Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Water pollution vs. Water shortage: which one is more dangerous?
After all the research and studying I have done in Dr. Forman's class, I still agree with my original statement, that water pollution is still far more dangerous than water shortage. Watching the movie "Flow" reinforced my thoughts even more. As life goes on, on Earth, our water is not going to get any cleaner. With the populations growing and the water being recycled over and over again, the water is just getting more foul and impure. There will never be a complete lack of water due to the highly organized and developed hydrologic water cycle. Our only version of a water shortage would be having a water shortage in our specific area. In a situation like that, the different regions in the world would just have to learn how to cooperate together and share water. It would teach the world priority, putting a greater importance on everyone's survival rather than on specific company's taking the water for their own money. In a situation where the water is dirty and toxic, no matter how much water we have, we still cannot drink it. One sip of contaminated water could kill someone immediately, and has done so in the past. However, one can live with a little amount of water for a short amount of time until they can next acquire pure water. The main issue that needs to be solved is the supervision of the purification of water in municipal water plants. There should not be as many pathogens in our tap water as there are, and the simple determined care of a group of people to protect the world can greatly help this problem of unsafe water.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well said
ReplyDeleteI understand there is unclean water in our environment; however, recycling water does not mean that the more we drink or use water the dirtier it gets. The more we directly put waste into water the dirtier it gets, but on the other hand the more we purify water with the technology we have the cleaner our water has the potential to be.
ReplyDeleteI would have to disagree with your statement. In Flow, we actually witnessed terrible water shortages in third world countries. In India, a man used polluted water and developed a system to purify it for drinking through UV lights. If there had not been any water to begin with, the man would not have had anything to work with; therefore, the people would have not died from sickness due to impure water, but from dehydration due to lack of water. We learned how essential and precious water, also known as "the new gold", really is. If there was a shortage, people in the world would not want to learn to share it, for there isn't much on earth available for humans to begin with. Additionally, recycling water is actually good, for example, the hydrologic cycle recycles water over and over again and produces some of the purest water on earth. Through the foul water lab, we learned that even the nastiest looking water can be purified for human use. I do recognize and agree that polluted water is a problem, but it can be cleaned, and is much better than not having any water at all.
ReplyDeletei agree that water pollution is worse because more people die from water pollution than water shortage.
ReplyDeleteVery good point evil...
ReplyDeleteyes thank you dana, IT IS A GOOD POINT
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE STOP SHOUTTTTTTIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your statement. As we have learned many times in school, water=life, and without water, there is no life. The question is not what makes people sick, yes, water pollution is bad, but having polluted water is better than not having any at all. We witnessed the horrifying third world countries who were suffering from lacking water, from having to wait in line for days for a few drips of water from a faucet. Although this water made them sick because it was polluted, they had water to work with. Even though tablets were too expensive for some people to afford, it was a way to make water suitable for drinking. A way was developed by a man in India to use UV lights to clean the most polluted water-- this saved many lives and improved the quality of millions of people's lifestyles. These people explained that without water, they would die, so even though their water was polluted, they HAD to drink it. The UV light treatment would not have been posible to develop if there was not any water to work with. We NEED water. Water CAN be purified and recycled. Water shortage is worse, I rest my case :
ReplyDelete