Chandra Boon's List: Water Systems

• Canada is  home to nearly nine per cent of the world’s supply of fresh water
• the price of water is rising steadily, making Canada’s freshwater bounty more  valuable every day
• the province of Quebec, home to roughly one third of Canada’s renewable sources  of fresh water
• the enormous water usage involved in the country’s largest energy project, the  Alberta oil sands, has made it painfully clear that a free-water policy is a  recipe for waste and environmental degradation

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• Canada emerged as the pivotal nation behind recent manoeuvres to block the  United Nations Human Rights Council from recognizing water as a basic human  right, according to international observers
• German-Spanish resolution
• would have also set up an international watchdog to monitor the actions of  individual countries
• "Canada does not view this resolution as creating a human right to water under  international human rights law."
• a child dies every 20 seconds due to water-borne diseases
• the resolution would have buttressed the argument that nobody should be able to  expropriate water for financial profit. There have been battles in countries  such as Bolivia over attempts to privatize water.
• "It was a benchmark for the concept water is a right, not a commodity," Barlow  said, adding claims that the resolution would have forced nations to export  water to drought-plagued regions were "fantastical."
• Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park), the NDP's water critic, said: "Once again,  we're internationally disappointed and embarrassed. ... How do you deny water is  a basic human right?"
• These people could argue, 'Well, you've agreed water is a human right, we here  down in Atlanta have no water, there's a drought,' or in California or whatever.  You have a moral obligation to be consistent with your word and let us take some  water down here, by one means or another."

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• One whitefish has a golfball-sized tumour bulging from its side. Another is simply missing part of its spine, its tail growing from a stumpy rear end.
• All were taken from Lake Athabasca, downstream from the oilsands in northern Alberta, and were on display Thursday. All are reasons, say a group of scientists and aboriginals, for the federal government to conduct an independent study on what's happening to the Athabasca River and its watershed after decades of industry expansion.
• "I'm hoping that the prime minister will listen and some of the other politicians involved will say, 'This data is convincing enough,
• a possible link between fish health and human health."
• The Alberta government monitors the area's environment, largely through information provided by industry, but Schindler said the province's program lacks transparency and credibility. He points out that the industry's own figures in the federal pollutant registry show hundreds of kilograms of contaminants are released into the environment annually, yet don't show up in provincial reports.

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• Viewed from space, one of the most striking features of our home planet is the water, in both liquid and frozen forms, that covers approximately 75% of the Earth’s surface.
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  Water is the only common substance that can exist naturally as a gas, liquid, or solid at the relatively small range of temperatures and pressures found on the Earth’s surface. Sometimes, all three states are even present in the same time and place, such as this wintertime eruption of a geyser in Yellowstone National Park.
• Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapor in the atmosphere.
• Despite its small amount, this water vapor has a huge influence on the planet. Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it is a major driver of the Earth’s weather and climate as it travels around the globe,
• For human needs, the amount of freshwater on Earth—for drinking and agriculture—is particularly important. Freshwater exists in lakes, rivers, groundwater, and frozen as snow and ice. Estimates of groundwater are particularly difficult to make, and they vary widely. (The value in the above table is near the high end of the range.)

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