Convergence, of sorts.

I woke up this morning to a bunch of Live Earth-related news on NPR, including a history of the global warming “debate” and a report on how some senator (whose name I missed) blocked the DC Live Earth show from being held in front of the Capitol because it’s a “partisan” event.  Kind of like, I suppose, obeying the laws of physics.  Ugh.

And I thought back to my post of a few weeks ago about the ways in which GHS isn’t doing its part for the environment.  I happened to come across a post on Anil Dash’s site this morning about the water bottle issue, which references the by-now-very-widely-read article in Fast Company about the bottled water industry.  Read it before you proceed.

Now, a week ago today I was in Tecate, Mexico, helping to build a house for a family with no running water, tenuous electricity that’s supposed to be hooked up later this summer, and very few resources (they wear donated clothes and shoes; the kids’ entertainment consists of soccer when they have a ball and throwing rocks when they don’t).  And they are considered well-to-do where they live, because the father has steady construction work.  It kind of begs the question of why we weren’t building for the family down the road with a far worse house (they lived at and ran the scrapyard, where they used fire and chemicals to clean abandoned cars and resell the metal for US$0.50/kilo).   More ecostuff

The thing these families all have in common, no matter their pesos, is that they have to pay a ridiculous amount of money (around US$15/week) for water that is neither clean nor cold.  And remember, they live in the desert.  It was over 100 fahrenheit every day that we were down there.  It was so hot and so dry that nobody’s shirts got sweaty because it evaporated so fast.  These were the kinds of days when you’re told to drink water all the time so you don’t get dehydration-induced diarrhea.

And we’re gladly paying for bottled water we don’t need?  Yes, the container’s convenient.  Buy a Nalgene or other reusable bottle.  Yes, it’s nice to have cold water wherever you want it.  But those plastic disposable bottles don’t have any thermal properties.   Sigg bottles are metal and, from what I can figure out, will keep water cold.  I might buy one to bring to Scotland.

I was thinking–if every time we wanted to drop a dollar (or three or four at the movie theatre) on a plastic bottle of water, we sent it instead to a family in Mexico or some other place without good water, maybe they’d appreciate it more than we do, we who live in the USA near reliable and tasty and clean and non-smelly water.

Clay’s still flogging his Teen Live Earth idea, too, and the more I think about it, the more right-on it sounds.  Check it out if you haven’t already.