Happy World Water Day!

A message from friends at Replyforall here!

Target 7c of the Millenium Development Goals reads:
"Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation."

Let's focus on the "safe drinking water" bit.

Some statistics:
Only about 2.5% of the Earth's water is fresh water (for ~6 billion people)
An average American uses 150 gallons of water each day, while a person in the developing world struggles to find 5 gallons.
Over one billion people still use unsafe water sources.
The highest numbers of people without access to clean water are in Asia.
Unsafe water kills more people than all forms of violence combined, including war.
[factoids from WHO, unicef - read more to see why water's so important]

My friend, Nami, who has guestblogged before, wrote a great blog post for 1Sky a few summers ago.  I remember it well not only because it was a great post, but because some a-hole left a nasty comment (to which I posted a nasty response in return).

Anyway, one effect of climate change is that it will make people thirstier.  As if to slap us all in the face, another effect of climate change is that fresh water supplies will decrease as sea levels rise. Fresh water will more likely fall as rain rather than snow making it harder to collect (spring snowmelt won't be a reliable source if there's not enough snow). Fresh water levels will also decrease as evapotranspiration losses increase.

So, how can we avoid disaster?!
Obviously, we all need to conserve. 100 ways to conserve here.
Becker and Posner had a blogpost about economic responses here.
And of course, a blog that I've mentioned in the past: Aguanomics!

Anyway, that's all for tonight kids. I am amazed by those who can blog so often. I don't have the discipline. I'm always getting caught up in real life...