{"id":278478,"date":"2025-06-17T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T09:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/17\/theres-something-in-the-water\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:08:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:08:03","slug":"theres-something-in-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/17\/theres-something-in-the-water\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something in the water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"main-text\">\n<p><iframe title=\"There&#039;s something in the water | Standard Time talk show S2E16\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oPSgT7BJNlY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Groundwater supplies<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eea.europa.eu\/publications\/europes-groundwater\"> 65 % of the drinking water used in the EU<\/a>. Europe has a great average performance when it comes to water infrastructures, and much of the continent is geographically lucky to have access to this resource. But it\u2019s not universal, and things have been breaking down in recent years as climate change shows its effects and the South, the East and even Central Europe are gradually drying up. Climate change and pollution are doing a number on drinking water supplies, but corporate use is also a problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Commercial overuse leaves local residents thirsty<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the Mexican town of<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/3\/30\/Catedral_de_San_Crist%C3%B3bal_de_las_Casas_1.jpg\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Cristobal De Las Casas<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the local<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rPzie3gsdUA\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coca-Cola bottling plant<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is reported to consume most of the community drinking water, which has driven locals to buy bottled drinks instead, including those with a high sugar content. This trend is suspected to be behind a staggering figure: 35% of the population of San Cristobal De Las Casas lives with diabetes.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This Mexican case probably contributed to the suspicion of activists in<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/panorama\/lueneburger-gegen-coca-cola-wem-gehoert-das-wasser-a-877820de-fe41-4904-bea0-1198d5e09a5a\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">L\u00fcneburg, Germany,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who have raised the alarm about Coca-Cola\u2019s plans to pump more groundwater out of the heathland there. This is heavily criticized and protested by local initiatives like <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fridays for Future<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unser Wasser<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Our Water).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eea.europa.eu\/highlights\/eus-eastern-partnership-countries-face\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">water scarcity<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has been a problem over the past two decades, and extreme droughts have been frequenting Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary, as well as most South European countries. One of our guests today, Gergely P\u00e1pai has been reporting on the effects of last year\u2019s droughts and even guerilla activities in restoring wetlands for the health of a natural habitat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, even when water is present, agricultural and industrial pollution pose a huge problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Contaminants<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main problem in the region\u2019s rivers is the high concentrations of ammonium (NH4) and phosphate, caused by discharges of untreated or insufficiently treated wastewater and by agriculture,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> according to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterbriefingglobal.org\/eea-warns-eus-eastern-partnership-countries-face-problems-with-water-scarcity-and-pollution\/\">EEA report<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 220px;\" src=\"https:\/\/cba.media\/706415\/embed?audio&amp;q=1\" width=\"100%\" height=\"220\"><\/iframe><em>You can also listen to the Standard Time talk show in a podcast format on CBA, or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.worldbank.org\/en\/opendata\/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In most regions of the world, over 70 percent of freshwater is used for agriculture.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But the IT sector follows closely.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com\/cms\/api\/am\/binary\/RW15mgm\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microsoft reports<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a water consumption of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1.7 billion gallons in 2022,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gstatic.com\/gumdrop\/sustainability\/google-2023-environmental-report.pdf\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 5.56 Billion gallons in the same year, and this will all just increase with the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.watertechnologies.com\/blog\/artificial-intelligence-using-ton-water-heres-how-be-more-resourceful\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">implementation of AI.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Every time you ask ChatGPT a series of between 5 and 50 prompts or questions, it gulps up 500 milliliters of water.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>On the tap<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europe\u2019s relationship to drinking water is a very privileged one. Western Europe has some of the cleanest tap water in the world, and yet, more than<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org\/blog\/2017\/5\/4\/standing-up-to-the-plastic-bottled-water-industry-in-europe\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 50 million people have switched to single-use plastic bottled<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> water instead in the last 20 years.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A strong marketing push from beverage companies to profile bottled water as a superior choice, even where its quality is no better than the publicly available water.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In some cases, infrastructure poses problems. In Barcelona, for example,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org\/blog\/2017\/5\/4\/standing-up-to-the-plastic-bottled-water-industry-in-europe\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the water comes from the Llobregat<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">river and a combination of chlorine, hardness, and a lot of minerals gives it a very poor taste. If we look at the East of Europe, the loss of trust in governments plays a vital role. After the fall of Communism, many across the region adopted a more individualistic mindset, and the mistrust in government-managed public services, such as water management, was one of the victims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today we are happy to welcome three experts to tell us their knowledge when it comes to our relationship with water and how this will change due to climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Guests<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/authors\/filip-oana\/\"><b>Oana Filip<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> writes about culture and life. She is a journalist for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/journals\/scena9\/\">Scena9<\/a>, a Romanian magazine and website. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She is passionate about rural life, memes and existential questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Gergely Simon<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is an environmental chemist at Greenpeace in Budapest and the Pesticide Action Network Europe in Brussels, dedicated to campaigning and reducing pollution\u2019s impact on ecosystems and human health.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Gergely \u00c1ron P\u00e1pai<\/b> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a documentarian and the head of the video division at the Hungarian investigative portal <a href=\"https:\/\/atlatszo.hu\/\">\u00c1tl\u00e1tsz\u00f3<\/a>. Issues of environment are his recurring topic, and his<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NGqv-Nx2IoA&amp;t=758s\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> film<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of last year\u2019s drought went viral in the peak of the August heat.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Production<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Creative team<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>R\u00e9ka Kinga Papp anchor<br \/>Daniela Univazo writer-editor<br \/>Merve Akyel\u00a0 art director, Eurozine<br \/>Szilvia Pint\u00e9r producer<br \/>Priyanka Hutschenreiter project manager<br \/>Julia Sobota captions and translations<br \/>Zs\u00f3fia Gabriella Papp digital producer<\/p>\n<p><b>Management<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Judit Csik\u00f3s\u00a0 finance<br \/>R\u00e9ka Kinga Papp\u00a0 editor-in-chief<br \/>Csilla Nagyn\u00e9 Kardos office administration<\/p>\n<p><strong>Video Crew\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gergely \u00c1ron P\u00e1pai Video Recording<\/p>\n<p>Bence Bodoky Video Recording<\/p>\n<p>Istv\u00e1n Nagy Sound Recording<\/p>\n<p><strong>Postproduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>N\u00f3ra Ruszkai video editor<br \/>Istv\u00e1n Nagy lead video editor<br \/>Mil\u00e1n Golovics dialogue editor<\/p>\n<p><strong>Art<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Victor Maria Lima animation<br \/>Crypt-of-Insomnia theme music<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hosted by\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>T\u00e1rsadalomtudom\u00e1nyi Kutat\u00f3k\u00f6zpont<\/p>\n<h3><b>Disclosure<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>This talk show is a Display Europe production: a ground-breaking media platform anchored in public values.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31201\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/displaylogo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"246\" height=\"205\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This programme is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the European Cultural Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and speakers only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-30258 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu_Ecf_logos.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu_Ecf_logos-300x74.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/eu_Ecf_logos.jpg 437w\" alt=\"\" width=\"437\" height=\"108\"\/><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/theres-something-in-the-water\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=theres-something-in-the-water\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Groundwater supplies 65 % of the drinking water used in the EU. Europe has a great average performance when it comes to water infrastructures,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}