I took quite a bit of flak for my recent post where I defended my choice to drink bottled water when traveling.

My reason was simple: the quality of the water in random locations tends to be pretty bad — at least from a taste standpoint. And if it tastes that bad, e.g. like chlorine or sewage, then I figure there’s a decent chance it might not be good for me.

Well, as if on cue, the Associated Press just released a study today that show’s how there are trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the tap water of many cities. Some highlights from a CNN article:

• Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.

• Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

• Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

• A sex hormone was detected in the drinking water of San Francisco, California.

• The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

Right. Nothing wrong with that good ol’ tap water, huh? Now combine that with varying nasty tastes in different cities’ hotels and restaurants.

I totally agree that drinking tap water is better from an ideal standpoint than drinking bottled water, but until they can filter as well as the high-end bottled water companies, and produce a consistently high quality product, I will be sticking with bottled water.:

I’m seriously tired of hearing that there is no reason to drink bottled water. Up until about a month ago I traveled throughout the United States quite a bit. As a consultant for around three years I was either driving or flying somewhere at least a couple of times a month.

This gave me ample opportunity to try and do the right thing as far as bottled water goes, i.e. to stop using it. But I couldn’t. You know why? Because the average tap water in an average place tastes like ass. You go one place and you literally taste something like sewage. You go to another place and it tastes like you’re drinking a glass of chlorine.

So yeah, if tap water everywhere tasted as good (and felt as safe) as it does in certain areas, then yes — it’d be horrible to drink bottled water. But for many like myself, we don’t drink it because it comes in a cool bottle; we drink it because it’s a known-good. We drink it because we know it went through a filter. I don’t care if it was originally tap water. I like good tap water. That’s the whole point.

If the U.S. had an infrastructure where you could pull a glass of Dasani or Smart Water out of every tap then you wouldn’t have the problem in the first place. So yeah, it’s messed up, but stop telling me there’s no legit reason to do it.:

In situations like this, I think there should be committees in place at an international level that convene and agree to isolate and punish countries that act in this way. And yes, this includes the United States where applicable.

The problem is that unevolved (selfish) cultures/economies/countries will do ANYTHING to get ahead. They don’t think about anyone but themselves in the present time, let alone in the future. The sad truth is that these people must be regulated; they simply lack the sophistication and decency to regulate themselves without outside influence.

This sort of hard-line policy from the international community needs to be supplemented with actual help in doing the right thing as well, since we can’t retard someone’s growth perpetually on account of environmental concerns.

I consider the destruction of the rain forests to be another such situation. The problem is that those motivated by selfishness and greed cannot be allowed to control natural resources that yield benefit to them financially or otherwise. And the difference between having a strong moral compass and ignoring it vs. not having one really matters very little in the end. But at least in the former case you can appeal to one’s sense of decency, whereas with the latter bribes and force are really your only options.

Either way, something must be done.

[ Link: Unacceptable Pollution ]

The light part is where the trees have been completely cut down. To me this presents an interesting moral dilemma: are people allowed to rape the land that they inhabit, to the detriment of the world? In other words, are they allowed to keep the rest of the world from benefitting from something unique to the planet? And if not, what should be done?

I think Bush would advocate a bombing strategy. I think public scorn is a better idea — something along the lines of international pressure to presserve the resource.

Watch this movie within one week.

An Inconvenient Truth