By Suzanne York. If humanity somehow survives the pending ecological collapse – driven by human impacts – future generations will wonder how it got so bad.  It’s a rather simple explanation though. It is a combination of greed, ignorance and sticking our heads in the sand. Case in point.  Water, and water shortages in particular. 
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By Suzanne York. The poorest people in the world are paying the highest price for safe water, according to WaterAid’s report, Water: At What Cost? The State of the World’s Water 2016. Worldwide, some 650 million people in the world still do not have access to clean water and more than 2.3 billion do not
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org For a river that is as venerated as the Ganges River (known as Ganga to Indians), it comes as a shock when people hear how polluted and imperiled the waterway is today. Roughly 3 billion liters of sewage is dumped into the river every day, and there is further contamination of
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org Being in India – a country of 1.3 billion people – sort of puts the whole notion of sustainability on its head.  The poverty, pollution, chaos and shear numbers makes everything a challenge, to put it simply.  Here on the sub-continent, and globally, can a healthy, “resilient” environment be created in
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org Poverty drives people to do some drastic things, and bearing a child for money is one of them. Commercial surrogacy is defined as when a woman is financially compensated beyond expenses associated with the pregnancy for carrying the child of another couple. India is home to a large number of surrogate mothers,
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org It’s a subject that few want to discuss, but one of paramount importance.  It is the topic of violence and discrimination against girls (including child marriage), which is occurring with increasing frequency. In India, the past few months have brought increased attention to gender violence, based on some horrific, yet sadly
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org Mention India and many contradictory images are often conjured up – poverty and Rajput castles, rich and exotic foods and begging mothers and children, the Himalayan mountains and Rajasthani deserts. But there is no contradiction on the importance of the Indian monsoon. Indian agriculture and much of Indian culture are intertwined
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org. India is a fast-developing nation with a population of 1.2 billion people, and by 2030 will likely be the most-populous in the world. India’s disparities and inequalities are staggering, with 32.7% of the population living on $1.25 per day. As the country continues to grow, the impacts on its citizens and
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