Blog Action Day happens once every year and it is on this day that thousands of blogs around the Internet rally around a single cause. Three years ago, the topic was the environment. The theme for this year is water and there are very few causes that can be quite as universal as good old H2O.
Absolutely, it is important to consider human rights issues, but those “only” affect people. Water has a dramatic impact on everything on this planet, both living and otherwise. It is the elixir of life for everything from mice to manatees. It affects our climate too, as well as just about every agricultural practice we do.
From a human perspective, it’s incredible to think that almost a billion people around the world don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. This is something that we very much take for granted in developed countries, since we see it as a basic human right. In our industrialized urban environments, water consumption is an issue that can easily be overlooked. Even if we cast aside the issue of using disposable bottled water for just a moment, we use a lot more water than we think we do.
You know that cup of coffee you had this morning? Well, it took 140 litres (about 37 gallons) of water to make that single cup of coffee. It takes 3000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of rice and 16,000 litres of water to make one kilogram of beef. Even something as simple as a regular old orange takes 50 litres of water.
Am I saying that you should give up the java and the sirloin? No, not at all. However, it helps to be mindful and aware of the environmental impact that your daily life and your daily decisions have on the planet. A few simple adjustments to your daily habits, like using a reusable coffee mug, can make a difference. Many small acts add up to one big impact.
For more information about Blog Action Day and what you can do, you can direct your browser to the page on Change.org. There’s a petition, a fundraising effort, and all kinds of interesting information.
Thanks for this post!
Please read and share my post about Water’s footprint in Fashion http://wp.me/pXsUB-oi
You can make the difference!
+|O:| – WATER IS LIFE! Please check out my contribution to the Blog Day 2010 initiative:
http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-action-day-2010-resource-we-take.html
Are your numbers for water it takes to make a cup of coffee based on the standard 6 oz cup that the coffee makers consider a standard cup? If so then you might want to reconsider the numbers because no one has a 6 oz cup of coffee. The smallest cup of coffee you can get at Starbucks is an 8 oz Short, which I would say isn’t ordered as much as the 12 oz Tall and the 16 oz Grande.
Wanted to also say that on the post that you link to about coffee you talk about coffee hydrating you, which is true if you drink a normal amount of coffee which is 2 or less 6 oz cups a day. That doesn’t include the caffeinated soft drinks and you have to consider that no where in the world, Starbucks for sure, do you ever get served a 6 oz cup of coffee.
The Mayo Clinic considers 4-7 cups too much coffee to the point that it starts to dehydrate you. Does Coffee Dehydrate
Can you actually say after leaving Starbucks you haven’t at least the 12 oz 2 cup normal amount of coffee for the day? Then add in any soft drink or more coffe you drink and you are now dehydrating AND really using the worlds supply of water.
Its a staggering number to see just how much water goes into producing the products we consume everyday. Still though in my opinion its one of those deals where its a necessary evil. There’s no other way around it… we could however as a society try to do a better job of helping out the less fortunate and try to improve their water quality, that would be more of a dramatic effect than lowering the cup of coffee use.
Till then,
Jean
There are simple things everyone can do everyday that makes a difference: for example, turn off the water while brushing teeth.