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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Cause and Effect

Thanks for not running for the hills after my rant yesterday!

Right after I posted, I opened the front door for my roommate and saw this:


1. 24 hours?!
2. What time did they put this sign up?!

Long story short, our water came back around noon, right about the time when we had the heaviest torrential downpour I've ever seen. Instantly everything was flooded, and I could barely see the building across from us! We still don't have much hot water, and for a while everything was brown and yucky, but at least we have water.

This whole thing, as cheesy as this sounds, really did make me realize just how lucky we are to have clean water at all. I mean, we all freaked out about the situation and I even know people who went home  because of it. We had spare 'emergency' water to use, so we weren't entirely cut off. But I know that there are a lot of people in this world that don't have any water at all or they have water that's completely undrinkable and unusable.

A few things I found in this National Geographic article,
  • Of all of the freshwater on our planet, only 1% of it is usable. Everything else is trapped inside glaciers or snowfields. 
  • Only 0.007 percent of the planet's water is available to be used by the 6.8 billion people that live here
  • By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will be plagued by water scarcity, with 2/3 of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change.
The podcast that I listened to on Monday talked a little bit about this topic too, and how urban planning can and will affect our use and availability of water.

I don't know what to think about this, really. Obviously it's a problem that needs to be fixed, but what can we do? Or rather what could I do personally? We hear about things like the global water crisis, or the oil spill in the Gulf, but a lot of times we don't hear about what we can do on a personal level to help. I know donating money is always an option, but I would like to get more involved with the cause.

Do any of you have causes that you're passionate about? What are they?


And on another, lighter note I have something to show you! 
I've been looking at pictures of nail art over the past few days, and this was one of my favorite designs I found. I decided to recreate it and here's the result...


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OH my gosh!!! LOVE the nails!!!! What all did you use on them?

Natalie said...

Thank you! They were so much fun to do! I used OPI's Bubble Bath as the base, China Glaze's Mom's Chiffon for the pink tips, and Wet 'n Wild for the dots! The silver is from Finger Paints, but I can't remember what it's called! It was from a few years ago, and I'd actually recommend something like Art Deco by LA Nails for the line, since I had a hard time trying to draw thin lines with a regular brush. Other than that they were a snap!