Water 1st International

I have been reading about the organization called Water 1st International. A lot of the things that they are doing and planning to do seem very beneficial to the sick and poor people who do not have safe drinking water. After the Millenium Summit in September of 2000, many world leaders set goals for the sustainability of the environment and the Water 1st International organization believes that water is the most important aspect to reach the goals. The Millenium Summit set eight goals to be complete by 2015, they are 1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2. achieve universal primary education, 3. promote gender equality and empower women, 4. reduce child mortality, 5. improve maternal health, 6. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, 7. ensure environmental sustainability, 8. develop a global partnership for development.

Each of these goals are the effects of unsafe water and lack of water. Water 1st International believes that the most important way to help make these goals a success is to provide safe water for everyone. They hold many projects and will continue to hold projects that help to provide the impoverished with safe drinking water. I think that they are doing the best that they can to help the poor and I plan to do whatever I can to support this organization because I believe they are setting good examples for the greedy people to follow.

Contaminated Water in China

     I have been researching some issues dealing with contaminated water. I found an article that talked about fish farmers who were fishing in contaminated waters. The article was from the New York Times Website, Januray 18, 2008. The title of the article was China Says Its Seafood Is Now Safer and Better and was written by David Barboza. I found out that these fish farmers had their exports rejected in Japan and the United States because the fish were contaminated. They found out that the cause of the contamination was from the cities and industries polluting the waterways. The article also explained how China is the largest exporter of fish to Japan and the United States.

     This is an example of how contaminated water in one area can have effects on other people too. The fishermen lose sales and the buyers lose food. Another reason why there is such a huge demand for these fish is that the ocean is yielding less fish, so now other countries rely on China’s land based fish farming. I hope that the big corporations will see that trying to get rid of their problems to other countries might finally be catching up to them. It looks like only a matter of time before these people are eating a fish and realize that it came from a far away place where their business contaminated the water. Maybe they will start caring about other people once they are being affected by the problems.

Jared’s Introduction

I will research the people and places that are affected by polluted water. I plan to research those people who are forced to drink contaminated water or have to live near polluted water. I believe that many people suffer from contaminated water, mainly in less developed countries, because of large corporations who are exploiting the land and being protected by “free” trade. I’d like to examine exactly what free trade means and find out who actually has to pay for the few people’s profits.

Jared Davis

CES 440 Section 1