This article reminds me about how much I hate bottled water, in places where potable water is cheap and plentiful. It’s such an incredibly cynical thing that many American families, again those who have cheap potable water, go through cases of water a week. “A spring in every home” like the article says is a modern miracle. It’s one of the things that if someone was brought here from even just the 1800s they’d be focused on. And yet we’ve managed to build a market primarily focused on recreating scarcity of fresh water.

I don’t know what that says about us. It doesn’t make me feel good though.

> There is so little fresh surface water on Earth that if you collected it all into a ball, it would barely reach across New York City.

I'm not sure what this means. I think we could drop New York City in one of the Great Lakes with little problem... or drop Moscow in Lake Baikal if you prefer.

Water is why life never left Earth. We would already be living on Mars or the moon if there was just a lake or two of water. Water got what plants crave.

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/scientists-grow-plants-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAqIJZeeXEc

Bottled water tastes fairly crap. But potable/tap water ...even in a part of Australia with good infra (i tested my tap water to have 17tds) tastes like a combination of metal/bleach. It is "hard" in the chemistry sense...and difficult to chug (the body doesnt like large amounts of it too quickly)

Once youve drunk ph adjusted (higher alkalinity) from a 4 cartridge RO water filter...everything tastes like shit.

>Although a dozen or so Johnny Appleseed festivals are still celebrated, he is less likely to be found in children’s books today.

Is this true? Grade school was full of Johnny Appleseed facts when I was a kid.