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Statistics recetly released by the UN show that contaminated drinking water causes more deaths in the world today than those deaths brought about by endemic warfare. I have no trouble believing this. Illneses like ch***ra and typhoid fever are only a water treatment failure away and that's in the Western World where the infrastructure ordinarily provides protection from water borne pathogens. But even in the Western World, before the deadly effect of water borne pathogens was understood, untold numbers died from simple ignorance of microbes and their efect on human health. In much of the developing world, even where the people understand the connection between contamination and sickness, the countries' resources never allowed such water purification plants to be built and to be honest, many of these countries, for whatever reason, are not going to construct such systems any time soon. But there is a cheap and easily applied , if only temporary, solution. IODINE. Water purification tablets made from an inexpensive chemical, iodine, can be readily and cheaply manufactured. They are easy to store and use. People can be given these tablets which can be easily be carried anywhere. Some campers reading this site may already be employing them. When people become familiar with them, and use them regularily, they can greatly reduce the mortality from contaminated water. In time, water purification plants may be built everywhere but people need protection now and iodine based water purification tablets offer that protection right now.
The water crisis globally is a Big Thing, so it's very good to see Evoke tackling it. But the story this week makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Dumping thousands of flyers into the river to warn people that it's dangerous? Even if they're biodegradable, I can't see how that wouldn't cause environmental havok.
Even weirder was the claim that it's inevitable that people will need personal water purification systems someday. To me, that's echoing the mistrust of public water systems that I see happening in North American culture - the mentality that tapwater isn't good enough, isn't safe enough. That leads to us paying private companies to bottle up "safer" water (which is usually just tapwater from another area anyway). Then we flll up our landfills (or our expensive-to-run recycling plants) with plastic water bottles that we never needed in the first place. Totally needless waste.
Also I'm not really sure why a commercial purification product is needed for a temporary problem with an existing, working water infrastructure. Just tell people to boil their water. Small-scale purification systems are a vital solution in parts of the world that do not have large-scale water infrastructure, so I'm not devaluing the research or production of those solutions, but if you only need to hold out for a week or two until the infrastructure gets repaired, it's overkill.
The best water system is a government-owned not-for-profit system. Commercial imperatives have not worked, once, ever, in the history of our planet - ancient or modern - in running sanitation and water supply systems. It was tried at the birth of the aquaduct as it is tried now. Its bad business, its bad planning - its just plain bad. Basic services are things that are supportable by other governments. If we want to help developing countries, teaching them to never rely on commerce for basic services is the first step.
Christian: I am not sure what it is you are saying. You seem to be saying that the aqueducts were flawed because they were a private commercial venture. If that is what you meant to say that would be incorrect in the case of Ancient Rome. The Romans brought public baths and fountains with them wherever they conquered, fed by government constructed and maintained aqueducts so actually they demonstrate that public funding of drinking water has worked well since the time of the aqueduct. The problem, however, is that some goverments are so inept and corrupt that they will not or cannot construct the infrastructure to tap into a secure water source and then distribute it over a wide area. Such infrastructure is actually pretty new. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, circa 500 AD, most of the Western World lacked a safe secure water system until the latter part of the 19th Century, and that was limited to urban areas. What many parts of the developing world need is a system that is locally controlled and readily operated with a minimum of engineering, one that they can sustain without depending on a government that may, or may not, be capable of providing abundant, clean water with dependable regularity.
Christian McCrea said:The best water system is a government-owned not-for-profit system. Commercial imperatives have not worked, once, ever, in the history of our planet - ancient or modern - in running sanitation and water supply systems. It was tried at the birth of the aquaduct as it is tried now. Its bad business, its bad planning - its just plain bad. Basic services are things that are supportable by other governments. If we want to help developing countries, teaching them to never rely on commerce for basic services is the first step.
I will pit the history of privately owned water systems against the history of publically owned water systems any day. "Local ownership" is fine as long as it actually is that, and I agree that corrupt governments stop this from happening, you have no disagreement there. But the record for solving that with private ownership of water is - lets be generous - shoockingly poor. Infrastructure that can solidify the links between needs and provision are always going to be the best resolution.
