Water is precious. All living things need it to survive.
But we are failing miserably to take care of it. Many struggle to get it while others believe their taps will never run dry.
Greenpeace campaigns in many places and on many fronts – oceans, climate change, energy, forests, toxic chemicals and agriculture — but all share one common thread. Water.
Wepollute our rivers with chemicals and convince ourselves that somehow ecosystems will just magically recover.
We use massive amounts ofwater for food production. It takes15000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of beef and 1500 litres to produce 1 kg of wheat.
We continue to rely on fuels like coal which uses huge quantities of water in production. And the consumption of water for energy is set to more than double in the coming decades. Reliance on processes like ‘fracking’ and products like tar-sands multiplies the water impacts of our fossil fuel addiction.
The people living in the indigenous territories in northern Alberta see every day the impacts of thetar-sands on the Athabasca Riverwhere the water supply is contaminated and has become a serious health hazard.
Contaminated water will be a major issue for years to come for the people ofFukushima, thanks to nuclear energy.
More and more frequently people are suffering from the impacts of these unsustainable choices – lives changed forever.
TheWater Chapter of the latest OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050paints a stark picture: Global water demand is projected to increase by some 55 percent , and without new policies, by 2050, freshwater availability will be further strained, with 2.3 billion more people than today (in total over 40 percent of the global population) projected to be living in river basins experiencing severewater stress.
The world’s water resources are under mounting pressure because of growing population and affluence, which will inevitably lead to a rise in conflicts and more wars if we don’t take the hard decisions now.
We need to move towards a more sustainable and just way of using the planet resources, especially water.
We can and must make a difference…….every day.Get involved
