The world’s poorest people are those most likely to experience water scarcity. When people’s watersheds are contaminated or people live far ways from water sources, they are more likely to stay trapped in the poverty cycle. This is because people who spend large portions of their days suffering the effects of water-related illnesses or travelling far distances to retrieve water means they have little time to make money or go to school, thus they are less able to improve their situation.
It’s unfair that the world’s wealthiest people use water as if it’s an infinite resource, while the world’s poorest hardly have access to water that’s safe enough to drink. I value fairness — where access to water is equal amongst all people regardless of their socio-economic background. I also value justice — where those responsible for contaminating the water sources of others are required to clean up their mess. I thus envision a future where all people have access to the most fundamental human right basic human right: clean drinking water.
My intervention to get to this future includes greater education about the value of properly functioning ecosystems for the generation of clean water sources. Another intervention is creating legislation where industries must pay for their water use and must clean up the watersheds that they have contaminated.
Hi Sarah!
I really enjoyed your post, and I agree so strongly about what you touched upon with regards to fairness. This topic of water really made me aware of how little I think about where my water comes from and how I often take my (essentially unlimited) access to clean water for granted. I too believe that equal access to clean water regardless of socio-economic status/background is a human right and that companies that contribute to the contamination of our water sources should be obligated to clean up their mess, and I liked your ideas for interventions!
Hi Sarah, I liked how you included in your post not only about how companies should not only pay for their large amounts of water usage but also make and effort to clean up watersheds that they contaminated. I have also thought about taxing companies and making them pay for their water consumption but I have not thought about also keeping them responsible for the watersheds and water bodies they may contaminate during manufactoring and production.
I agree that education will play a key role in terms of changing the societal perception on the value of clean water, and I think your idea on forcing industries to clean up watersheds that they have contaminated is a great one! We as individuals value the idea of clean up the mess that ourselves have made, and expanding this idea to the industrial sides can be very useful as they would now need to worry about how their contaminations might cost them.
Hi Sarah thanks for sharing! I absolutely agree with your idea that industries should pay more for their water use. However, another potential issue I'm thinking is that will the industries raise the price of their products since now the cost becomes higher? In that case I feel like the poorest group of people would still be the ones who suffer the most.
Love this post Sarah. I think your values of equality and justice are well-suited to this issue!
A question I might have is, because water is very much a fluid resource and not just contained in large reservoirs, what would industries cleaning their watersheds look like? Would it be something direct like simply filtering and treating water from reservoirs that goes into our drinking water systems, or might it expand into reclamation of entire ecosystems through something like vegetation planting? And then, how would we be able to monitor and assess how well industries are cleaning watersheds, and differentiate between which industries are actually contributing their weight? Any ideas?
Hi Sarah, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I'm definitely with you, I feel like its our and the governments responsibility to look after our most vulnerable populations like the poor who already struggle daily to obtain the basic necessities for life like water. I think you bring up a great idea which is that the government should pay for the maintenance of watersheds and forcing industries who have excessive water waste to pay for their water. This saves communities from paying for their basic and necessary water use (keeping clean, drinking). Another suggestion might be to invest in water-saving technology to be more commonplace everywhere (not just places that need to conserve water the most) such as toilets that reuse sink water in each flush or infrastructure that uses rain water (like the UBC pool) or structures that take water from the atmosphere.
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for sharing your post! I think your intervention about making companies pay for their use of water is surely an effective way to reduce water consumption. This only impacts water consumption from the point when the legislation is created. However, you also mentioned that companies should pay to repair any contamination of water that they have caused. I think this is important because this has the power to remedy past abuse of this resource as much as possible, but also make companies more cautious moving forward.
Nice post Sarah! I love the interventions you brought up :)