As we are learning and talking about water, we are thinking about our own use of water and how to lower our water footprint. We've heard about the global water situation from Maude Barlow and the urgent need to focus our attention on the looming crisis. Follow this link and take a look at the many World Water Crisis Photos on the Time magazine website. Some photos are joyful and some are difficult to look at. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words," Choose one photo that inspires you or causes you to reflect. Comment on what it means to you and why you like it or don't like it. You will have until midnight on Tuesday, May 24th to post your comment.
Those all pictures are really surprising because we are unknown of this fact about water scarecity as we live where adequate sources of water are available. The picture no. 13 quite surprised and touched my heart also because we had heard about the crisis of water but i had never imagined this crisis up to this level. This picture from sudan indicating the crisis of water through resource level. What i meant to say is that they are not drinking water by special filter pipe from river, lake, sea etc but they are drinkind water from muddy, almost dry lake. It is so amazing that some people are using 130,000 ltr water per year and some where people are drinking muddy water that caused many diseases.What a disbalanced earth.
ReplyDeleteAll of the photos made me think twice. However, photo number 5 is quite different from others because a number of questions came in my head after I observed everything in it minutely. First, when I saw Kenyan Villages on Pate Island with countless pits,I started anticipating the future world. It clearly indicates that we will face even more crisis in the field of safe and clean drinking water in the days ahead. Second, two billion people still rely on wells for drinking water, and it means to me that this population will suffer more in the future as both surface and ground water will certainly be scarce. Finally, I like the picture and most importantly, the ground reality it has shown in terms of water scarcity. Looking at this photo, I do not hesitate to say that all of the countries of the world need to express their solidarity to work together by introducing realistic plan of actions so that this crisis can be addressed properly. For this, there should be many Maude Barlows (change agents or pioneers) who could sensitize the world community about looming water crisis.
ReplyDeleteTo sum up, it is not only a problem of a particular country. So it should be resolved by all of the members of the world community.
I prefer No.7 "Yuck" picture. According to Maude Barlow's lecture on "looming global water crisis", I got the shocking information that 90% of water in China is polluted. China is a country which has limited resources of surface and underground water in the north and plentiful water in the south. The situation is more serious in cities. About 400 cities are lack of water, 110 cities are suffering from shortage of water amoung the 600 cities in China today. Normally the quantity of water shortage is 6 billion cubic meters each year. In order to solve the problem of supplying water in some cities, the government spent the equivalence of about 86 billion Canadian dollars from 2002 to 2050 in building 3 massive channels to transfer the water from southern China to northern China. Also, the government rises the price of tap water to reduce the usage of clean water and decreae the price on reuseable water. For example, it costs the equivalence CAD$10.00/per ton(=one thousand liters) to use the clean water to wash a car. However, it only costs the equivalence CAD$0.90/per ton(=one thousand liters) to use the reuseable water to wash the car. At the same time, the government requires teachers to teach their students to develop the consciousness of appriciation in regards of the precious water on our planet. I think the best way to have the students understand and realize how bad our water is being polluted is to let them see the pollution with their own eyes. Only when everyone have the sense of protecting our nature source, we will have a brighter future for the earth.
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ReplyDeleteHello Everybody. I just can not choose one photo. Doing so, is kind of isolating one particular situation of the big scenario. And, I think, we have to see the Macro-Scenario in order to try to understand what is happening and what are the possible consequences. So, seeing all those pictures, all I can feel is astonishment, shame, anger and fear at the same time. I feel astonishment because nature itself is amazing: all those beautiful rivers and oceans (like the big river in Brazil) and what it represents to life. I also feel astonished when, on the other hand, I see what our species is doing to this wonderful planet, to this miraculous live planet. How many known planets can joy all these expressions of life? And what are we giving back to the generosity of our mother nature? When I think about it, I feel anger, anger against my own species. How come is it possible that human greed and ambition are leading us and the rest of species of this planet to a predictable disastrous end? How come is it possible that human kind can sitll consider that neo-liberal policies like a continuous and even accelarated economic growth (increasing of production) are a good (or the best) way for the welfare of the population and the planet? What about the sustainability of the planet? How can the concept of a sustained economic growth fit or be included in the sustainability concept? I really feel ashamed when I see those awful man-made landscapes like the Aral Sea or the big fields of human waste as result of our production “needs”. And, of course, I feel fear, fear for the future. What kind of future are we creating for our descendents, our sons and grandsons?
