About 2,000,000 People Still Die Each Year From Water,

In the fourth chapter, “Fouling Our Own Nests,” of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to do About It, Robert Glennon discusses the dangers of water contamination that plague many parts of the United States. His main claim that water pollution requires the help of the entire population stems from an unmentioned warrant: contaminating the national water supply with chemicals from individual communities and industries is detrimental to American society. In order to strengthen his argument, Glennon showcases the impacts of local contamination issues on larger populations and utilizes quantitatively intimidating statistics to solidify his position and inspire his readers to fight for better water regulation.

He wraps up by saying, “The water problem is daunting. But putting a sensible price on water to invite investment and encourage conservation, increasing the availability of information and doubling down on innovation can go a long way towards solving it”(Webber 3). The use of this quote sums up the rest of Webber’s paper. By saying that the problem can be solved, Webber leaves his audience on a positive note with the belief that they can help fix the water problem in America.

Globally, over seven hundred and eighty-three million people do not have access to clean water (The Water Project, 2016). Millions of people have to struggle endlessly to fill up pails of water for themselves and their families; however, this does not happen in America. Water contamination and access, or lack thereof, is a third world issue. The United States is a global empire, wealthy, and the land of opportunity; Flint, Michigan became a local cesspool, impoverished, and without basic drinking water. The visual of desolate villagers walking miles for water is not the universal or unique image anymore. The ordinary town of Flint became a national icon for water scarcity and paranoia. Water contamination, disease outbreak and widespread panic

The ethics of sustainability has become increasingly relevant as more and more countries acknowledge global climate change and the subsequent environmental crisis. Recent evidence strongly suggests that the vast majority of environmental crises, including climate change, are caused and perpetuated by humans. Perhaps the silver lining to the fact that environmental crises are anthropogenic is that we, as a species, have the opportunity to control the problem by changing our behaviors. This paper explores different analyses and applications of Immanuel Kant and Aldo Leopold’s ethics regarding sustainability and personal obligation, and seeks to answer the question: what is the best way to foster a sense of environmental ethics and awareness in humans? I have concluded that perhaps the best way to protect the environment is for each person to take minute steps towards living a sustainable lifestyle. These steps, such as reducing trash or modifying our diets, are not time consuming or expensive and can be undertaken by anyone. Although these lifestyle changes may seem insignificant, if everyone reduced their trash output or ate less meat, there would be huge changes in our collective output. In order for this method to work, however, each person must first feel a moral responsibility to play his or her part in protecting the environment. In fact, a sense of personal responsibility may be the single most important factor in creating and implementing more sustainable practices.

The chapter provided information on how water is constantly shaping society. One of the topics discussed in the chapter is Neoliberalism. Here it was discussed that today water is privately owned or also known as water privatization. With this water is treated like a commodity as if it was just an object in the local store. The chapter states that, “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms” (Citation). Although many

Murthy believes that access to clean water is essential for a community well-being“‘...clean water [is a] fundamental human rights and [its] promotion constitutes a moral imperative both for national Governments and for the international community’” (100). Therefore, she believes that the Dakota Pipeline is diminishing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s access to water since the letter questions about potential pipe leakage (USHRN: Building A People-Centered Movement). Similarly, Sultana and Loftus believe that major corporations are the enemy of water is a human right since businesses lust for their wealth expansion over victims’ well-being (98). As a result, they will interpret the USHRN’s letter as a demand for the Army Corps to reevaluate their plans with the community in mind because the letter states, “we urge the Army Corps to look at routing alternatives and fully evaluate the true costs of pipelines on communities, water sources and the global climate” (USHRN:Building A People-Centered Movement). As a result, Murthy, Sultana and Loftus believe that water is a human right is a political voice since it questions those in power about the necessity of clean

In the article “Water Works”, Cynthia Barnett, an author nominated for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, claims, “The more freshwater we pull into our homes and businesses, the more we send down drains and toilets and into waste pipes that leak, spill, and burst an average of 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage water a year in the United States.” This proves water pollution is a byproduct of water usage. In order to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in rivers and oceans, Americans must stop using excessive amounts of water and learn where water waste is going, as well as what effects are left on the environment. Although most Americans have access to clean water, this does not mean that water is unlimited in supply. The way Americans use water today could affect the amount of clean water that is accessible in the future. With an increasing population this becomes a huge problem.

