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PLOS BLOGS Speaking of Medicine and Health

Daily Click: Water Should be a Human Right

When I was researching this month’s PLoS Medicine editorial arguing that clean water should be recognised as a human right my colleague Larry Peiperl sent me this quote by W.H. Auden: Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

I love it.

I also discovered a great many NGOs and charity groups devoted to raising awareness about the global water crisis and to fighting the corporatisation of water. These include Water Aid, Food & Water Watch, and Maude Barlow’s Blue Planet Project. For anyone interested in learning more about water issues, Maude Barlow‘s books and speeches are your first stop.

My favourite research was spent watching a most extraordinary documentary that I would highly recommend: Flow: For Love of Water

After seeing this film I pledged to NEVER buy another plastic bottle of water, and I haven’t yet.

Discussion
  1. […] Jocalyn’s earlier blog post about the ideas and inspiration behind the editorial mentioned Maude Barlow, Canadian activist, author and senior adviser on water issues to the UN General Assembly’s president. In Wired Magazine’s article about water scarcity, prompted by our editorial, Barlow is quoted as saying that the “high water rates, cut-offs to the poor, reduced services, broken promises and pollution have been the legacy of privatization.” This legacy of privatization, which disproportionately effects the poor who suffer most from lack of access to clean water,  has led to political turmoil in Bolivia and other countries, and is another argument the editorial advances for making access to clean water a human right. (You can read the comments we’ve received about the editorial and contribute to the debate). […]

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