Thursday, May 21, 2020

Trek Day Eighteen

carrying water
"The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it." -- from Psalm 24:1-6

Catherine Mumaw tells the story of eleven-year-old Hari, the boy who pumps her water from an underground well and transports it by the bucketful to a ground-level tank. This water, which is then pumped by electric motor into a roof tank on her home in Nepal, is the source of all the water that sustains her standards. Thanks to Hari, from inside her home she can then access filtered drinking and cooking water, wash her clothes and flush her toilet. Hari is not in school and has limited options on the horizon, but he is a happy boy. He is always glad to see Catherine and grateful to have a job. She reflects on how what she considers so basic -- a human right and necessity -- comes to her at a human cost. And she says she recalls Hari's face every time she turns on the tap, resulting in her using less water than ever before in her life.

In the side bar on the back of this Trek card, we are told:

Most people in North America don't have a Hari to pump their water. 
But the water has to be brought into our homes somehow.
The "Hari" of North America is electricity. Electricity pumps our water, keeps our food cold 
then cooks it and lights our homes. Yet while electricity is relatively cheap, 
there is a high cost to the earth for the immense amount of power we use.
Most people in North America use electricity 
generated by burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil and gas.
These fuels are dirty to produce, 
and they emit carbon dioxide when burned. 
The average Canadian needs almost 6 acres of forestland 
to absorb the CO2 they produce each year. 
The average U.S. citizen needs even more.

Questions for Today
How much water would I use each day if I had to pump or carry it by hand?
Have I invested any of the income available to me in making energy conscious improvements to my household appliances?
Have I invested the time and money needed to lower my resource use of water, heat and air conditioning?
How might I offset some of the impact of my energy use by supporting reforestation or greener land management 
to absorb more of the CO2 I am still responsible for pumping into the atmosphere?

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