Safe Drinking Water

According to this article Americans spent $68.1 billion on soft drinks last year. That's about $10 per person in the world. And according to this site, the coca cola company alone spent $920,000 in lobbying in 1998. Now I'm known to slurp a soda on occasion, but how can we Americans justify putting so much money (and all the energy that represents) into sugar water?

Ethoswater presents alarming (perhaps alarmist) statistics:

Worldwide, nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20% of the world’s population) lack access to safe drinking water. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill almost 4,500 children per day. In fact, out of the 2.2 million unsafe drinking water deaths in 2004, 90% were children under the age of five.

Even if it's not as bad as their stats make it sound, only the disengenous would deny that lack of access to safe drinking water is a tragic reality for far too many people. If American consumers would put half of their soft drink expenditures into a trust to fund grants for safe drinking water projects, we could improve the quality of life for millions. If soft drink companies would spend half their lobbying expenditures on lobbying for political solutions to unsafe water sources, and spend half their advertising budget on promoting awareness of and involvement in water issues, we could end unsafe drinking water problems worldwide.

Imagine next time you're at your favorite fast food franchise the clerk instead of asking if you want the larger size asks if instead of soda, you'd like to donate to the safe drinking water trust fund? That's a world I want to live in.