASA bombed the surface of the moon in hopes of detecting the presence of water, for future colonization will be virtually impossible without finding a source of it.

The earth contains plenty of water for us all. If we divide the total 326 million trillion gallons of water on earth by the current population, 5.8 billion, we see we have 56 billion gallons apiece. For sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, the average person in the world has a daily requirement of about 13.2 gallons of water. Thus we have enough water down here to last each of us over 11 million years (not counting population growth)! That doesn’t take into consideration the free recycling system provided for us called evaporation and condensation.

The problem is that most of this water is unusable in its present form. Ninety-eight percent of the water on the planet is in the oceans, and is, therefore, unusable for drinking because of the salt. About 2% of the planet’s water is fresh, but 1.6% is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Most of the rest (0.36%) is out of reach in aquifers and wells. Only about .036% of the planet’s total water supply is found in lakes and rivers. That’s still thousands of trillions of gallons, (in fact, 392 million gallons each) but it’s a very small amount compared to all the water available. But even of that, less than 1% of the total fresh water, (and 0.007% of all water on earth,) is accessible for our use.

Another problem is that the available useable water is not distributed evenly to the population. The average American uses more water taking a five-minute shower than the typical person living in a slum in a developing country uses in a whole day. Nearly one billion people lack access to safe water. More precisely 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies, approximately one in eight people. Further, two and a half billion do not have improved sanitation, that is, a means to separate drinking water from waste water.

Insufficient sanitary drinking water throughout the world brings with it major health issues. One estimate is that half of all those in hospital beds at any one time are there because of a water related disease. This results in one child dying from a water-related disease, usually from diarrhea, every 15-20 seconds. That adds up to a staggering 1.4 million children each year. Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. Think of it: 88% of the cases of diarrhea worldwide are caused by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, or insufficient hygiene.

Poor water results not only in deaths, but also in more crime, more disease, increase in birth defects, and decreased ability to do well in school, among other things. In short, it results in general economic decline. An investment in pure water sources, even desalination of the sea water, is an investment with dividends. Some have estimated that every US dollar invested in providing adequate water supplies returns a benefit to them of eight US dollars.

Some want the western civilization to feel guilty for taking a shower or watering their lawns. This reasoning is flawed. Lowering our living standard in use of water only borrows their problems. America has good, clean water because we have learned where to find or clean it, and how to preserve it. We shouldn’t feel guilty; we should be more aware of our need to be good stewards of it, and we should be more willing to share our technology with others. When we are frugal and generous with our water, we will set a higher standard for other nations to follow.

But what if you are on well water or city water that has bad taste or odors. You would be benefited by an activated charcoal water filter. The Berkey Water Filter are the best line of activated charcoal filter we are aware of. Check out the Imperial Berkey or another model. One amazing feature is that each set of filters they ship with can be re-cleaned to purify up to 6,000 gallons of drinking water.

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