2006:
Environmental Justice: Water
The
Council decided to broaden its focus to a theme of Environmental Justice:
Water. . Again with the support of John E. Telfer II, Editor of the Midland Daily News, dates were
established for three articles to appear in the paper.
The
articles were an Introduction
(August) , Part II (September), and Clean
Water is a Human Right (October).
We
invite you to read these in sequence but llinks are provided to move around
this page more easily. Send us
your feedback.
Jon MacDonagh-Dumler, a
former member of the
MICPJ also hosted
a water education event during the summer of 2006 at the Tridge and raised
money for water buckets for peoples in
Fourth Annual Peacemaker Awards: awards tied into
the theme were presented to Kelly Huggard, a community member, and Doug Koop,
director of Little Forks Conservancy, the community agency recipient. These
awardees have worked to ensure availability and preservation of clean water,
the wise use of it and are committed to its cleanliness and availability for use
by future generations, helping to create a more peaceful world for all
children. The Peacemaker
Awards potluck was held at
The Midland Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice
hopes that you find these articles and panel valuable. Please email
us with your comments.
Introduction
to Environmental justice: Water
George Schaller, member
MICPJ
Most of us count on being
able to turn on a faucet and get fresh, clean water on tap. Many of us don't
give much thought to where water comes from or how it gets to that tap. We just
expect it to be there. William Ashworth, author of The Great Lakes, An Environmental
History, wrote: "As children of a culture born in a water-rich environment
we have never really learned how important water is to us...we do not respect
it." We take for granted the wonder of water and what a vital resource it
is.
No water, no life. It's that basic. Without
it there would be no life on earth. The lifestyle we have depends on abundant,
clean, inexpensive, readily available water. However, for many people on earth
the availability of fresh water is the major concern of daily existence.
Today the world faces a growing freshwater
crisis. Access to it has become an urgent matter. Water sources continue to be
polluted, causing economic and health problems in many parts of the world. The
UN estimates that 1.2 billion people, many of them children, are currently in
jeopardy due to lack of adequate water and sanitation. Water scarcity is
increasingly becoming a source of conflict.
Because of the importance of water for life,
the Midland Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice has chosen
"Environmental Justice: Water" for this year's theme. MICPJ is in the
sixth year of a 10-year commitment to the Decade for a Culture of Peace and
Nonviolence for the Children of the World as designated by the UN. Our council
encourages community dialogue and involvement around this theme in order to
raise awareness and foster commitment to finding positive solutions.
This is the first of three forums. The others
will appear on the Sundays of Sept. 17 and Oct. 1. We will also have a speaker
from The Great Lakes Commission on Oct. 23.
Water plays a central role in religions and
belief systems around the world. Source of life, it represents (re) birth.
Water cleans and purifies the body. In the New Testament the "living
water" is imbued with powers of spiritual purification. For Hindus,
morning bathing is a daily obligation; all temples are located near water and
followers must bathe before entering. For many people groups, water is a sacred
gift connecting all of life.
The
A place to start could be to acknowledge the
gift that water is in our lives and that to waste or defile it harms us and the
whole living community. Because we are water-rich we have the opportunity,
through our faith communities and governmental agencies, to protect the waters
of this part of the earth and to work toward solutions for those who suffer
from so little. If we are not the source of the problem, we can be a part of a
solution.
The UN has declared water as a basic human
right. At the UN Children's Forum in 2002, the words of a child speak to what
we can help accomplish: "We want a world fit for children, because a world
fit for us is a world fit for everyone."
Thomas Berry wrote: "Our relationship
with the earth involves something more than pragmatic use, academic
understanding or ascetic appreciation. A truly human intimacy with the earth
and with the entire natural world is needed. Our children should be properly
introduced to the world in which they live, to the trees and grasses and the
flowers, to the birds and animals that roam over the land." And, I would
add, to water, clean, wonderful water!
George H. Schaller is a member of the
II:
Environmental Justice: Water
Janea Little, 9/20/07
Timber surveyors declared in
the mid-1800s that there were enough trees in
It's easy to wag our fingers at those
"western" residents who live in dry environments and blithely let
their hoses run. "Those" people have managed to suck the
Perhaps the water woes of the American West,
along with our state-specific disasters of the past, will finally wake us up enough
to appreciate the natural resource that surrounds us on three sides. But we
need to do more than "appreciate" water, because it isn't just a
treat. It's the difference between living and dying. We have the power to drain
our local rivers, and yes, even Lake Huron, the same way the
The
I'm not talking about skipping baths (unless
you're ten years old, and then this is the excuse you have been waiting for!)
or wearing water-insoluble suits like the poor folks in the "Dune"
book series, in which humans live in such barren wastelands that every drop of
sweat must be saved. I'm just asking that we recognize the water coming out of
our taps as precious, and use it accordingly.