ReplyDeleteThese pictures are really meaningful and each one has its own substance but my favorite one is picture number 12 - "Desalination". I really like this picture because this is the perfect method for our water crisis. As we know, two thirds of the Earth's surface is covered by the ocean which is a huge water source but unfortunately, we can't use the saltwater. Desalination is an ideal solution for getting fresh water out of sea water. Furthermore, the climate can't do anything to the water supply from desalination plant so we can have water all year round. To conclude, this picture makes me really happy because among those painful water problem, we still have a solution.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking through these pictures, I started realizing the seriously level of water crisis on the ground. However, the picture that provoked my thoughts and feelings the most was number 6 "Short Supply".Two dramatic problems lie beyond this scence. The first one is the suffering and struggle of these human beings to get something originally exists to them on this planet, the water. people in these rural area in India are victims of their government which are spending more on military rather than investing in fresh water resources projects. The second issue this picture reflects is the privatization of drinking water. As we heard from Maude Barlow in her lecture "The looming water crisis", some private companies are taking the advantage of the scarcity of water in some developing countries to distribute unaffordable water to these areas. This is a clear abuse on human rights since water is for all without any cost . The only postive thing I see is that mostly men are responsible for getting water for their families,on the contrast of what we saw in "The episode of every women", where women are forcing to do so.
ReplyDeleteAll the pictures published must be a danger alarm for all humanity on mother earth reminding them in the countdown to a global drought and the collapse of our nature. Therefore, all the countries should collaborate to take a strong stand in finding immediate solution to save the planet from a potential vanishing.
Hi everybody! After looking all these pictures I just imagine doing this on the pictures "Filtration" every day to get my water.How easy we have it, we just have to turn on a faucet.This people, i think are forgotten by the world.How about these people that use water to keep the gardens nice, while another don't have water for drinking.Because we live in the same world we have to take care of each other.Everybody can help!!!
ReplyDeleteFor me, some of the pictures were nice but most of them were disgusting. If I have to choose one picture between them, I would choose picture 12 which is about Desalination. I think what is being doing in that place of Spain is unsustainable simply because we just cannot run out of one resource and go to another without making a deep research that what would happen or what would left for next generations. We don't need to be an environmental expert to predict what would happen to the ecosystem if we start to consume water from the sea in big quantities. I know sea water is a big source of water that can be transformed and might be drinkable. Though, there are other measures that we can apply in order to avoid misusing fresh water. For example, companies should not be allowed to comercialize it, companies should have a sustainable plan to manage their waste, companies, investments in sanitary systems in places in poor conditions. As we can notice, governments and international organizations have a critical role to play in this world issue. To finish my comment, I just want to emphasise that we need more sustainable initiatives and not short term solutions.
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ReplyDeletePicture: N13/22 . Filtration: “Two Sudanese boys drink with specially fitted plastic tubes”
ReplyDeleteThis picture (Number 13) is really terrible!!! I did not believe there is still people in this world can drink any kind of water even dirty. It is such a shame for the humanity and the world. Here, nothing related to human right !!! Fortunately, we can see that Carter Center help these people from disease by providing a fitled plastic tubes. Why people in this region can not reach to drink water? I believe that, there are 2 issues of the water scarcity. It could be the water is not enough (the quantity) or economic issue to build up the infrastructure. From the picture, I think, they have an economic problem to extract the water from underground. Here, these two children drink from the agriculture irrigation because of the poverty and no means of transportation to carry the water. People of this village travel a ten or more kilometers to reach the surface water and then carry back the water. In this region in Soudan (Darfour), they have a lot of problem, poverty, war and disease. It is very dangerous to carry water because of the civil war. Thanks to the organization Carter Center to provide filter that improve the sanitation issue but it is not enough. This organization or other NGO have to work hard with UN or from donations to build sources for the village such as well because this people have underground water just under their feet. With these sources in their villages, it will have an impact to education and business, thus improve their basic need. I hope that developed countries push the developing countries to become more human toward their people, not just doing business with them. For us, I think our minimum responsibility is to reduce our footprint to save the planet and the future generation otherwise the next generations will be like this people and they will be living as humans did thousand of years ago.
