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Should Canada Share Its Freshwater with the United States?

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Term Paper: Taking Position on Water Issues

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Topic: Should Canada share its freshwater with the United States?

Semester 1: 2011/12

Table of Contents Introduction 3

Fresh water in Canada 4

Water in the US 5

The Ethics of water 5

Conclusion 7

References 9

Introduction

The earth is a watery planet; three-quarters of earth’s surface is covered with water. And this is as it should be; the earth is the only known plant that supports life which is dependent on water. Water is found in oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers, under-ground and in the atmosphere. (The Atlas of Canada, 2011) However 97% of the earth’s water is salty, and cannot support land based life which occupies a quarter of the earth’s surface. Therefore land based life has a disproportional amount of fresh water for its usage at only 3% compared to sea life. Water naturally occurs in three states: solid- glaciers, ice, snow; liquid - surface water, groundwater, soil moisture; groundwater and; gas- as water vapor that normally cools and drops to the ground as rain, snow or fog. Fresh water is defined as water that has less than 1000 milligrams per litre of the solids that dissolve in water. Of the worlds freshwater, about 99 % of the fresh water in the world is found in glaciers, ice-fields, or underground. This further decreases the amount of fresh water available to land based life (Environment Canada, 2011). Fresh water is a basic necessity of land based life forms. However distribution among different regions on the earth’s surface is not uniform. Canada is a water rich country while some regions of the neighbouring United States suffer acute shortages. The US especially the dry western plains would like to import some of Canada’s fresh water but Federal Government of Canada is unsure about

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