NEWSBYJOHN KERRY

Senator John Kerry is part of Change.org's Changemakers network, comprised of leading voices for social change. He chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is water. So not surprisingly, disputes over access to water have defined relationships between states and nations across the world, as much in the American Southwest as in the Ancient Middle East. Coastal communities try to cope  with the devastating effects of too much water, while many agricultural communities constantly worry about having too little. Americans debate the environmental impacts of bottled water, while many in developing nations struggle to find water clean enough to drink.

Whatever the particular problem, it's clear there is a worldwide water crisis. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population in the last century, and although we're not in danger of running out, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. Nearly 20 percent of the world's population lives in areas where water is scarce and almost another quarter in areas so poor that they lack the resources and infrastructure to extract water from rivers and aquifers.

Why should we care? Because water-borne pathogens kill more than 4,000 children every single day—diarrhea alone kills close to two million children under the age of five each year. Important watersheds are becoming overpopulated and overdeveloped. And water-related natural disasters are occurring with ever greater frequency and ferocity.

Today's Blog Action Day is a great contribution to the discussion. Our world's health and security is completely intertwined with the water resources of our planet, and this incredibly complex issue needs the full attention of us all.

Senator John Kerry is part of Change.org's Changemakers network, comprised of leading voices for social change.

I'm strategizing and planning with the environmental community this morning, but wanted to emphasize something - and I thought of it this morning listening to my morning radio:

If you've ever gotten caught up in the conventional wisdom of Washington that says no big change can happen, and politicians will always find the easy way out, please know that today is a reminder of how people power can turn that spin upside down overnight - and I know it because I was there and I saw it happen, and I saw it happen long before I had a vote in the Senate or an office in Washington, and it's why I still believe.

Forty years ago today, twenty million Americans - fully one-tenth of our country's population at the time - came together to express the wakeup call that was Earth Day 1970.

What'd it do? What'd it change?

Think about where we were that April: you had no EPA, no laws preventing lead paint from being used in people's homes or on babies' cribs, no one to safeguard our public drinking water -  polluters were even dumping medical waste into oceans. DDT and other pesticides were driving the bald eagle toward extinction. And by 1970, rivers were so dirty and polluted that some actually went up in flames. 

Too often, the way it's played and the way it's reported, Americans might think everything that happens in Washington is a game.

But look, this is anything but a game. The business before the Senate is literally life and death on many issues, and the parliamentary tricks to delay and obstruct the basic workings of our government have real-world consequences.

What am I talking about? Start with the latest example: one Senator's efforts to delay the votes on some critically-needed legislation for Americans out of work and hurting in our economy.

A lot of people today are clicking on this news story about Senator Bunning.

Political theater? Much more than that. Here's what's at stake: 2,000 federal highway workers were furloughed this morning, losing the pay that their families depend on and halting work on critical national infrastructure. Nearly 1.2 million could lose their unemployment benefits without an extension of that program, pulling away a critical financial lifeline.

This has to end.