1400: the lower estimate of child deaths stemming from water-related illnesses per day. 768 million: the number of people without access to clean drinking water (“Clean Drinking Water”). Couched in these terms, it seems difficult to understand why we wouldn’t make water a universal and human right, guaranteeing its access to all. If water is a necessary precondition of life, can we deny anyone access to it? How much value do we place on a human life, and can we quantify this in order to establish a market and maximized economic surplus? Should we? Declaring water to be a right could, in theory, secure access and ensure the survival of many people. It could even out economic and geographic disparities. But it may also distort markets and

The severe health concerns and effects from poor water and sanitation have drawn the attention not only of small international organizations like Water.org, but also of the United Nations, which declared the years of 2005 to 2015 as the Water for Life Decade. Its goal was to “bring attention to the lack of access to clean water and sanitation systems.” In 2010 the United Nations General Assembly reaffirmed their efforts when they passed a resolution which recognized the human right to have access to clean water and sanitation. However, there are still over 663 million people who need access to clean water. The attempt to garner international recognition to this dearth of access was to bring awareness to the number of obstacles people who had

Traditionally, Western views of environment ethics has been unclear and for the most part unnecessary. We used earth’s resources without thinking about consequence. This nonchalant use aided in the West’s ability to influence the world through technological advances. In the past, limited travel and slow communication systems had limited our view to a local one. If pollution or to much urbanization occurred the solution was to move.

It just struck me. Along with these routine convictions as I continued leafing through the pages, it was also quite interesting to learn several new facts about the water itself, like “the water coming out of your tap is four billion years old and might have been slurped by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” (pg.40). Also the statistics were quite astounding that “the total water use for all purposes in the U.S. is 410 billion gallons a day and of that electric power plants use 200 billion gallons (49 percent).” (ch4.90) Each person in the US household use about “676 gallons of water per day.” (99). These facts alone were enough for me to sit with my jaws wide open to how much water I had been spending per day. And even more shockingly, like myself, most of the people across the country never give it a thought how much water they’re consuming every day. Water is so abundant that it never crosses our mind that it is facing a turbulent future as well. If not managed properly, Fishman says that “this golden age of water is rapidly coming to an end…we’re in for a rude shock.” (110)

Clean and abundant water provides the groundwork for flourishing communities. Still, as a nation we are heading towards a national water crisis. Ocean and marine dumping, leaking chemicals, dredging, and run-off all participate in the depletion in quality water in the United States and little to nothing is being done to stop it. Our country is struggling with keeping an abundance of clean water to support its life, yet its life needs uncontaminated water to survive. There are many easy solutions to jolt a foundation in attacking this problem, but the lethargy of American’s are stopping them.

Ethics is the study of what is right and wrong in human conduct. Environmental ethics studies the effects of human’s moral relationships on the environment and everything within it (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). The ethical principles that govern those relations determine human duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth’s natural environment and all of the animals and plants that inhabit it (Taylor, 1989). The purpose of this paper is to reveal environmental issues that are threatening the existence of life on Earth, and discus our social obligations to refrain from further damaging our environment, health and life for future generations. I will discus the need for appropriate actions and the ethical

Many countries in the world today deal with countless amounts of issues that seem impossible to solve. One of these issues is clean water and sanitation. A good amount of countries in the world do not have water that is suitable for drinking. It is believed that having the access to water, hygiene and sanitation is a human right, but so many people in our world today to not have access to any of these. Clean water is considered water that you are able to use safely without worrying about the risk of health issues. About 1.8 billion people around the world only have access to drinking water that is contaminated with feces (United Nations, 2015). Sanitation can be defined as the importance of hygiene and prohibiting disease by maintenance of sanitary conditions. Around 2.4 billion people do not have access to sanitation services, like toilets (United Nations, 2015). The lack of water impacts more than 40 percent of the world and is supposed to rise (United Nations, 2015). A little over 80 percent of contaminated water comes from human activities and is dumped into the oceans and rivers without any treatment to filter it, which leads to pollution. The United Nations mentions that “water scarcity, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation negatively impact food security, livelihood choices and educational opportunities for poor families across the world. Drought afflicts some of the world’s poorest countries, worsening hunger and

In today’s society, the idea of a limited resource is not a foreign concept. Most people understand that eventually humans will use up many of these resources, such as fossil fuels, and they will cease to exist. However, very rarely does a conversation about limited resources get started over the water. While water itself is not a limited resource, clean drinkable water is becoming scarcer as people continue to use excess water. The documentary “Last Call at the Oasis” highlights how precious water is to survival and just how much miss use of water occurs in the United States alone. Even though the United States has gone down the wrong path with its water consumption methods, it may not be too late to recover. With the proper systems and education in place, the chances of delaying a water crisis increase exponentially.