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Showing posts from August, 2014

A Little Ice, A Lot of Water, A Whole Heap of Cynicism

Scott here.  I've seen a lot of concern over the wasting of water in the now infamous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  If you don't know what that is, welcome to the internet, you must be new here.  Google it and come back, we'll wait. Anyways, I've seen figures suggesting that around 1.2 million Americans have participated in the Challenge, using approx. 5 gallons of water each, meaning somewhere in the ballpark of 6 million gallons of water have been used so far (as of two days ago, so that number has grown).  Sounds like a staggering number, and it is a significant amount of water, to be sure.   And if you donated to ALSA, but chose to forgo the ice bucket to conserve water, I think that is admirable, and I applaud your decision to use the Challenge as a way to shed light on water scarcity at the same time. But before we begin criticizing an effective fundraising practice by lamenting the waste of water, I wonder if we are willing to examine our own daily practic