If we put pins on all of the countries where these pictures have been taken, I think we will find water crisis has already widely spread all around the world. Among these pictures, I was amused by one of them --- slow the melt, which is the one that workers push a fleece-like blanket down the glacier's slope to protect the snow during the summer months. Its function must be similar to sun protection poncho modern ladies usually wear in summer. Inevitably it reminds me of the Athabasca glacier in Canadian Rockies, where I have visited last summer and astonished by the speed of melting. There is no doubt that putting on a blanket is merely an expedient. Before the earth gets tired of and punishes human eventually by subverting all of us, we should take actions. Not only in water crisis, but take all problems in the same picture into consideration.
ReplyDeletewater are pregnancy the first creature in this world,however as the humans behaver these limited frish water was lavished.after enjoyed these pictures i was really surprised,especially the thired and foth,because the thired picture is cave and water are flsde in,the plents were grow up in the cliff,which just like paradise.By contrast ,the forth picture is a ship stark in dessert.Personally i think ,we should reduces ues water now in stand of to argue how to save water, because we don't have time .
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1724375_1552689,00.html
All pictures showed me about world water crisis, but I selected that picture no.14 because I thought it has a determinate meaning what the root cause of world water crisis is. Therefore, I chose this one. The picture described that the main reason of water pollution is human basic activities such as food, clothing, and shelter, defecating, bathing, fishing and garbage. We can check that the people in Niger River Delta area are using water without water purifiers for survival in the picture. Today advanced countries or urban cities have used water purifiers and waste water disposal plants, by contrast, the water pollution continues growing as we are using water without water purifiers. Usually we believe that waste water is flowing to waste water disposal plants. Of course, it is a truth, but some waters which didn’t become purified water or several waste waters are dumped in the rivers, lakes, and seas. As bottled water case, we have to face hard truths and take strong steps ourselves. To sum up, the water pollution springs from human activities so we have to completely change our living habits. Since studying about water I look like an environmentalist :)
Hello everybody, by looking at all those pictures I told myself it is impossible to follow the instruction which is to choose only one picture from 22. That's why I would like to tell my feeling about three of those pictures which grabbed my attention. Picture #1 inspired me with its majestic beauty and made me thankful to God for that He gave us such a beautiful natural place on our planet. The next picture which caused me to reflect is #13. This picture made me very sad and pushed me to think how I can help these two little children. At the moment I saw them kneeling around the puddle and trying to drink this dirty water by sucking through tubes, for a second I thought what if these were my children which creeps me out. Immediatly I tryed to chase these thoughts and realized that we are very lucky to have clean water for drinking. Also, I felt like I couldn't skip picture #20. By looking at those children who are holding their hands around the buckets of clean water my first expresion was they make kind of a wall to protect this small amount of valuable liquid. By continuing to look at this picture I noticed their happy faces and another thought came to me. It is they really enjoy this moment without thinking for the next day in which they won't have any water. In conclusion, I hope that I won't forget what I felt by looking at those pictures; also, my desire to help won't disappear after I close this link.
ReplyDeleteThese 22 pictures are meaningful for me. Some photos are shocking. I could not choose only one photo, so I chose No.1, “The Staff of Life” and No.4, “Dried Up Seabed”. Why I chose these two photos because they showed us before and after of environmental destruction. As we read article about the Aral sea in our class, it was the fourth-largest lake in the world in 1960; however, the lake has shrunk two-thirds from original size and to become a salty and lifeless lake now. Human activities destroyed our precious nature.
ReplyDeleteWe have to protect our nature like No.1 photo; otherwise it will happen to irretrievable things like No.4 photo again in the future.
This is YanLi, I dont know why I cant use my yahoo account to post a common,so i used my friend's accountnumber. I like the "digging deep" one; it shows how everyone will face to the water crisis, and how seriously it would be. In this photo, many Kenyan villagers on Pate Island are digging at least 300 feet deep holes and looking for water. Earth is like an apple, if it bites by insert in everywhere, then the apple must not be an apple anymore. It reminds the rest of us need to save water, and protect the earth. As we heard through the video, any other energy can’t not kill people, expect water. In the next following years, people will fight for water, and this is a serious issue for every country, everyone. It’s time for us to do something, even though it might be too late. Remember last time we did the water footprint, and I hope everyone can take their responsibility for the water crisis .
ReplyDeleteEach of pictures awakened understanding of the water crisis to me. Our body is composed of 80% water which means we cannot live without water. Therefore,97 percent of water is salty water and we have 3 percent of freshwater which has been polluting rapidly and surrounding in the world. I choose No.9 picture which showed me extremely polluted water, harmful to drink people. Water crisis is serious problem all of countries, we should revive water eventhough. It is not just our problem, next generation will no water to drinking.
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