Every year on March 22, people around the globe observe World Water Day in an effort to draw attention to the ongoing and critically important issue of access to clean water worldwide. This year the United Nations is dedicating World Water Day 2010 to the theme of Clean Water for a Healthy World. So true! Water and sanitation is at the root of all life, and should be a basic human right.

It has recently been determined that over one billion people on the planet do not have access to clean water, a travesty that leads to poor sanitation, disease, famine, and death. And not surprisingly, 98 percent of all water-related deaths occur in the developing world.

Our partners at YouthNoise have decided to do their part in calling attention to these staggering statistics by using Twitter to spread awareness and action ideas. Here's what you can do to help:

1. Follow YouthNoise on Twitter. Just go to twitter.com/youthnoise and click "follow." For every new follower, YouthNoise will donate $1 to a water organization of your choice (up to $150). Click here to vote!

1. Retweet any YouthNoise posts tagged #ynwwd. YouthNoise is posting facts, links and other information about World Water Day. For each RT of these water tweets, an additional $1 will go to the cause (up to $150).
2. Spread the word. YouthNoise will donate up to $300 total to support clean water programs, but we need your help to do it! So tell your friends to follow and retweet YouthNoise on Twitter, too.

Thanks for your support!

In recognition of Veterans Day, explore has released a new short called "Fish Out of Water", a documentary about the effects of war on the thousands of U.S. soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. To help these selfless heroes cope with the trauma they've suffered -- often in the form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, or loss of limbs and other physical injuries -- Sun Valley Adaptive Sports in Idaho hosts stunning and peace-filled nature trips through their "Wounded Warrior Veterans Program", where vets can meditate through fishing and convene with their natural surroundings. This moving film illustrates how the body may heal its injuries over time, but often the mind takes much longer to recover.

Take a moment to watch this film - it is a beautiful tribute to those serving our country so selflessly.

This week several of Link's staff, including myself, attended SOCAP09 in San Francisco, a conference of social innovators and entrepreneurs investing in doing GOOD in the world. At the keynote address of the Embrace Disruption mini-conference on social media, Adam Werbach (former president of the Sierra Club) alerted us to the scourge of "yuppie mouth". This term is apparently used by dentists to describe tooth decay in young people who have avoided fluoridated public tap water in favor of an exclusive liquid diet of bottled waters, sodas and juices.

But cavities aren't the only reason you might think twice about drinking bottled H2O. There are sound ecological and economic reasons to eschew the bottle in favor of the tap -- including the plastic bottle refuse and the vast distances some bottled waters are transported. In the case of Fiji Water, as Werbach pointed out at SOCAP, your pristine thirst quencher is literally shipped from the other side of the world.

Wanting to dive in to the water wars, I found that Democracy Now! (airing on Link TV) was already there, interviewing author Anna Lenzer about her recent exposé in Mother Jones, "Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle." She points out the troubling environmental record of this brand that boasts the slogan "Every Drop is Green," as well as the U.S.-owned company's questionable relations with the island paradise's military junta. You can watch the complete interview at DemocracyNow.org.

Fiji Water has issued a response to the Mother Jones article, arguing that the company has and will continue to invest substantially into the people of Fiji. The company also strongly rejected the premise that their doing "business in Fiji somehow...legitimizes a military dictatorship."

Where do you stand on the water debate? Do you drink from the bottle or the tap -- and why? And do you buy Fiji Water's rebuttal of Lenzer's claims? Link wants to hear from you!

Fiji Water photo courtesy of Verne Equinox under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Writer and adventurer Jon Bowermaster explores the world's oceans from the seat of a sea kayak. Used as both transportation and as floating ambassadors, sea kayaks allow Jon and his team of the world's best photographers, filmmakers, scientists and navigators - to reach corners of the world rarely seen. Tonight's new episode takes us to South America's Altiplano, the mountainous desert region crossing the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, looking for water in the driest place on earth.

Watch Oceans 8 - Into the Altiplano Online Now

Visit Link's ISSUE: Oceans Page