Just Powers

In which a horse sees his image for the first time, and a fairy princess tries to decapitate him.

Happy Halloween!!

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is water. Unfortunately I am exhausted and it is late in the day, so this is not going to be the post I wish it to be. I also love participating in Blog Action Day though, so I am loathe to not post something.

Over at Change.org’s page about Blog Action Day they have an explanation of why water was chosen as the topic for this Blog Action Day. I will post a couple of facts here which will have to suffice as my post on the topic - but please please head over to the Change.org page and check it out. There is so much information there it will make your head spin. And there is a cool water use calculator, which I just took:

Over 600 gallons of water a day sounds like a heck of a lot for one person, even if it is 500 gallons less than average. I guess we need to add some low flow shower heads to our “wish list”.

So, here are some facts about water to get you thinking, and maybe acting -

• One in eight human beings do not have access to clean water.
• Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.
• The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.
• African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
• Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.
• It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger. That means it would take over 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe.
• The average person uses 465 liters of water per day. Find out how much you use and start thinking about how you can use less.