Tackling the Big Three David J. Tenenbaum Abstract
Contaminated drinking water, untreated human waste, and air pollution cause about 15% of the estimated annual global death toll of 52 million, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) . The WHO attributes 5 million of those deaths to poor drinking water, poor sanitation, and dirty home environments, and another 2.7 million to air pollution. At any given time, up to half of humanity has a disease traceable to poor drinking water and sanitation. Despite these alarming numbers, human health is not always a priority in environmental forums. Compared to some other environmental health problems, the "big three" of water, sanitation, and air pollution are relatively well-understood. The answers to the problems have been delineated, but implementing those answers requires huge amounts of money ; in 1990, the Global Consultation of Safe Water and Sanitation estimated that half a trillion dollars would be needed to supply universal access to clean water and sanitation by the year 2000. Many have questioned how well major international agencies such as the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the WHO are dealing with issues of clean water, basic sanitation, and urban air pollution. At the heart of the matter is the question of whether the money funneled by these organizations into world health and environmental problems is being spent wisely or being wasted.
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