Pleasure Notes

by Hans Woltering/flickr

by Hypergurl - Tanya Ann/flickr

First, I must confess, I am not an expert. On anything, really. Certainly not on the subject of water, clean water, water conservation, water contamination, or water usage. I am even guilty of taking showers that last longer than five minutes, filling up the bath further than the halfway mark, letting my cat drink from a running faucet, and, I’m sure, myriad other peccadillos that trump my desire to conserve water and participate in sustainable living.

But I am passionate in two beliefs:

1. Providing clean water to all populations is a necessary component for peace.
2. The less water we waste, the less we endanger future generations’ – human and animal alike – access to it and, by extension, the less likely it will be that water continues to provide a catalyst for aggression and control.

Here are a few eye-popping statistics from National Geographic’s April 2010 issue:

• Two-thirds of our water is used to grow food.
• It takes 2,900 gallons of water to produce 1 pair of jeans; 1,857 gallons to produce 1 pound of beef; 154 gallons to produce 1 pound of avocados; 37 gallons to produce 1 cup of coffee; 9 gallons to produce 1 cup of tea. This is the strongest argument I’ve yet found to get me to eat less meat and drink tea rather than coffee.
• 83,000,000 more people are added to the world population each year. That’s a lot more mouths to feed and thirsts to quench.
• Women in developing countries walk, on average, almost 4 miles to get water. And frequently it isn’t even clean water.

I highly recommend picking up this issue of the magazine, or even subscribing to it. I swear, there’s always something jaw-droppingly fascinating every month. If you do grab the April 2010 issue, be sure to check out the articles by Barbara Kingsolver and Tina Rosenberg – they are particularly fantastic.

How often do you question whether the water you’re drinking is clean or not?

One out of eight people in the world lacks access to clean water. The statistic is deeply troubling. Having a visual picture of what that actually means, however, is truly horrifying. Check out the following video, which was created as a marketing tool for charity:water, a non-profit that works with organizations – including Partners in Health and Care, among others – throughout the world to provide sustainable sources of clean water to communities in need.

charity: water promo featuring “Time Bomb” by Beck from charity: water on Vimeo.

Pretty powerful, no?

I was first introduced to charity:water through Chris Guillebeau’s inspiring blog, The Art of Nonconformity. I’ve donated money or time to causes in which I believe for years. The timing of Chris’ post, however, correlated with my renewed desire to streamline my charitable giving. I was feeling overwhelmed by how many amazing organizations can benefit from support and how great the needs of our species and our world appear. To be perfectly honest, I was feeling overwhelmed by life in general, and this was just one component of it but refreshingly tangible.

I want to save the whales, the dolphins and the polar bears; the children dying of AIDS and malaria; the women suffering from rape and genital mutilations; the homeless; the polar ice caps; those stricken with MS, ALS, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer; those suffering from obesity, underfunded schools, lack of health care; those in need of an abortion, a roof over their heads, shoes on their feet, or a place to bury their dead…

I am a spiritual person, but I was raised in a liberal household by a recovering Catholic and an experimentalist seeker. I was reprimanded by stern nuns and priests throughout elementary school, broke my collar bone the summer I attended Jewish camp, avoided our family kitchen during my mother’s sojourn with fermented Chinese herbs and the Dao, dreaded the plethora of mayonnaise salads that are my only lasting association with the Episcopalian faith of my grandparents, and cried at every story of injustice in the name of God, Jehovah, Allah, or Vishnu.

As a result, when someone uses the word “god” in a non-blasphemous way, I get the heebie-jeebies. So many acts that I do not condone have been committed, and sanctified, under the auspicies of that little three-letter word.

However, I whole-heartedly believe that there are mysterious powers in the universe that are greater than myself. I believe in spirits and energy and love, things not entirely defined by science. So I no longer arbitrarily dismiss someone or something because their lexicon includes “god” when they articulate their ideas or explain their actions. Instead, I dive deeper to see what they actually mean.

With respect to charity:water, I came to the conclusion that founder Scott Harrison’s choice to credit a return to his Christian faith as the impetus behind staring the organization did not threaten the integrity of the services it provides. Charity:water works with highly respected non-profits, most of which are not faith-based. They do not prosthelytize, withhold help to non-Christian communities, or link religious conversion or specific family planning practices to aid. They have a phenomenal record of action. So, after weeks of deliberation, conversations with friends and colleagues, and a fair number of internet searches, I decided to support them.

Days after I made this decision, one of my favorite journalists and bloggers, Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times, articulated my dilemma about faith and charity far better than I ever could, first in his column and then on his blog.

In addition to simply sending charity:water a check once a year, or when a crisis like that in Haiti occurs, I’ve designed a necklace stamped with “Water is Life,” which is available at my three-week-old Etsy shop.

via Noted Design

I will donate 20 percent of proceeds from the sale of it, on an on-going basis, to charity:water. I’m super excited about offering this necklace because it feels so much more tangible than just signing a check; I’ve created something that can do some good, in addition to being pretty, and that conveys my philosophy as well as that of anyone who wears it.

If one child avoids dying of dysentery because she had access to clean water, if one girl can spend the 5 hours each day that she’d previously allotted for fetching dirty water to learning to read, if one woman can use her muscles to herd cows or sew clothes to generate income rather than to manually haul diesel cans full of water up a hill, the whole world can change for the better.

If one war is prevented because a lake refills enough to satisfy the needs on all shores, if one aquifer is left intact to avoid destabilizing the earth above it, if one creek is cleaned up so that a healthy variety of fish returns to populate it and possibly provide food for nearby animals and people, the whole world can change for the better.

Am I naive, too Pollyanna? God, I hope not.

Are the subjects of water, charity, faith, god, and peace much more complex than this particular long-winded ramble? Without question.

Do I want to know what you think of all this? YES.