Regardless of where we spend our summer in the United States, most of us will be enjoying the water in some form or fashion. For me, it will be sailing, some beach time and some occasional swimming. For all of us, water is one of our most precious natural resources — and unfortunately, the human race has been squandering and polluting this precious resource for the past century in particular.

J. Morris Hicks, the "big picture guy," using renewable wind energy off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island -- trying my best to save our water and our fossil fuels.

And one of the most water-damaging things that we humans do is the way we have decided to feed ourselves in the western world. A couple of factoids to consider as you begin to enjoy your summer on the water:

• Waste. It requires 13,000 liters of water to produce one kilo of beef — but only 100 liters to produce the same amount of potatoes.
• Pollution. In just the United States alone, our livestock industry produces 87,000 pounds of solid excrement per second — totaling 1.37 billion tons a year. Most of this eventually finds its way to our rivers, streams, lakes, underground aquifers, and our oceans.

Consider that the above pollution is from only the ten billion animals per year that we raise for our dinner tables. There are another fifty billion animals in the remainder of the western world. And this total of sixty billion animals is just for feeding the world’s wealthiest twenty percent. In a recent post, I asked “When does this madness end?” If all seven billion humans ate the same way we do, we’d need 300 billion animals per year — and that is simply not possible. There is not nearly enough land, not nearly enough fossil fuel and not nearly enough water. 

Water -- our most precious resource -- is finite.

I hope you think about these disturbing facts this summer while you’re out enjoying our water. And I hope that you will join me in my quest to “end the madness.” It’s time for humankind to do something good for the planet and learn how to live in harmony with nature — as have the other millions of creatures who “share” our collective HOME.

Towards the conclusion of many of my speeches, I have used this quote by Mark Twain that I took from a Time Magazine article in November of 2010. you see, Twain had arrived at the not unreasonable but never popular conclusion that…

…mankind was not made for any useful purpose, for the reason that he hasn’t served any; that he was most likely not even made intentionally; and that his working his way up our of the oyster bed to his present position was probably a matter of great surprise and regret to the creator.

In closing today, I would like to refer you to an earlier post that was all about the water. Enjoy your summer at the water venue of your choice — then, in the fall, let’s all get busy proving Mark Twain wrong. Up until now, I am sad to say that I believe that he is 100% correct.

It’s all about the WATER…huge problem – simple solution

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—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

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