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DROP BY DROP

Water scarcity already affects every continent, and 4 of every 10 people on Earth.

"From 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth by John Javna, Sophie Javna, and Jesse Javna Copyright (c) 2008. Published by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved."

BACKGROUND

Experts predict that water is going to be “the oil of the 21st century.” Actually, that may be an understatement: Fresh water isn’t just essential to making our society run; we literally can’t live without it.

All you have to do is look at what’s happening with droughts, sinking water tables, and polluted waterways to understand that access to clean, fresh water is an increasingly serious—and potentially explosive—issue.

DID YOU KNOW

  • There’s plenty of water on the planet—an estimated 370 billion billion gallons. (Yes, you read that right.) But only about 2.5% of it is fresh water…and only about 3% of that is water we can actually use. The rest is stored in glaciers and snow cover.
  • Think of it this way: If the world’s entire water supply was 1 gallon, fresh water would make up 4 ounces, and readily accessible fresh water—our drinking, bathing, life-preserving water—would make up 2 drops.
  • Population growth is creating water problems (see p. 112). So is pollution; it’s estimated that we dump two million tons of waste into our precious rivers, lakes and streams every day. And development has turned forests and meadows into paved surfaces that can no longer absorb rain and snowmelt to replenish aquifers (see p. 40).
  • Climate change is increasing the stress on our water supplies even more. U.N. scientists calculate that global warming will account for about 20% of the increase in water scarcity.
  • People are already suffering from water shortages. According to the World Health Organization, “Today 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water and 2.4 billion lack access to proper sanitation.” But it will get worse: “By the middle of the century,” they say, “7 billion people may be faced with water scarcity.”


 

At fifteen, Sophie Javna, already has an impressive resume. The Oregon teen is the co-author of 50 SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH and is, in fact, the inspiration behind it. She convinced her father, renowned environmental activist John Javna, to re-write his original 50 Simple Things for a new generation. This time, Sophie and her father teamed up with 50 major, national conservation groups to develop 50 entirely new ways for everyday activists to pick a cause they are passionate about and then connect them to a larger support network. Sophie knew her Dad's old tips from 1980--like turning off a light bulb when leaving a room--weren't enough to counter the environmental crisis the world is currently facing. This deceptively small paperback contains huge ideas, and Sophie, along with all of us behind the book, is hoping it will serve as a catalyst for major change in this new era of "going green." The future is in her hands, and she is taking it on.

Her book is available at amazon.com and, here, we’re psyched to be able to excerpt one of our favorite chapters: “It’s a plastic world.”

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