On access to clean water and the commoditization of a human need,

"We recognize that access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a basic human need,"

It takes a week-long international forum to figure out something the Romans knew over 2,000 years ago. Actually, with state built baths, aqueducts and washrooms, the Romans seem to have been much more enlightened than we are.

The Romans understood that if people are healthy and don't spend the majority of their day scavenging for food, shelter and clean water, they can spend more time doing business. They developed doctors, engineers, mathematicians, philosophers, leaders, cooks, biologists, the list can go on.

In simple terms, when one doesn't have to worry basic need i.e. food, water, shelter and peace, poverty tends to disappear, great minds emerge, and life for everyone improves.

We are now developing a society that revovles around the needs of the one, that you are the only one responsible for your health, food and living conditions, and that we have no responsibility to those around us. If they live in poverty, we tend to think that it doesn't affect us. In reality, the cost of not helping our neighbors, here and abroad is much more a detriment to our society than smaller bank accounts.

We in the west do have access to clean water and sanitation, but we cannot deny the fact that the west is rich and holds some power over the poor in the world. As long as we control their economies, we are responsible for what kind of world they live in. We must help them, if not out of compassion, then because it will benefit us as well as them.


"...nor expect to live on thine own terms in a realm that is common to all."

-Boethius