Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Key Ideas
✓ What’s in it for me? Learn the importance of conserving
drinkable water.
✓ Historically, drinking water wasn’t desirable, but it was thought
to hold mystical powers.
✓ The Romans were the first to systemize and politicize water.
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✓ The relationship between drinking unsafe water and disease
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wasn’t discovered until the mid-nineteenth century.
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✓ It’s not always easy to find a sufficient water source.
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✓ Treating unsafe water is still a challenge.
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✓ Distribution is probably the most vulnerable stage of our water
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✓ Convenient, profitable and “healthy,” bottled water became
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tomorrow.
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✓ Final summary
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What’s in it for me? Learn the importance of conserving drinkable
water.
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It’s worth learning about the history of something that is so intrinsic
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to our survival. These ideas address questions like, “Who first
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created a system for drinkable water?” and “When did we realize that
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untreated water is harmful to our health?”, so that we can learn to
appreciate this life-giving liquid.
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it and the structures that facilitate its provision, we can work toward
ensuring that there’s enough water for people around the world now
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For many centuries, and across numerous societies, water wasn’t a
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preferred drink. For example, the Roman upper-classes perceived
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water as a beverage suitable only for children, slaves or women who
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couldn’t drink wine.
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Water continued to be perceived in the same way through to the
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Middle Ages and beyond, right up to and including the first pilgrims
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even an English doctor who believed that drinking water could result
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in feeling melancholic.
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The idea of holy water and wells, springs or other sources holding
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enchanted water has been around for a long time. The Fountain of
Youth, sought by the sixteenth-century Spanish explorer of the New
World, Juan Ponce de León, is a famous example.
It’s likely that Ponce de León’s pursuit of rejuvenating water was
embellished after his death, as nearly every other culture claims very
similar stories.
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Another similar tale comes from the Muslim world. In it, Alexander
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the Great’s political adviser Khidr makes it through the Land of
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Darkness to come upon a spring that could grant him immortality.
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Heading into the fifteenth century, judge Sir John Fortescue said
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that the one reason to drink water was “for devotion.” In 1858, a
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death, Soubirous was declared a saint in 1933, and to this day, people
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travel from all over the world to try the water at Lourdes.
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The Romans were the first to systemize and politicize water.
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first to give their people free water.
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The most impressive factor in this was the construction of aqueducts
in ancient Rome, over 2,000 years ago. The fact that some of these
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water delivery systems still stand is a testament to Roman ingenuity.
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It took the Romans more than 500 years to build 11 aqueducts –
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including some that spanned over 50 miles – carrying a constant
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stream of 30 million gallons of fresh water at any given time.
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The free water was contained in public basins called lacūs. To have
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water flowing into your home, you had to pay a tax and get a pipe
installed to connect to the aqueduct. It’s believed that aqueducts
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popular in the city, but the third aqueduct was built in 144 BC mainly
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could be politicized.
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Republic into the Roman Empire, which is more or less like shifting
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There are plenty of reasons why ancient societies preferred beer and
wine over water, but the main one was that people sometimes got
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very sick when drinking H₂O.
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While people were aware that water could make you feel ill, it wasn’t
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clear why this was the case. This lack of knowledge resulted in awful
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living conditions in crowded urban areas like New York City.
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In 1748, New York City’s drinking water was so badly polluted by
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And yet people still drank the water. It was a long time before a clean
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delays, many people died in yellow fever and cholera epidemics, like
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London physician John Snow was an early advocate for clean water.
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Indeed, he more or less invented the field of epidemiology, which is
the study of how disease functions in human populations. Snow used
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medical records, a map and surveys to determine that the 1854
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cholera outbreak in London was linked to a water pump on Broad
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Street. Specifically, he found a dirty diaper near the water supply,
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which became the first-ever hard evidence that polluted water caused
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doubled.
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It’s not always easy to find a sufficient water source.
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This was especially difficult in New York City. After the arrival of the
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Dutch in Manhattan around the mid-seventeenth century, the only
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nearby water source was the Kalch-Hook, a seven-acre pond that was
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later called “the Collect.” The pond was described in a letter to the
New York Evening Journal as containing “abominable fluid.” It was
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first connected to a water system built in the early 1800s by The
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Manhattan Company, which would later become the successful
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more water had to be sourced from the Catskills and their watersheds,
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which were located 125 miles away. This is where a lot of New York
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Now let’s head over to London, where the city had a very similar
problem. You would think that a river running through your city
would mean that water was never in short supply. But just like the
Collect, the nineteenth-century Thames contained contaminated
water.
Indeed, in 1858 London hosted the Great Stink, when the Thames
was so polluted by industrial waste that the whole city was engulfed
in a highly unpleasant odor. It was so bad that even Parliament
announced it was going on an extended recess until the smell
dissipated.
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Due to the progress made by John Snow and another supporter of
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clean water, lawyer Edwin Chadwick, government bodies finally
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realized that they had to stop the dumping of sewage into the
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Thames. After that, London never smelled quite as bad as it did in
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the mid-1800s.
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Treating unsafe water is still a challenge.
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Contrary to expectations, sources of freshwater are generally dirty.
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Historically, this was because of wildlife excrement and bacteria
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found in lakes and rivers. Nowadays, however, there are even more
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undesirable things to watch out for.
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Populations of wildlife living near water sources all over the world
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PCB, at ten times the minimum amount that would qualify as toxic
waste.
