Access to safe and clean water is a fundamental human right

Today is Change.org’s Blog Action Day. They’ve picked the theme of Water for folks around the world to blog about and bring attention to the importance of access to clean and safe water as a human rights issue.

Access to clean and safe water is something that we often take for granted living in the US. We shouldn’t. Not only is our own public water supply often much less safe than we realize, but access to water around the world is a growing problem. While our consumption may not mirror this, our natural resources are limited. If we keep up with certain patterns of consumption and pollution of our water sources, eventually there will not be enough clean water to go around. There are already parts of the world where lack of access to clean water is a leading cause of death.

All of this and we haven’t even touched on the problem of privatization of water sources through things like bottled water. For which, by the way, there are no quality standards. You are quite often simply buying someone else’s tap water repackaged.

One of my favorite organizations working on this issue is Food and Water Watch. Check out their website for things you can do to ensure access to clean and safe water.