Blogs / Better Planet

One of the most interesting—and most spooky—elements of DISCOVER’s very timely feature on plastics was Jill Neimark’s point about how the hormonelike chemicals in plastics can cause health problems that aren’t necessarily detectable.

“But the modus operandi of hormone-mimicking chemicals is different from that of typical toxins. In fact, they are not toxins in the strict sense of the word because they behave like ordinary hormonal signals … Whatever the impact of plastics exposure, the effects are not easy to isolate. There are no babies rendered obviously deformed, as with thalidomide … As Swan admits: ‘The baby boys in our study were not freaks. They did not look abnormal. We’re talking about small changes you won’t find unless you look carefully.’”

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Since my arrival in New York City, I’ve been heartened: Every time I go out to dinner with friends they jump in ahead of me to answer the waiter’s inevitable question: “Would you like a bottle of water for the table?”

“Tap is fine,” is the resounding answer.

Tomorrow is World Water Day. It’s a great day of awareness because water is so essential and so universal a need. As I’ve written before in this space: Besides air, water is the one other thing we can’t live without for very long — about 3 days in fact.

Yet our water awareness is scant. That’s why World Water Day is so important.

 According to the UN, this is how it all began: “The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March of each year as the World Day for Water by adopting a resolution.This world day for water was to be observed starting in 1993.” And the purpose since has been to raise not only observance but awareness of the water issues facing us today.   

We are in a world water crisis. Although you’d be hard-pressed to know it. Sort of like saying we are at war, which we are; few people pay attention until the most dramatic of circumstances hits home.

And water shortages are beginning to hit home. They will hit with more frequency and with more urgency. According to the federal government 36 states will experience emergency drought situations over the next five years.

Wake up calls will begin to ring. New initiatives will begin to take hold.

Here, at the American Museum of Natural History, H2O=Life is being staged. It’s a water exhibit on how water affects all aspects of our lives. The Tap Project, meanwhile, is signing restaurants on to an initiative that has them charge $1 for tap water. The dollar then goes to fund water projects around the world. It’s being sponsored by UNICEF and is a great idea.

For more info. On what you can do March 22d. Here are some links.

http://www.worldwaterday.org/

http://www.tapproject.org/

http://www.unicefusa.org/site/c.duLRI8O0H/b.25933/k.8DDD/US_Fund_for_UNICEF__US_Fund_for_UNICEF.htm

http://www.worldwaterday.net/

On the bank of the largest Great Lake of them all—Lake Superior—are vending machines selling bottled water, specifically Dasani, which is made by Coca-Cola.

The vending machines wouldn’t seem odd at any other locale. But here at the largest surface source of fresh water on the planet they seem out of place.

Coca-Cola is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Some of its bottled water comes from there, other from municipal sources in other cities where it’s bottled. (Sorry to burst the bubble for any of you who believed Dasani comes from some natural spring or fantastic mountaintop. Nope, it’s tap. In fact 25% of all bottled water is tap water.)

But it isn’t the water for bottled water that is much of a problem to the environment. Tap water itself siphons only about 13-14% percent of total fresh water use, and only about 0.5% percent of that is used for drinking. Of that, only a fraction is used for bottled water. It’s the plastics used for the bottles that the real environmental crime: We toss out more than 76 million plastic bottles a day. Yes, per day. Hopefully if you are reading this you refill water bottles.

It makes one wonder why simple bubblers aren’t stationed on the paths of Lake Superior instead of all those vending machines.

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River system comprise the largest surface fresh water system on Earth. It’s of huge importance to the US and Canada. But it may also be the most underrated of any natural resource.
Fully 10% of the US population rely on the Great Lakes for fresh water. The size of the Lakes is what astounds me most. In Duluth, Minnesota I walk along the bank of Lake Superior and stumble upon a sign. This is what it says: Lake Superior is 31,280 square miles, equal in area to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire – combined. It stretches 350 miles east to west and 160 miles north to south. It is the deepest of the Great Lakes; it is over one-quarter mile deep. It was filled with glacial meltwater 10,000 years ago. It holds three quadrillion gallons of water–and this is the part that stunned me–that’s enough water to flood all of North and South America with a foot of water. If it were emptied it would not be refilled by its natural flow until 2179. Over 200 rivers flow into Lake Superior. When you take into account all five Great Lakes, their size eclipses that of the United Kingdom.

Wow.

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