kelleytjansson

If you’re like most of America, you’re tired of the ALS ice bucket challenge videos on Facebook.  Even though we’ve all been alerted to the fact that wasting water isn’t exactly the best message to send to the millions of people in the world who don’t have clean water to drink, we all want to see ALS wiped out.  Unfortunately, it took Matt Damon to dump toilet water over his head in his own ALS challenge video to remind us of this fact.  The actor is a co-founder of the non-profit Charity Water and he knows his water facts.

Across the pond, water made headlines as a promo for the popular Downton Abbey TV series revealed a misplaced water bottle in the picture.  Dubbed water-bottle-gate, the gaffe surely proved an embarrassing moment for a production which prides itself in historical accuracy.  Not to worry, though, the cast turned the mistake into much-needed publicity for the UK charity WaterAid that “…helps families in the world’s poorest countries get clean drinking water.”

According to various websites, 748M people (roughly 1 in 10) worldwide do not have access to clean water.  While neither the ALS challenge or water-bottle-gate set out to draw attention to this issue, few can deny that 2014 has been the summer for water charities.