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our meds down the drain, some of the ingredients that we ingest
don’t get fully absorbed by our bodies and end up as bodily waste in
the water. To put things into perspective, a 1999 study of streams
across 30 states in the United States found that 80 percent of them
had traces of pharmaceuticals and chemicals from personal care
products.
Though water may contain harmful things, there are increasingly
effective ways of treating it – but it may still not be enough.
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chlorinated systems were found in 85 percent of the United States.
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Today, we have more advanced water-treatment systems that use
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ultraviolet exposure.
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The question is: Are these methods enough? A recent study of
drinking water in certain US cities suggests perhaps not. The
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research found that treated water supplied to 40 million citizens
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tested positive for 56 different pharmaceuticals or contained traces of
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their by-products.
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Distribution is probably the most vulnerable stage of our water
system.
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about someone poisoning our water supplies, a fear that isn’t as far-
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fetched as you’d think.
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There are three main stages of water provision: sourcing, treating
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and distribution. The last stage typically involves a storage facility,
like an above-ground tower or an underground collection hub, that
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connects to individual taps in a neighborhood. It is also the stage at
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which the water is most susceptible to contamination.
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town’s water had to be flushed out and tested, a process that cost
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town.
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The good news is that water undergoes a certain amount of testing
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and monitoring before it is distributed. What’s more, while there are
more than 60,000 chemicals in use all over the United States today,
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only 91 of them are legally considered contaminants.
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However, the effectiveness of the Environmental Protection Agency,
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which is responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of our drinking
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water, is dependent on the current leadership and budget allowance.
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More than 1,500 bottles of water are opened per second in the United
States. This was definitely not the case 40 years ago when those
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seeking water would be shown a hose or tap.
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There are three main reasons why bottled water has become such a
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popular drink.
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The big fitness boom in the 1970s led to the rise of bottled water,
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with Perrier one of the first to present its product as a healthy
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which peaked when they sponsored the 1979 New York City
marathon, in which 6,000 participants had the word Perrier
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the 1990s, Pepsi and Coke had introduced their own water brands –
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The third – and rather crucial – reason why bottled water has
become so popular is that it’s a very profitable market. Whether
sourced from a spring or municipal systems, a high markup easily
makes bottled water a product with the largest profit margin. With
the $1.50 that you pay for a bottle of their water, companies such as
Coke and Pepsi can buy 1,000 gallons from municipal sources for
bottling and resale.
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the taste between different brands. After all, spring water that
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encounters limestone contains more magnesium and calcium. These
kinds of minerals give the spring waters certain healthy and
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restorative traits that have garnered much attention.
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There are serious environmental and health concerns related to our
water consumption habits.
Given the rise of bottled water, one question must be raised: is it
healthier than water direct from our faucets? Unfortunately, there’s
no certain answer. But it’s likely not as healthy as you think.
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Dasani and Aquafina undergo several rounds of treatment, but these
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do not come close to the number of regulations and monitoring that
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is required of regular tap water. The Environmental Protection
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Agency has no authority over the quality of bottled water. While we
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know that New York City’s tap water is tested 330,000 times per year,
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we don’t know about the tests to which bottled water is subject.
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Whatever the tests are, the results aren’t encouraging. Recent studies
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carried out in Kansas and California found that different brands of
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bottled water carried harmful traces of arsenic and lead, among
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gallons of bottled water were sold. Fast forward to today, and that
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water – aren’t being met.
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In 2002, access to water was declared a basic human right at the
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United Nations’ Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
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Rights. It was recognized as a government’s responsibility to provide
its citizens with water to prevent disease and dehydration. It might
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be interesting to note that Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and
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the United States abstained from voting for the motion.
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each citizen with 6.6 gallons of free water per day. Anyone who went
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over the limit of 6.6 gallons could consume extra at a price. It was
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predicted that the money collected from consumers who went over
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the limit would be enough to cover the cost of the rest. However, this
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was not the case. In reality, it was much more difficult to collect the
payment, and faulty pipes made it almost impossible to accurately
record usage.
Many poor people around the world don’t have access to enough
water. This is due, in large part, to the high costs involved in
building and maintaining water systems.
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someone responded, but he didn’t lay the pipes.
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But it’s not only poor nations that experience difficulty maintaining
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and affording water systems. The United States has pipes in use that
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date back to the mid-1800s. Apparently a pipe bursts every two
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minutes, which equates to 6 billion gallons of lost water a day. In fact,
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fixing the old water infrastructure would cost the United States some
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$335 billion.
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A lot of effort is being made today to secure drinking water for
tomorrow.
While rain clouds disperse water over different areas of the earth, our
planet never generates any new water. This may surprise you, but we
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are drinking the same water as the dinosaurs.
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Since we have no new sources of water, some people are trying to
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provide it to those in need, while others are fighting to protect what
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they have.
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A massive 20 percent of the world’s freshwater is contained in the
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were in need.
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On the other hand, there are people hunting for water that hasn’t
been previously claimed.
One such source is the icebergs found at the North Pole. These
frozen chunks of freshwater are believed to contain some of the
cleanest water in the world, which is why people are urgently trying
to claim an iceberg and make a profit by turning it into drinking
water.
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What’s more, researchers even went so far as to suggest that, in the
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right conditions, it’s feasible to move a seven-million-ton iceberg
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from Greenland to the Canary Islands and lose only three million
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tons along the way.
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Other options for securing water supplies are desalination, which is
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the process of turning saltwater into freshwater; improved treatment
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centers that can safely recycle sewage water; or building more dual-
water systems, whereby one tap is assigned to drinking and cooking,
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Final summary
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