Kevin McGonigal said:Christian: I am not sure what it is you are saying. You seem to be saying that the aqueducts were flawed because they were a private commercial venture. If that is what you meant to say that would be incorrect in the case of Ancient Rome. The Romans brought public baths and fountains with them wherever they conquered, fed by government constructed and maintained aqueducts so actually they demonstrate that public funding of drinking water has worked well since the time of the aqueduct. The problem, however, is that some goverments are so inept and corrupt that they will not or cannot construct the infrastructure to tap into a secure water source and then distribute it over a wide area. Such infrastructure is actually pretty new. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, circa 500 AD, most of the Western World lacked a safe secure water system until the latter part of the 19th Century, and that was limited to urban areas. What many parts of the developing world need is a system that is locally controlled and readily operated with a minimum of engineering, one that they can sustain without depending on a government that may, or may not, be capable of providing abundant, clean water with dependable regularity.
Christian McCrea said:The best water system is a government-owned not-for-profit system. Commercial imperatives have not worked, once, ever, in the history of our planet - ancient or modern - in running sanitation and water supply systems. It was tried at the birth of the aquaduct as it is tried now. Its bad business, its bad planning - its just plain bad. Basic services are things that are supportable by other governments. If we want to help developing countries, teaching them to never rely on commerce for basic services is the first step.
Christian: I don't want to beat a dead horse on this but while government created water and sewage authorities supported by state entities may be the best solution for safe drinking water, there are simply too many regions where this is not practicable. This is not an arguement for a commercial, for profit, venture but more in the line of a co-op where the beneficiaries also control the process. A village controlled and operated system, whether it employs filtration or cisterns or iodine purification enables these people to control their own resources and their own destiny. It empowers people and lets them become independent of outside, often distant, unresponsive and indifferent governments that cannot be relied upon to provide any kind of basic services. In the Western World governents are mostly benevolent, capable and desireous of providing basic services. In much of the developing world government is none of this. If these people wait for their government to provide these sanitation services they will wait for something that will not happen. They must act on their own or perish in the interim.
Christian McCrea said:I will pit the history of privately owned water systems against the history of publically owned water systems any day. "Local ownership" is fine as long as it actually is that, and I agree that corrupt governments stop this from happening, you have no disagreement there. But the record for solving that with private ownership of water is - lets be generous - shoockingly poor. Infrastructure that can solidify the links between needs and provision are always going to be the best resolution.
Kevin McGonigal said:Christian: I am not sure what it is you are saying. You seem to be saying that the aqueducts were flawed because they were a private commercial venture. If that is what you meant to say that would be incorrect in the case of Ancient Rome. The Romans brought public baths and fountains with them wherever they conquered, fed by government constructed and maintained aqueducts so actually they demonstrate that public funding of drinking water has worked well since the time of the aqueduct. The problem, however, is that some goverments are so inept and corrupt that they will not or cannot construct the infrastructure to tap into a secure water source and then distribute it over a wide area. Such infrastructure is actually pretty new. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, circa 500 AD, most of the Western World lacked a safe secure water system until the latter part of the 19th Century, and that was limited to urban areas. What many parts of the developing world need is a system that is locally controlled and readily operated with a minimum of engineering, one that they can sustain without depending on a government that may, or may not, be capable of providing abundant, clean water with dependable regularity.
Christian McCrea said:The best water system is a government-owned not-for-profit system. Commercial imperatives have not worked, once, ever, in the history of our planet - ancient or modern - in running sanitation and water supply systems. It was tried at the birth of the aquaduct as it is tried now. Its bad business, its bad planning - its just plain bad. Basic services are things that are supportable by other governments. If we want to help developing countries, teaching them to never rely on commerce for basic services is the first step.
I think the water crisis is horrible. I know that a lot of us take water for granted and the fact that some people only have access to unclean, unfiltered water is unsettling. I think we should do whatever we can to stop this problem.
It isreally interesing how that much water can get contaminated. All there water supply got tanted, and that is a lot to comprahend. It is uneasing knowing that water can get contaminated.
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