Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLantern
Ok so I read through your post a few times Calgryborn and I can't tell if it is a sarcastic bait.. or if you are serious.. I am going that you are serious and wish to change your mind.
That is the exact opposite of what we are trying to teach Canadians. Where did you learn this? Is it a personal opinion or did someone actually tell you this? I want their email if possible.
Here is a website that will help you better understand what we are talking about mainly when we mention "fresh water".
http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/pubs/FS/e_FSa5.htm
I hope some of this can convince you otherwise. It is very important for the future of this country that we stop thinking water is a renewable resource. We will never gain more water, we have what we have and that is it. It is a closed system (globally). |
I did go to your web site and read what they had to say. There were some good points but, a lot of it was talking about waste treatment which is another issue all together. Yes there is a cost to treat the water we use and that does include a environmental cost like anything we do but, compared to the size of the resource we govern the impact is small. Living in a large metropolitan center like say Toronto increases the impact to the local environment and therefore conservation should have greater consideration. After all they have to live there.
Canada as a whole uses very little of their water resource. According to "CIA World Factbook" Canada has 3300 cu km's of water under her management. Our useage is only 44.72 cu km a year. Russia beats us on quantity with 4498 cu km of fresh water under their stewardship but does use a slightly higher percentage of her resource. They consume 76 cu km of water per year. Both seem to be pretty responsible usage-wise compared to the volume of there resources. Also 12% of Canada's annual water usage is dedicated to growing food for ourselves and the world. There is a reason why the prairies are known as the "worlds bread basket".
I'm not saying Canada shouldn't continue to improve their resource management. What I am saying is that as we stand now we have an environmentally friendly government that has a record of continued improvement in the area of environmental stewardship. Most of the nation's of the world(if not all of them) impact their environments negatively much more than Canadians do. Canada has much they can be proud of. Conversely China and India shouldn't use a head count of their population as an excuse to rape their environment for the benefit of a very few of their populous.