Why Water?

It’s inevitable that when you cruise on a sailboat you think about water. Sometimes, however, my thoughts about water go well beyond an aesthetic appreciation of the blue waters we have sailed on. This is particularly likely to happen when we are in a place where water is scarce, or where it is produced at great cost, sometimes to both environment and people. For something so necessary, it can be frighteningly scarce and expensive.

Now that I am sitting in an apartment in Canada I can get water simply by turning on the tap. And I am luck enough to be in a place where - at least as far as I know - the water is safe and clean. Not everyone - either here in Canada, or in many other places in the world - can do or expect the same.

So when I wrote this article on water as a basic human right it was not exactly an academic exercise. We need water, clean water, to live. Without it we die. The only question is how.