{"id":899,"date":"2012-03-22T23:25:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T22:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lornemitchell.com\/blog\/?p=899"},"modified":"2012-03-22T23:29:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T22:29:19","slug":"world-water-day-and-the-big-thirst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=899","title":{"rendered":"World Water Day and The Big Thirst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have subscribed for several years now to a great site called <a href=\"http:\/\/changethis.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/22\/world-water-day-and-the-big-thirst.html\">ChangeThis<\/a> &#8211; where anyone can publish a manifesto to change something that they think is important.\u00a0 So it was today that I was browsing the site and found out that it is World Water Day.\u00a0 Designated by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwaterday2011.org\/\">World Water Day<\/a> is held annually on March 22. It&#8217;s a day to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and sustainable management of water resources that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. With over half of the world&#8217;s population now living in cities, this year&#8217;s focus is understandably on water and urbanization, under the slogan &#8220;Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg\"><img data-attachment-id=\"902\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?attachment_id=902\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?fit=600%2C400\" data-orig-size=\"600,400\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;11.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;FinePixS1Pro&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;983272563&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;81&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;320&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"33_04_3&#8212;Water-Texture_web\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?fit=300%2C200\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?fit=525%2C350\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-902\" title=\"33_04_3---Water-Texture_web\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?resize=525%2C350\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?w=600 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/33_04_3-Water-Texture_web.jpg?resize=300%2C200 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are quite a few statistics and factoids listed (mostly U.S. centric) that come from a new book called the <a href=\"http:\/\/800ceoread.com\/book\/show\/9781439102077-The_Big_Thirst\">Big Thirst<\/a>, being released on April 12 by Free Press.\u00a0 However, they still make you think:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water is the oldest substance you&#8217;ll ever come in contact with. The water coming from your kitchen tap is about 4.3 billion years old.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">A typical American uses 99 gallons of actual water a day&#8211;for cooking, washing, and the #1 personal use in the U.S., toilet flushing. But a typical American uses electricity at home that requires 250 gallons of water each day. And an American eating a diet of 1,700 calories a day is eating food that requires 450 gallons to produce&#8211;each day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">The average cost of water at home in the U.S.&#8211;for always-on, purified drinking water&#8211;is $1.12 per day, less than the cost of a single half liter of Evian at a convenience store.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water and energy are intimately linked. Electric power plants in the U.S. consume 49 percent of the water used in the country. And water utilities are the single largest users of electricity in the U.S.&#8211;in California, 20 percent of all the electricity generated is used to move or treat water.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water and food are also intimately linked. Worldwide, farmers use 70 percent of water. And agriculture is also one of the least efficient users of water. Half the water farmers use is wasted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Americans spend almost as much each year on bottled water ($21 billion) as they do maintaining the nation&#8217;s entire water infrastructure ($29 billion).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Las Vegas has grown by 50 percent in population in the last 10 years&#8211;without using any more water now than it did back in 1999.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">In the U.S., we use less water today than we did in 1980. As a nation, we&#8217;ve doubled the size of our economy while reducing total water use. We have literally increased our &#8220;water productivity&#8221; as a nation by more than 100 percent in the last 30 years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Microchip factories require water that is so clean it is considered dangerous to drink.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">The difference in price between home tap water and a half-liter bottle of water at the convenience store is a factor of 3,000&#8211;you could take the bottle of Poland Spring that you buy for $1.29 at the local 7-Eleven and refill it every day for 8 years before the cost of the tap water would equal that original price, $1.29.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">We often hear that &#8220;only&#8221; 2 percent of the water on Earth is fresh and available for human use, outside of the polar ice caps. The &#8220;only&#8221; 2 percent comes to 1.5 billion liters of fresh water for each person on the planet. It&#8217;s 400 million gallons for every person alive. That&#8217;s a cube of fresh water for each us as long as a football field and as tall as a 30 story building.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">The U.S. uses more water in a single day than it uses oil in a year. The U.S. uses more water in four days than the world uses oil in a year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Enough water leaks from aging water pipes in the U.S. each day to supply all the residents of any of 30 states.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">The city of London loses 25 percent of the water it pumps.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Seventy-one percent of earth is covered with water, but water is small compared to earth. If Earth were the size of a minivan, all the water on Earth would fit in a half-liter bottle in a single cup holder.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Not one of the 35 largest cities in India has 24-hour-a-day water service. Even the global brand-name cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai offer water service only an hour or two a day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Treating diarrhea consumes 2 percent of the GDP of India. The nation spends $20 billion a year on diarrhea&#8211;$400 million a week&#8211;more than the total economies of half the nations in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">A common statistic is the 1 billion people in the world&#8211;one in six&#8211;don&#8217;t have access to clean, safe drinking water. But a less well-known statistic is equally stunning: 1.6 billion people in the world&#8211;one in four&#8211;have to walk at least 1 km each day to get water and carry it home, or depend on someone who does the water walk. Just the basic water needs of a family of four&#8211;50 gallons total&#8211;means carrying (on your head) 400 pounds of water, walking 1 km or more, for as many trips as required, each day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Between 1900 and 1936, clean water in U.S. cities cut the rate of child deaths in half.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water required to manufacture 1 ton of steel: 300 tons Water required to produce 2 liters of Coca-Cola: 5 liters<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Cooling water a typical U.S. nuclear power plan requires: 30 million gallons per hour<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water that New York City requires: 46 million gallons per hour<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Water required to maintain a typical Las Vegas golf course: 2,507 gallons for every 18-hole round of golf Each hole of golf, for each golfer, requires 139 gallons of irrigation water.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Average time a molecule of water spends in the atmosphere, after evaporating, before returning to Earth as rain or snow: 9 days<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Amount of water that falls on a single acre of ground when it receives 1 inch of rain: 27,154 gallons<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have subscribed for several years now to a great site called ChangeThis &#8211; where anyone can publish a manifesto to change something that they think is important.\u00a0 So it was today that I was browsing the site and found out that it is World Water Day.\u00a0 Designated by the United Nations General Assembly in &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=899\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;World Water Day and The Big Thirst&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[42,41,66,24,72,22,60,91],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DQGK-ev","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1253,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1253","url_meta":{"origin":899,"position":0},"title":"Big Rocks and Full Jars","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"16\/05\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The very famous Chinese professor from the very famous Chinese university sat in front of a group of new students. 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That was the question.","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"04\/12\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The arguments raged for ten hours in the House of Commons. \u00a0The vote\u00a0was cast. \u00a0 The MPs agreed by a sizeable majority that it was a good thing to let the Royal Air Force bomb Syria. \u00a0A few hours later, the Tornado Jets were set loose like the dogs of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Attention&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Attention","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=78"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tornado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Tornado-300x171.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1435,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1435","url_meta":{"origin":899,"position":4},"title":"Into the Vortex","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"24\/07\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"After the feeling of being stuck. Of being bogged-down. 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It triggered another thought. \u00a0One particular type of thinking I find very useful\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Customer Experience&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Customer Experience","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=63"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Color-Wheel-in-Chaos-000006203692_Full.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}