Don't Drink The Water

I THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

So I've started back at school full-time at Mount Royal University and I have adopted a learning theory where I intersect the contents of my five courses so that I can maximize my learning. 

In my first class, Research Design and Methodology, I learned about the professional guidelines for designing, conducting and publishing research. The content of this course is applicable to all fields of study.

Writing in a Digital Context is the class that inspired me to create this blog.

In my Scientific Math & Literacy class I was given an assignment to debate whether or not hydraulic fracturing is safe. I loved this assignment. Hydraulic fracturing or 'Fracking' is a dirty process where natural gas companies pump a mixture of water, sand and 596+ chemicals into the ground in order to create a fracture in the shale that will release natural gas. Fracking can lead to contamination of the ground water. Maybe you have seen the videos on the internet of people who can light their tap water on fire. That flammable water was also featured in the documentary Gasland. I recommend this documentary to anyone who loves nature and anyone who loves drinking water. There is no doubt in my mind that fracking is a waste of fresh water. I think that fresh water is a valuable resource that is going to become an expensive commodity soon.

In my Urban Sociology class we talk about how city planners have shaped cities in the past and how they should shape them in the future. We talk about how major cities are shaped by the interests of the business elite and the political elite. We talk about sustainability. One theme that is recurring is the theory that suburban sprawl is not sustainable. Residential developers will not be able to continue to build communities the way that they are being built today because we do not have the infrastructure or resources to continue living the way we are living. Our energy demands are too high. We have read several studies that suggest that in about 20-25 years people will have no choice but to radically change the way that we live. 

I did not make this macro.

And finally in Sociology of Health and Illness we discuss the social determinants of health. Some people are proud that Canada has potable tap water. The United Nations have declared that "clean water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights". In this class we discuss how in Canada the government is supposed to be responsible for providing citizens with clean drinking water. We also discuss how the water cycle has been polluted by industrial development, wide-scale use of pesticides and everyday human pollution. This is where I am perplexed. We have been heavily polluting our water system for more than 50 years and we still expect that our government is ensuring that our tap water is drinkable. 

UNSUSTAINABLE

So where do we go from here? We already pay for water on our utility bills. People are probably scared to buy their water from a private company because we are worried about commercial interests controlling the price of water. Nobody wants to be extorted for something that we all need to live. On the other hand there are people in developing countries that have very limited access to potable water. Maybe things are too good for us. Maybe we should be paying more for water. Maybe we need to be more conscious about where our water is coming from and where it is going to come from in the future. 

Go change your Brita filter. This is not my photo.

Do most people care about their drinking water? Do people just keep using their Brita without changing the water filter and then all you get is those little black sediments. What are those? How much do we really care about what we are drinking?

When was the last time that you tested the water that you drink? When was the last time that you tested the water that you brush your teeth with?

I watched a documentary called Radically Simple about a man named Jim Merkel. He said that an important part about making social change is that we should not blame anyone. We should not point fingers. Nothing is accomplished when we accuse each other of being 'unvironmental'. We need to start small and make changes the are positive for the planet. We need to reduce our energy demands. We need to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and we need to reduce our travel times. We need to produce more food locally and we need to take energy from clean sources. Many of these things can be accomplished on a very small scale. If every person does one small thing to make the world a better place then we can gain momentum. 

Should we salvage the drinking water systems that we have? Should we encourage our government to subsidize farmers and food producers so that they can use processes that do not negatively affect our drinking water system? Should we encourage the federal government to provide funding for municipalities to develop better drinking water programs in their communities?