The Wonderwater Cafe Will Show You How Much Water You Eat

The statistics around water consumption are staggering. And while taking shorter showers or even skipping showers all together can save significant amounts of water, these personal conservation tips are nothing compared to the bigger, thornier question of how we tackle water use in agriculture, manufacturing and other industrial processes.

Wonderwater, a new pop up cafe which has already made appearances in Beijing and Helsinki, is looking to set the record straight and spark new conversations about the realities of water use:

- Water scarcity will be an increasingly critical issue as global populations rocket towards 9 billion in 2050, as reported by scientists at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm this week
- Currently, the average UK citizen consumes 4,645 litres of water per day, with more than 60% of this water coming from overseas (www.waterfootprint.org)
- The water we consume 'indirectly' through the production of major items such as food, clothing and paper is far greater than our domestic water use, which accounts for just 150 litres per day.

Visitors to the cafe, which will be setting up at Leila's Shop in Shoreditch as part of the London Design Festival from the 12th to the 23rd September, will be able to select items from the menu that have low, medium and high water footprints, while perusing backdrops with infographics and "surprising facts" about water consumption.

As Simran Sethi's recent TED talk explained, assailing people with facts is not always the best way to create change. It's in making the personal connections between the issues and how they impact our daily lives and the lives of our loved ones that we start to see people behaving differently.

It will be interesting to see whether Wonderwater can serve up that kind of consciousness shift on its menu.

How Much Water is on The Earth -- Really?

This drawing shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant. Image courtesy: USGS/Public Domain

I know, I know. I always seem to be harping on water - it's availability; drinkability; distribution; conservation vs pollution; use vs misuse; and, on and on ad nauseum. I have been saying for a long time now that water will become the new currency; and, if you can't afford to pay, you die of thirst - that simple.

It's hard for those of us who are still able to turn on a tap and have clean, clear drinkable flow right into our glasses to believe that lives have been lost in the effort to obtain good, clean drinking water. Click here, or here or even here.

Maybe this will put some things into perspective.

While it looks like the planet's surface is covered mostly in water, the fact is there is very little water on this planet when you compare it to the size of the planet as a whole. The USGS created this image to give us a little perspective.

USGS states, "About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. But water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers, and even in you and your dog. Still, all that water would fit into that "tiny" ball. The ball is actually much larger than it looks like on your computer monitor or printed page because we're talking about volume, a 3-dimensional shape, but trying to show it on a flat, 2-dimensional screen or piece of paper. That tiny water bubble has a diameter of about 860 miles, meaning the height (towards your vision) would be 860 miles high, too! That is a lot of water."

It may be a lot of water, but almost all of it is not usable for us. Over 96% is saline water in the oceans, and of the fresh water that's left, most of that is locked up in ice at the poles, is underground were we don't reach it, or is in the atmosphere.

Perhaps this will give us some perspective on how truly precious a resource water really is. Please conserve whenever possible and don't pollute this diminishing resource.

20 Interesting Facts About Water

Photo courtesy: discovermagazine

1. Water is everywhere—there are 332,500,000 cubic miles of it on the earth’s surface. But less than 1% of it is fresh and accessible, even when you include bottled water.

2. And “fresh” can be a relative term. Before 2009, federal regulators did not require water bottlers to remove E. coli.

3. Actually, E. coli doesn’t sound so bad. In 1999 the Natural Resources Defense Council found that one brand of spring water came from a well in an industrial parking lot near a hazardous waste dump.

4. Cheers! The new Water Recovery System on the International Space Station recycles 93% of astronauts’ perspiration and urine, turning it back into drinking water.

5. Kurdish villages in northern Iraq are using a portable version of the NASA system to purify water from streams and rivers, courtesy of the relief group Concern for Kids.

6. Ice is a lattice of tetrahedrally bonded molecules that contain a lot of empty space. That’s why it floats.

7. Even after ice melts, some of those tetrahedrons almost always remain, like tiny ice cubes 100 molecules wide. So every glass of water, no matter what its temperature, comes on the rocks.

8. You can make your own water by mixing hydrogen and oxygen in a container and adding a spark. Unfortunately, that is the formula that helped destroy the Hindenburg.

9. Scientists have a less explosive recipe for extracting energy from hydrogen and oxygen. Strip away electrons from some hydrogen molecules, add oxygen molecules with too many electrons, and bingo! You get an electric current. That’s what happens in a fuel cell.

