Contagion

I read the following post here today and it got me thinking some more just about how, as Christians, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth that God gave us live on. But why is it that we don't view taking care of our world a spiritual activity? Shouldn't it be? Just a thought...


"For those of you into preserving the earth and good stewardship of the world in which we live, here is an interesting article on bottled water from Fast Company. Here is a summary of the article from urbana.org.

• Last year, Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water -- more than we spent on movie tickets or iPods. This year that is expected to be $16 billion.
• Water is basically free, and for now more or less abundant in most of the U.S.
• Buying bottled water is essentially buying convenience.
• 24% of the bottled water Americans buy is repackaged tap water created by Coke and Pepsi.
• Americans drink more bottled water than milk, or coffee, or beer.
• Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person.
• Americans throw 38 billion water bottles a year into landfills. (Over $1 billion worth of plastic which could have been recycled -- only 1/4 of all the bottles are recycled by consumers).
• It's easier for most Americans to get as much drinking water from Fiji as they want, than it is for over half the people of Fiji, where the water is bottled yet safe drinking water for the local population is scarce.
• If the water we use at home were to cost what even the cheapest bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000. (Point is: we pay a lot for what is available for almost nothing.)
• Most of the world's bottled water is dominated by four companies: Pepsi, Coke, Danone, and Nestle.
• Within a decade, American consumption of bottled water is expected to surpass soda. Maybe that's a good thing for health reasons. But is it good stewardship?
• One out of six people in the world does not have a safe, dependable source of drinking water. That's a billion people.
• Each day, 3,000 children die from diseases caught from tainted water.

And before we argue about the cleanliness of tap water, check out this paragraph: "We buy bottled water because we think it's healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn't healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world's $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four--the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico--that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe."

And this line: "If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35."

I drink a lot of water. Most of it from the purifier on my tap. This article will definitely make you think about the money invested in bottled water when so many thousands die daily because they have no clean water."