This Blue Planet: Preserving & Sustaining a Healthy Earth On
December 7, 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft took a
photograph of the Earth at a distance of about 45,000 km. This
iconic picture - The Blue Marble - captured what can only be
truly appreciated from space: the fact that we live on a water
planet. Yet while 70 percent of Earth is covered by water, only
a tiny percentage (0.001 percent) of that water is fit for human
consumption and accessible to aquatic and terrestrial species.
Although the amount of water on the planet has remained nearly
the same since the Earth was first formed, human impacts have
substantially reduced the amount of water that is available for
us to drink, fish from, and swim in. As our blue planet
continues its orbit, environmental advocate and speaker
Alexandra Cousteau urges us to view global water issues not as a
disparate collection of unrelated problems, but rather through a
systems-based approach that recognizes the fundamental
interconnectivity of these issues an