World Water Day – March 22

Our Most Valuable Resource – Water!

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to the following copyrighted material. For permission to reprint or excerpt it and/or link it to another website, contact them at  

surfwriter.girls@gmail.com

One of the most important global issues facing the world today is water…or, to be more precise, the lack of it.

Less than 1% of the world’s water is suitable for drinking. More valuable and necessary than oil, water is a resource that we cannot afford to squander. SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel learned that by 2025 more than three billion people – close to half the world’s population – are likely to suffer from water shortages.

To combat this problem, the United Nations has designated March 22, 2014, as World Water Day, a day to focus on the world’s water needs and what we can do to preserve this precious resource.

To safeguard our water supply, we all need to reduce our Water Footprint – the amount of water that we use each day…for drinking, cooking, cleaning, personal hygiene, home and automobile maintenance, and more.

In the United States the average person uses 100-150 gallons of water each day. In Europe it’s 74 gallons; China 23 gallons; Africa 17 gallons.

Asia has 60% of the world’s population, but only 36% of the world's water…a problem that needs to be addressed sooner, rather than later, especially given its growing industrialization and shift from a rural environment to a metropolitan one. 

The non-profit Surfrider Foundation, which is dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, waves and beaches, is a strong supporter of World Water Day. As part of its environmental education programs, Surfrider has created a “connecting the dots” 

Drop into Clean Water program that demonstrates, dot-by-dot, how water waste and pollution affect all of us.

Did you know that a single drippy faucet can waste 1,000 gallons of water a year? Or that 7 billion gallons of fresh water is used each day in America just to water our lawns and gardens?

To get everyone involved in working together to conserve water, Surfrider is sponsoring a World Water Day Twitter Contest. You can enter it by just tweeting your best water saving tip to: @Surfrider#WWD 

The top three winners, announced on March 22^nd, receive Billabong wetsuits, a year’s supply of Emergen-C and Volkswagen T-shirts, beach towels and tote bags. So, get on board and send in your own best idea!

SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti ask you to remember: Every single drop of water we use makes a difference.  In the words of British physician and author Thomas Fuller (1732), “We never know the worth of water until the well runs dry.”

By connecting the dots between responsible water usage that minimizes waste and pollution to a world of clean water, we can help to ensure that in the years to come there is fresh water to drink…

and clean waterways and oceans to enjoy.

www.surfwritergirls.blogspot.com

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