What If Flint Were Your Norm?

by James Harper
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The water situation in Flint, Michigan is scary. Not being able to drink tap water is something most of us can't imagine happening in America. The situation highlights some bad decisions made by government officials that will have health effects on an entire generation for decades to come. The problem will also require hundreds of millions of dollars to fix.

Luckily, there is money to fix the problem and provide care for those affected. Hundreds of millions of dollars are currently being made available to fix the problems associated with this crisis. Those in Flint are lucky enough to live in the USA, where such an enormous amount of money can be made available when the need arises.

But, what if there wasn't money to fix the problem? What if those in Flint had to continue drinking bottled water because the problem couldn't be fixed? Or worse yet, what if there were no bottles of clean water available to drink due to a lack of funding? Everyone in Flint would be forced to drink contaminated water because they had no choice.

Unfortunately, this nightmare scenario is exactly what 700,000,000 people (that's twice the population of the United States!!) in developing countries around the world live with every day. There are no water bottles available, no help provided by their governments, no plans to fix their water supplies, and no millions of dollars available. They have no choice but to drink contaminated water, which causes similar health problems to those caused in Flint recently.

The problem of clean drinking water is critical in today's world, particularly in developing countries. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should go without clean drinking water, but they do! We have the technology and money to solve this issue worldwide; we just need to step up and solve it.