Although almost two thirds of the planet is covered by water, less than 1% of this is readily drinkable. Since 1993, March 22nd has been designated as International World Water Day to highlight the global issue of safe drinking water and proper sanitation. Earlier this month the UN announced that it has met it's Millennium Development Goal of improving access to clean drinking water ahead of the 2015 deadline. Compared to 76% in 1990, 89% of people now have improved water supplies. Of the remaining minority, a staggering 40% live in sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is compounded by the related widespread lack of adequate sanitation, another signifier of poverty and disease, particularly in India where almost 630 million people don't have access to a toilet. Unsafe water and sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease.

The solutions proposed are comprehensive and cover changes to education, legislation and agricultural practice, with sustainability being the key factor. Digging wells and boreholes, harvesting rainwater, protecting rivers, lakes and springs, water filtering and purification all have their roles. But the overwhelming message is that really what is required is a fundamental shift in our consciousness in terms of how we relate to water as a natural, and possibly the most important, resource.

Most importantly, developed world countries need to recognize that water and energy are mutually dependent resources. Many countries are making commendable efforts to help meet demands through recycling and desalination plants. These processes are energy intensive, and the production of energy requires water. In fact all forms of production use water. Depending on the climate and methods used, producing 1 cup of coffee can use 140 litres of water, 1 glass of wine 120 litres, 1 glass of beer 75 litres, 1 glass of milk 200 litres, an egg 135 litres, a bag of potato crisps 185 litres, a hamburger 2400 litres, 1 beef steak 7000 litres and a new car 148 000 litres. Currently more than a billion people on Earth have to make do with around only 5 litres of water a day to wash, cook, clean and drink.

Investing in water stressed communities yields tremendous results.  Charity: water and Water.org continue to show how a donation of as little as 20$ can gift another human being with safe drinking water. For every 1$ invested in water, sanitation and hygiene programs there is an estimated 8$ return in improved local economies and lowered healthcare costs. Children are able attend to school, women are free to pursue jobs, communities can feed and improve themselves. Anyone reading this is privileged and there's a lot we can do:  The minimum is to be more aware of our water and energy consumption. As consumers we can support local farmers. We can be aware of where of how and from where large corporations obtain their resources and produce their products. We can make the effort to seek out fair/direct  trade products and even request suppliers to stock fair trade products.

And if you'd like to support the Good News Campaign to gift a community with its own clean water supply please follow the link and make a contribution.

I'm typing this blog in fairly comfortable conditions. My laptop is plugged in, my stomach is full, the kitchen and dining room lights are both on, the heater is gurgling comfortably next to me, music is playing and I have a bottle of fresh water mixed with lemon juice to ward of any colds. Of all these luxuries the last one is most on my mind.

Almost a billion people worldwide don't have access to safe drinking water. A billion. Almost impossible to believe but tragically true evidenced by the number of people (overwhelmingly children under 5 lacking strong immune systems) that die from preventable diseases linked to dirty water and lack of basic sanitation. According to  charity:water more people die from unsafe water than from violence and war each year.  Water.org  states that a child dies from a water related illness every 20 seconds. Communities lacking access to safe water and sanitation are at all sorts of risks. Women are vulnerable to harassment and attack as they walk long distances. The relentless daily weight of water leads to early back pain, and they are prevented from attending to their homes, children and any kind of economic activity. Children able to carry water miss school because of the basic need to survive thus ensuring the cycle of poverty, and in some cases private water distributors hold humans to ransom with exorbitant prices that further cripple struggling communities.

                                                                              Good News Campaign

In cooperation with local partners charity:water has assisted over 2 500 000 people in 19 countries to have access to safe water. They don't give handouts - they empower communities to enrich their own lives. All donations are tax deductible and 100% of each contribution is directly  invested in their projects. They have a tracking system that shows how each dollar is spent, as well as Google GPS coordinates to show proof of completed projects. Through drilling well points and setting up distribution points charity:water is helping to promote health for villages, schools and clinics, and creating a platform for economic growth too. The need to have fresh drinking water and proper sanitation is so fundamental to life that anyone can relate to it. I'd like to use my 40th birthday to help fund a project, and so I've set up the The Good News Campaign on charity:water's associated collection site to allow my friends and anyone else to join in. The target amount of 5000 USD will ensure that a village of 250 can begin taking steps towards health and prosperity. If this interests you, you can help invest in people through the link above.
And please spread the word.