If you've never tried to conserve water,
where do you begin? It's as simple as THINKING about what you pour down the
drain or before you turn on the faucet. Just boiled corn or steamed broccoli?
Rather than pour that water down the drain, let it cool and use it to water
flowers. Collect the cold water that runs down the drain while you wait for the
shower to get hot and use it on your garden, or on a patch of lawn the sprinklers
don't reach. Better yet, turn the sprinklers off or at least don't run them in
the middle of the day when literally half the water evaporates. Don't let water
just roll down the drain while you wash your hands or brush your teeth - take a
literal second to turn it on and off as you need it. Wash your dishes by hand,
or at least run the dishwasher only when it is full. If you have a dog, use
that water from the boiled corn to spice up his kibble, or the collected shower
water to fill his bowl. Unhook a downspout and let the water off your roof
collect into a wading pool for him to frolic in.
What will you save, a gallon a day? Maybe
two, maybe three? It adds up, the same way pennies from schoolchildren added up
to help build the Tridge and politicians win elections by single-digit votes.
Don't discount your contribution, and don't waste the water you might want your
children to fish in someday.
Janea Little is a resident of
Clean
Water is a
Human Right
Joan Brausch, member MICPJ, 10/04/06
There are a few human rights
that just about everyone can agree on: people have the right to work, they have
a right to education, they have a right to have a place to live, they have a
right to good air to breathe and they have a right to clean water. We need those things to be healthy and
to be contributing citizens of wherever it is we live. On December 10, 1948, the nations of the
world agreed that these are basic human rights. (1)
Everyone has a right to clean
water – and water isn’t clean for millions of people on the
planet. For example, unsafe
drinking water and poor sanitation kill 4,000 children every day. Four out of 10 people around
the globe do not have access to a simple pit latrine and one-fifth have no
source of safe drinking water.(2)
Now, we might say to ourselves, well, that’s their problem. There obviously isn’t enough water
where they live and they need to move or something. It’s true, in some places,
there isn’t enough water – any kind of water – and people
have to be very creative in how they get water and how they use water.
Here’s what complicates
things: toxic waste pollutes the ground water in many
Everyone has a right to clean
water. So what can WE do to ensure
clean water, not only for ourselves, but for others? First, you need to agree to the premise
that we are all in this together, that none of us stand alone anymore in the
global economy. How I live has an
impact on how someone else lives across the world. If you agree to that premise, which is
borne out by our toxic wastes polluting communities on the other side of the
planet, then we have some things we need to do:
1) vote for candidates who
care about water issues. Election
Day is November 7!
2) support the work of
humanitarian groups that help people in our country or in other nations become
water independent. Some of these
groups are:
·
The United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF): helps people in the poorest nations dig wells, build latrines, create
water purifications systems, desalination systems, so that the children can
resist disease and have a better chance to live. http://www.unicef.org/
·
Teachers and
Parents can find some great lesson plans through the Peace Corps: http://www.peacecorp.gov/wws/educators/enrichment/africa/lessons/bytitle.html
·
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC): Water is the new oil: access to water is
already being controlled by corporations here and around the world.
http://www.afsc.org/trade-matters/issues/Water-Privatization-Resources.html
3) conserve water at your
house! Don’t drink bottled
water – you don’t need it and that water comes from the groundwater
that belongs to communities in other parts of the state or in other parts of
our nation. Drink the water from
the tap and, if you are concerned about safety, use a filtering system.
4) don’t pollute the
groundwater! Go easy on fertilizers
and pesticides. Those end up in the
ground and leach into the groundwater system. There are thousands of stories about
fertilizers destroying the fish and wildlife in creeks, rivers and lakes.
5) encourage others to
conserve water and to cut back on polluting the groundwater – at work, at
school, in the neighborhood.
1) Declarations on Human Rights, 1948 http://www.earthsummit2002.org/toolkits/women/un-doku/otherun/humarightsdecl.htm
2) Dirty water, sanitation kill thousands
daily-experts, 25 Feb 2005, Reuters, Karin Strohecker
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29750/story.htm
3) The International Trade In Toxic Waste: A Selected
Bibliography Of Sources, Deanna Lewis,
http://egj.lib.uidaho.edu/egj02/lewis01.html