10. Good gardeners know not to water plants during the day. Droplets clinging to the leaves can act as little magnifying glasses, focusing sunlight and causing the plants to burn.

11. Hair on your skin can hold water droplets too. A hairy leg may get sunburned more quickly than a shaved one.

12. Vicious cycle: Water in the stratosphere contributes to the current warming of the earth’s atmosphere. That in turn may increase the severity of tropical cyclones, which throw more water into the stratosphere. That’s the theory, anyway.

13. The slower rate of warming in the past decade might be due to a 10% drop in stratospheric water. Cause: unknown.

14. Although many doctors tell patients to drink eight glasses of water a day, there is no scientific evidence to support this advice.

15. The misinformation might have come from a 1945 report recommending that Americans consume about “1 milliliter of water for each calorie of food,” which amounts to 8 or 10 cups a day. But the report added that much of that water comes from food—a nuance many people apparently missed.

16. Call waterholics anonymous: Drinking significantly more water than is needed can cause “water intoxication” and lead to fatal cerebral and pulmonary edema. Amateur marathon runners have died this way.

17. Scientists at Oregon State University have identified vast reservoirs of water beneath the ocean floor. In fact, there may be more water under the oceans than in them.

18. Without water, ocean crust would not sink back into the earth’s mantle. There would be no plate tectonics, and our planet would probably be a lot like Venus: hellish and inert.

19. At the other end of the wetness scale, planet GJ 1214b, which orbits a red dwarf star, may be almost entirely water.

20. Recent evidence suggests that when the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago, comets had liquid cores. If so, life may have started in a comet.

Via discovermagazine

10 Reasons For Drinking Water You May Not Have Thought Of

Photo courtesy: pixmac

Everywhere you look - there is advertising and/or information on the necessity to drink 8 glasses of water a day. Is this true? I tend to jump on the bandwagon that claims that 8 glasses of pure water a day is the minimum you should be drinking. Any pop, coffee, tea, fruit juices, vegetable juices, etc. are in addition to, not instead of, the water you drink.

However, there are many people who say that 8 glasses may not be necessary for many people. There are even dieticians, nutritionists and medical professionals who claim that drinking the 8 glasses is not necessary as most of the pure water you require is contained in the fruits and vegetables people eat.

Some people may not require the 8 glasses of pure water a day; but, they are in the minority. There is lots of moisture in fruits and vegetables; but, a lot of the water is cooked out of the vegetables. Check it out. Put some veggies in a pan, turn on the heat and watch. Within a minute or so, you will see liquid on the bottom of the pan that could only have come from the veggies. This, then, turns to steam which literally cooks your veg in its own moisture.

Fruit is a better source as we tend to eat fruit raw and many of them are naturally juicy - apples, peaches, watermelons, cantelope...

Researchers estimate that half of the world’s population is chronically dehydrated. And in America, that level is even higher at 75% of the population. Inexcusable! We live in a water-rich country, North America; and, there is absolutely no reason why every man, woman and child should not have access to clean, drinking water.

1. Your blood is over 80% water and needs water to make healthy new blood cells.

2. Your bones are over 50% water and need water to make healthy new bone cells.

3. Drinking more water actually helps lessen pain in your body by getting your lymphatic system moving. The lymphatic system is a network of nodes, tubes, vessels, and fluid that move waste out of your tissues. It requires water to function properly.

4. Water helps to eliminate wastes and toxins from your body through the lymphatic system, kidneys, and intestines.

5. Water lubricates your joints, helps reduce joint pain; and, protects against wear and tear.

6. Water regulates your metabolism; so, if you’re overweight chances are you may need more water.

7. Water balances body temperature.

8. Water helps to ensure adequate electrical functioning so your brain and nervous system function properly. Your brain and nervous system send out electrical signals to function properly. Researchers estimate that your brain gives off about the same amount of electricity as a 60 watt light bulb. So, there’s some truth to the image of a light bulb going on when someone has a good idea.

9. Water alleviates dehydration.

10. Every cell and organ in your body requires adequate water to function properly.

So, one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve your health is to start drinking more pure water every day. Be sure to drink water an empty stomach or you’ll simply be diluting your digestive enzymes and making your digestion less effective.

Via Care2.com