Blessings and thanks.
Grant

Sources:
charity:water
water.org

There is a common misconception that a wave consists of water traveling over the sea surface, when in fact it is energy that is moving through the medium of the water giving it a particular shape. An analogy would be that of a whip that is cracked. Energy snakes out from one's hand along the length of the whip to deliver a nasty sting but the whip itself doesn't actually move freely towards the target. At sea waves are generated by wind energy which disrupts the sea surface creating haphazard patterns. Over time these disturbances become arranged into more coherent patterns which we see as waves. As energy passes through the medium of the water it does cause the water to move, but only slightly, and the molecules return to their basic positions once the wave has passed. Pretor-Pinney, author of The Wave Watcher's Companion, writes that  basically waves just "borrow" the water briefly to express their form. The wave energy transfers from molecule to molecule very quickly without ever attaching to just one position or part of the water.

He then points out that we too are constantly changing, though much slower of course. The atoms that make up our adult bodies are not all those with which we were born, and should we live long enough it's fair to suggest that all atoms and molecules will eventually be replaced, making us a completely different and new being from who we were on our first day on Earth. Like the waters both within and outside us, our very physical nature in which we invest so much energy and identity in, is in constant flux. We are continuously breaking down and forming up, transferring old material for new, borrowing atoms from the world to shape ourselves!

And so like waves that borrow water for their energy to flow, could we not also be seen as energy borrowing temporary forms to express ourselves? In 1835 the French zoologist Dujardin discovered protoplasm, the magical and mysterious, and formerly secret, ingredient of life. To paraphrase Marks, protoplasm is 75% water and is found in every living cell of all living, and only living, organisms. Protoplasm is the stuff that is "alive" in animals and plants and is believed to be the first life form on Earth. Humans cannot create protoplasm, we have to receive it from plants or plant-eating animals. Despite difficulties in actually defining just what protoplasm is, its clear that without it life cannot exist.

Surfers live for the death of the wave. In its last moments the breaking wave offers a place for us to play. But as Pretor-Pinney states energy never dies, it only changes form. So the end of the wave is not really the end. Some of the energy converts into sound waves as the crashing of surf, some energy become small tremors felt on the beach as the wave meets the shore or reef, and some energy even converts into heat through the friction of rocks and sand.

If we are energy, or soul or spirit, then where does our energy go when we end? Does it continue to a place of rest as in Heaven, is it converted and recycled as in reincarnation, is it reabsorbed by the universe for other use like the atoms that we discard? What other manifestations of energy are there that we can't even imagine?

Our planet is alive not only because water exists, but because it circulates. Water's movement accounts for, amongst others, the presence of weather, migration patterns, varying zones of vegetation, and land purification. Similarly, we rely on the circulation of our blood to maintain the supply of oxygen and nutrients essential for life.

Chemically, blood and seawater are quite similar. The sodium, potassium and chloride ions in blood are also found in the oceans, as are the dissolved gases oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, since all cells need these to function. In 1897 French scientist Rene' Quinton made the discovery that human cells could actually live in seawater. In a bizarre and daring experiment he removed virtually all of a small dog's blood and replaced it with a saline solution that was essentially diluted seawater. The liquid was called "isotonic" because it's concentration of salts and minerals was the same as that of blood (9 parts per thousand). The dog, named Sodium (presumably after the formula for salt - sodium chloride), accepted the saline solution and returned to full health within a week after the treatment. Sodium went on to live a further five years in good health. Since Quinton's breakthrough saline drips have saved countless lives. 50 years later his studies were successfully replicated on dogs of varying breeds.

Questions have of course been raised about the implications of this strange compatibility for other mammals. And because isotonic seawater is essentially a living substance, researchers now believe that Marine Plasma, also called Quinton Serum or Ocean Plasma, can actually be used to protect against illness and cell decay due to its ability to rejuvenate cells.

My brief article Our Bodies of Water has more interesting facts on water and its importance for us.

                                                                                                                                   (In December I posted an updated version of this article here.)

Why should we care what happens to sharks?

Most shark species began to differentiate about 64 million years ago but their origins date to around 400 million years ago. They've survived everything including at least five ice ages and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Until now. Due to longline fishing (which uses up to hundreds of baited hooks attached to a main line to catch indiscriminately) and finning (a barbaric and lucrative practice where the sharks' fins are usually removed on board and the live sharks then tossed overboard where they sink and drown), certain areas are showing shark population losses of up to 97%. Somewhere between 73 - 100 million sharks are estimated to be slaughtered annually through finning alone, which serves a huge market for the traditional Chinese delicacy shark fin soup. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN Red List) of the 440 known species, almost 100 are now either vulnerable to, or under imminent threat of, extinction  At the current rate Hammerheads, Mako, Blacktip, Whitetip, Bull, Whale, Nurse, Thresher and even the much maligned Great White sharks could all but disappear.

