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This article is from a student at Tenzer Learning Center in New York, NY. Tenzer participated in a series of visits with Pulitzer Center journalists leading up the High School News Literacy Summit at Baruch College in Manhattan.
"How do you think about the water pollution now?" I asked my friend. "Water pollution is a grave problem in the world. We have an eye on the water pollution, and we have to protect it," my friend answered me. "Yes, it's not China's problem only, it's the world's problem."
Water is the basic building block of life. It's very important for human beings. But it also can destroy the world. Now, the world is beginning to pay attention to the water pollution.
For development, China built up too many factories for heavy industry. It's the key reason for pollution in China. Now a lot of people have been hurt by pollution, especially by water pollution. Too many people fell ill because they drank polluted water. The scope of water's influence is huge, even if you live far away from the river, because the river is flowing, and the pollution is also flowing with the water.
According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, "Up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water-related illnesses each year. [Similarly] If air pollution is not controlled," it says, "there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and twenty million cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years."
China's water quality gives researchers great concern. One third of the length of all China's rivers are now "highly polluted" as are 75% of its major lakes and 25% of all its coastal waters. Nearly 30,000 children die from diarrhoea due to polluted water each year.
So the water problem is a very serious problem in China now. "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water," scientistAlbert Szent-Gyorgyi said. I agree. If humans abandon the water, they will be without life. Everybody needs to protect the water.