Water, not warmth top environmental issue
By Michael LeGault (bio)

If the UN, world governments and NGOs acted with the same coordination and alacrity on issues related to water as they did on global warming, the lives of millions of people around the world could be directly and tangibly improved.

For the plain fact is that water supply, sanitation and resources, not global warming, is the most pressing environmental issue today. Over 1 billion people lack clean water worldwide, 2.6 billion people go without sanitation and 1.8 million children die every year because on one or the other. By contrast, not one death can be directly linked to global warming, even though there many scientifically and statistically unsound attempts to do so.

While not even massive amounts of government intervention and regulation are likely to reverse what is in all likelihood a small natural warming in keeping with the geological history of the planet, solutions to water-related problems are relatively cheap and simple to implement. Innovations in water treatment technology now allow construction of micro-scale treatment and sanitation facilities suitable to remote villages. Foreign species’ invasion of the Great Lakes, such as the devastating zebra mussel, can be stopped by requiring ships to swish out their ballast tanks with seawater before entering the fresh water chain. Ballast treatment is included in the U.S. House version of a Coast Guard bill—one the president has threatened to veto.

Unlike global warming, the water issue is not about who gets to control who. It’s about improving people’s lives.