The documentary Sharkwater (2007) helped raise awareness about the crisis and demonstrated the power of education and conscience when Costa Ricans took to the streets to oust blackmarket operators there, reaffirming the marine reserve of Cocos Island as a safe haven for sharks where both longline fishing and shark finning are illegal.

Now for the good news of 2011.

March: Costa Rica updated existing legislation to also protect the seamounts (submerged mountains) around it which ensures that the coral life and nutrient rich waters can continue to supply food for its abundant migratory and resident species. Ecuador has similar laws protecting the sharks and wildlife of its Galapagos Marine Reserve, as do the nations of Palau, Guam, Honduras, The Maldives and The Bahamas.

July: Taiwan made waves becoming the first Asian nation to pass legislation designed to limit shark finning. Culturally linked to mainland China, Taiwan is a huge market for shark fins, meat, liver and, oil. New measures require boats to return with fully in tact sharks so that fins are removed on shore. A public awareness campaign was also launched to try and dispel certain myths such as the belief that sharks don't get sick.

September: California, a huge Asian and seafood market,  followed the examples of  Hawaii, Washington and Oregan in passing a bill to ban the sale of shark fins. At the same time, Richard Branson joined retired basketball star Yao Ming in Shanghai to raise awareness of the plight of sharks in Shanghai.

October: The Marshall Islands, a collection of atolls in the Pacific, dedicated a massive and unprecedented almost 2 million square kilometres of ocean to the preservation of sharks by banning not only all forms of commercial fishing of sharks, but even the trade or possession of sharks or any shark parts. And four days ago Toronto began preparations to do the same pass laws banning shark fin products.

Shark finning is terribly cruel and longlining is excessive and wasteful. But these laws are also necessary because they're based on other sobering and important facts. Sharks are not just the apex predators of the seas. They are the gatekeepers of a vast, complex and inter-related ecosystem and keep the balance in check by controlling the other species. Without sharks, other fish would multiply disproportionately and gorge themselves on the reefs and plankton vital for all species, including our own. By some estimates plankton is responsible for producing up to half the world's oxygen. It's also a major factor in controlling carbon dioxide since it absorbs the gas easily. Upsetting the oceans ecosystems will create massive upheaval for all life on earth.

It's up to us to keep the balance. We know too much to keep losing sharks to greed, customs or fears.
Protect sharks.
Their fate may be our own.

Sources:
Marshall Islands Creates World's Largest Shark Sanctuary
Costa Rica protects huge marine area around Cocos Island
The IUCN Red List of Endangered Species
Taiwan Set to become First in Asia to Ban Shark Finning at Sea

Why is it that we so often use water during blessings or baptisms?

This thought was on my mind as I returned from visiting my brother Mark, sister-in-law Emma, and nephew Harrison last month. One of the things on my holiday "to do" list was to perform a blessing for my Godson, and all I really knew was that in order to do so we needed to be near the sea, and to use water. Now back in Japan and re-reading William Marks's The Holy Order of Water it occurs to me that, apart from the obvious connotations of birth, cleansing and purity; not only is water quite simply life, but it's also connection.

The water flowing along the rugged coast of East Lothian is connected to the water pulsing into the wide arc of Sagami Bay through a constant global procession of clouds, rain, hail, snow, ice and groundwater gathered for a time in lakes, wells, rivers, glaciers and seas. Some of this water arrived here from outer space in the form of ice showers, or trapped inside comets. So on a macro scale the water here connects earth to the stuff of the cosmos. Water, like life, is always all around us. And of course in us.

We humans are water beings, sustained by it from the instant we're conceived for the rest of our lives. We are, in fact, physically of water. When Harrison lived inside Emma he was 90% water. Now at 15 months his tender body is about 78% water. His rapidly expanding little brain will always be around 85% water, as will 90% of his blood. When he's old and grey he'll still be mostly water, and a brilliant composite of all the salts and minerals nature can flow through him. The same as flowers and trees.

Touching some of that seawater to Harrison's forehead, the traditionally recognized seat of consciousness, was a way for me to mark his arrival, and celebrate a spiritual birth connecting him to every living thing on the planet, on a macro as well as a micro level. Just a few days before, we'd gone for a walk and I showed him the sea and told him it was a gift for him. I hope he always feels connected to himself and to life, and that he grows up to be a guardian of the earth, and its waters that link all life. When he's older I'll show him the sea again and tell him that he is water.

For now though, it would be great if he'd just agree to having his hair rinsed.