Comments for Is access to clean water a basic human right? »
Posted By altnrg 9 months, 2 weeks ago in Science & TechnologyWith fresh water resources becoming scarcer worldwide due to population growth and climate change , a growing movement is working to make access to clean water a basic universal human right .
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Tangent0019 months, 2 weeks ago
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"You think people should have to buy water?"
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Well, technically we already do. I have a water bill every month. Arguably, we're not really buying water per se (I mean, God doesn't get a fat 'rain check' every month), we're really paying for the maintenance of the purification and delivery system. We pay more if we use more to keep us from overusing a limited resource.
I'm not sure how it works for farmers and businesses who have to negotiate use rights with the state for nearby water resources.
Heh heh, 'rain check'.-
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Dionys9 months, 2 weeks ago
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"I'm not sure how it works for farmers and businesses who have to negotiate use rights with the state for nearby water resources."
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Down stream water rights.
I hear what you're saying re: buying water, but clean water along with clean air should be a resource available to everyone. Not ONLY those who can pay for it.
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calitennflo9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Clean water and a clean environment are the requirements of all within the abode that we live in.
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The chemicals they use, such as chlorine to kill bacteria, and flouride add to destroy a healthy immunune system.
There are additional things that tear down the immune system...and the external radiation we get from cellular phones is one contributor.
It is sad...that in the name of money...the uS has taken this land and as reported polluted evey stream, river,lake or body of water here.
I understand, that in North Carolina, you will find the largest contributor to pollution upon the whole continent.
It is not possible for Washington to exist without the one causal of all this bad. They have to have money...and again...its more like play money that they force us to use.
The explaination for what I said is...they provide each denomination's individual bils for only 8 cents each. The rest is imagined I guess. -
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Tangent0019 months, 2 weeks ago
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We as a people have imbued the government with the responsibility of protecting resources from pollution and assuring the quality of the water delivered to us. While we may define that as a 'right' to clean water, we must also recognize that such oversight comes at a cost. A 'right' doesn't necessarily equate to the resource being free. Someone living 'off the grid' may collect rain water, but they still likely pay taxes that pay for efforts to assure that rain doesn't contain excess acid.
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The EPA protects the air we breathe (theoretically, at least), and we pay for their services through our taxes, so yes, we do pay to breathe.
Does the 'civilized' world have an obligation to step in and help when drought or famine threaten to wipe out whole populations? Yes, especially in regions where colonialism has wiped out indigenous self-sufficiency for the sake of corporate profit.
I think the question is better framed thus: Do the resource concerns of the people living within a region take automatic precedence over the resource concerns of business or govenrment entities. I would have to answer 'yes'. -
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willottica9 months, 2 weeks ago
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I think there should be a right to clean drinking water. (Or as cloud15 said above, drinkable water.) But the amount guaranteed should be enough to drink and wash food for consumption. We should not be guaranteed enough drinking water to flush our toilets 20-30 times per day, or to take 30-minute showers in drinking water.
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A lot of infrastructure change might be required to switch from putting purified drinking water in our bathrooms and washing machines... but it may become necessary. Alternatively, we could adopt the "water truck" strategy from Mexico, where a truck delivers drinking water every day (or two). This would allow our current plumbing to be used for "clean enough" water, which we might not necessarily like to drink. -
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