5 Things You Should Know About The Global Water Crisis

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For many, it is a world without water.

Consider that more than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world – in places like Haiti. And that lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.

I can hardly fathom that of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities. There’s more:

ONE: In today’s world, how is it possible that 780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.

TWO: Know that the water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

THREE: The next time you take a shower consider that an American taking a five-minute rinse-off uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.

FOUR: Then consider that 2.5 times more people lack water than live in the United States.

FIVE: And what does this say about our culture? More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.

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