Short Essay Assignment # 2
Summary of #39 The world’s water challenge: Erik R. Peterson and Rachel A. Posner
Deborah Phillpotts
Professor Beth Stewart
SOC300: Sociology of Developing Countries
June 12, 2011

Article 39: The World’s Water Challenge: Erik R. Patterson & Rachel Posner

Summary of Article
This article was about The world’s water challenge. It addressed the dimensions and features that contribute to the world’s water crisis. According to the article “These factors suggest that even at current levels of global population, resource consumption, and economic activity, we may have already passed the threshold of water sustainability” (Griffiths, 2011) . So basically globally we are running out of water. Also the demand for water is so high and there is an insufficient amount of water supply to meet this. The dimensions of that the water challenges will affect include: healthcare, politics, our social lives, the economy, because the water supply is not sufficient and not easily sustained.
This article also discussed the changes that are necessary to handle the challenge of shrinking water assets, the changes that I found very useful to implement are first and foremost educating the public about the water crisis, the government investing money into finding means to preserve the water supply we have today. There has to be more precautions taken when it comes to the ecosystems, even though it is inconceivable to maintain the water supply a stand has to be taken. There were some shocking facts in this article that are critical to us all and will affect us immensely in only a few years. For instance:
“2.5 billion People lack adequate sanitation, A staggering 1.8 million people, 90 percent of them children lose their lives each year as a result of diarrheal diseases resulting from unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene” (Griffiths, 2011).