There is nothing quite as critical to life as water. Humans can survive weeks without food but without access to clean water, we die within days, which is why it is all the more insidious that clean water is still inaccessible for so many communities.
Currently, even in a wealthy nation like the United States, there are over a million people that are water-insecure, with nearly 50% of cases in wealthy metropolitan areas. Despite the pressing need, initiatives for clean, sustainable water continue to meet resistance due to politics, policy, and finance. Technologies like those discussed in Brave Blue World become hampered by factors like the cheap pricing on clean water, and the resulting lack of urgency as a consequence. But as we learned in class, when we try to examine ecological crises like water security through an economic sense, we hardly get the full story. Despite the cheap pricing on water, as long as there are people who continue to be water insecure, there must be initiatives that push to improve the ability for all to get renewable, sustainable and clean water.
Within Canada, initiatives that improve the ability for water-insecure people to have access to clean water are present, but most be bolstered. Indigenous Services of Canada published a report in 2021 that since 2015, 67.9% of long-term water advisories have been lifted, but only 1.3% of long-term drinking water advisories that remain are currently being addressed by feasibility studies to enact a solution. With increased funding, more water insecure communities would be able to get access to the clean drinking water which is essential to life.