“Bottled water has been described as “one of the greatest cons of the 20th century” and as “marketing’s answer to the emperor’s new clothes”(1)
Rather than typing some thoughts into this post, I invite you to watch the video clip above. CINE-ONU will be screening the full film “Tapped” for free to mark the World Water Day on March 22nd. If you are in Brussels and would like to see it, register with an email until March 21st 5:30 to cine-onu@unrig.org.
I just listened to an entertaining iTunesU podcast on Nutrition by Berkeley University taught by Nancy Amy. The topic: Alcohol
“That men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains” is the Shakespeare quote that opens the discussion.
Nancy explains how alcohol enters your stomach and gets absorbed so quickly that it can get to your brain in less than a minute. As stated by Bert Valley, alcohol has been consumed for over 10000 years. One reason that made our ancestors drink was the fact that people knew about the contamination of water and the impacts this could have on the human body (e.g. diseases). Since not many people had access to clean water they simply used fermentation to purify the water. That is one important reason why alcoholic beverages were so popular in the Western world back in ancient times…
In Asia another method became popular to purify water and avoid diseases: cooking water and brewing tea.
As in Western Europe alcohol was consumed over generations, the gene that helps us absorb a fair part of the alcohol became a quite important feature in daily life while in the Asian world, the gene was not needed and therefore did not develop as strongly in the Asian gene pool.
Interesting that the issue of water contaminations brought us to a regular consumption of alcohol, isn’t it?
Ok, now seriously:
“The oceans and seas are a source of life on our planet. They cover almost three quarters of the Earth’s surface and contain some 90% of the biosphere. Their protection is essential to the future of our planet. Pollution of our seas and destructive fishing practices are anathema to that. Our oceans and seas also play a strategic role in sustaining climate and weather patterns, distributing solar energy, and absorbing carbons.” (Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas)
Three quarters of fishing grounds are almost depleted. Rising water levels inflicted by global warming are threatening sensitive corals and low lands. Now I won’t blog more about it as others can do this better. Here a good overview by a member of the Ocean Project and here more on the topic by the following organisations UN, the European Commission or GreenPeace. You can sign a petition with GreenPeace on protecting 40% of the world’s oceans as marine reserves.
The Ocean Project has a list of events around the globe, nothing though for Belgium. However, Sunday June 7th is la Fête de l’Environnement 2009 organised at Parc Cinquantenaire by Bruxelles Environnement, where you can meet actors of the environmental field. The Brussels Aquarium will also have a stand there. In the evening there will be a free concert.
Twestival is a series of events that will take place on the 12th of February all around the world.
The aim is to raise at least about 4000USD per event so that one well can be built and give people in the developing world access to clean drinking water (this event supports the cause charity:water).
The event is to 100% run by volunteers. Publicity is mainly made via networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. For some more information, watch the video below:
A Water Roller is a tool designed for water tranportation. Instead of carrying big buckets, one can simply ‘roll’ the water. Anyone can buy or distribute these rollers. › Continue reading
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