Water Essay ;; Flow

In my Digital Media class we watched part of the documentary "Flow." We didn't watch all that much however I've seen this several times before (well twice, maybe three times within the past two years) and I was expecting to remember more of it. I'm sure I can find 500 words though.

It's unheard of how polluted so much of the worlds water is. There is so little fresh water as it is, for the majority of the worlds water is in the ocean. Saline and all, not so great to drink. Industrialism has poisoned so much of the water supplies in third world countries leaving no drinkable water. They have no choice but to drink it however.

You can live without love but you can't live without water.

The problem is not only extended to third world countries, for water pollution can be found everywhere. It may be considered worse in some aspects in the more developed world. In the water of many major cities there are trace amounts of pharmaceuticals, rocket fuel, I'm sure a lot more but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. Tap water is avoided in many cases, for consumption at least. Many of the chemicals are absorbed through the skin to make things worse. Simple bathing could be slowly loading you up with some heavy drugs.

For those who avoid tap water, and drink bottled water the story is not all that much different. Bottled water is not regularized. There is no standard to meet, no major screening of the water, there is only one person who is responsible for any standards and they also have the responsibility of several other actives. There have been cases where people have set up wells in the middle of parking lots and sold the water from that in bottles. In Toronto a large water company got busted for selling tap water, strait from the tap pretty much. Just stuck in a bottle, given a label, and shipped off. The plastic also may leak chemicals into the water.

So what does this all mean for us? Us being my peers on the most part. We live in beautiful British Columbia and don't need to worry about water pollution very much. From what I've heard, BC may have the best water in the world. At times it isn't that good. As for pollution, I'm sure it's around, however we have so many fresh, clean lakes there isn't all that much to worry about I suppose. I know around the area I live, we are surrounded by lakes. They are almost all accessible by dirt road at the least though, which I find worry-some. There is a fair amount of logging in the area, especially if you take the roads that take you to the lakes. All the logging can't be good for our last perfect water supply?

I've been told that tap water tastes terrible (and it may, depending on the area) however I think bottled water tastes much worse. I avoid drinking it as much as I can, and on the rare occasion where I must the only thought that will come to mind is how it tastes like plastic. The flavor is not actually plastic but I associate it to be. The water tastes bad. It's simple as that. There's something within the process of water sitting on a plastic bottle that does something to it and I don't want to be loading my body with chemicals at such a young age. I may not worry so much if I was much older, however that isn't the case for a very long time. I suspect by the time I am of that age plastic will be much less of a problem.

Everyone seems to be shying away from plastic, or at least the idea of it. I haven't seen any evidence of it disappearing much.

And since I am already on the topic of plastic water bottles I think I will make a note at the price of it. It is ridiculous. How much does it cost for a liter of gas? Something around 1.10 Canadian currency in my town. I'm not sure, but I've seen it around this price. How much does it cost to buy a 750ml bottle of water? 1.50, sometimes more. In larger quantities the water is more affordable per volume of water; but the point is water costs more than gas.

The price of water is only going to go up. In our natural water cycle the water used is always returned to the cycle, although human intervention has pushed it out of this. There is more water being used than what is being put back. There is a continued demand for more water, with less water available. According to capitalism the more demand, the more price.

Eventual we may run out of oil to make plastic bottles. The price of oil will continue to rise due to this resource being limited. The problem of water running out is less of a concern because it will always be there. It is just being used. If the world continues as it is now eventual some of the flawed systems that have been created will become critical flawed and they will collapse. Maybe some large dams will brake, freeing the water they hold?

I'm not against the use of dams to create power, but it is just one more feature adding to the stress of water. The grand cannon was carved out by the Colorado River, however it is going to stay as it is with much less change as there should be for a very long time. The river is held back by one of the largest dams in the world. This is holding back a fair amount of water, much of it is being taken out of the river for the near by cities. What about the other large bodies of water?

Well there is the ocean, where all water gets to eventually. It is salty and unpleasant to drink though. We must wait for it to evaporate and then it rains down from the sky, in the form of rain usually. It can be hail, or snow (we just got much more snow than we are use to.. I dislike it), but I'm pretending that doesn't exist for the current time.

The pollution in the atmosphere may mix with the falling water to create an acidic rain that damages the environment. It is not acidic to the point that it is not fit for human consumption, but after some time it may eat away at paint and plants.

This rain flows into river, on the most part, where it should be filtered naturally. I'm sure a lot of it is, though if you were to go down to any river around any larger city you will probably find a lot of packaging. Food rapers loves to collect in and around water bodies. I'm sure that isn't the greatest thing for it.

The ocean is no better, if anything I'm sure there's a lot more pollution within the ocean. We can't drink that water in the first place so I won't go into it much however it is easy to see that all of the water cycle is corrupted. The negative factors in it may not be found everywhere in the world, but water has a habit of getting around.

- Bugworlds
-- Oh, how I dislike forced writing due to topics that do not interest me much. Writing without inspiration often not so great in quality or quantity.