A new trend has flooded social media known as the Ice Bucket Challenge. The trend involves dumping a bucket of freezing water onto someone’s head in order to promote awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and encourage donations to do research on the disease.
A lot of people have been posting videos of themselves doing the Ice Bucket Challenge on social networking sites. Part of the challenge involves someone who has taken place in it to “nominate” or challenge someone else to do it.
The person who is challenged has 24-hours to accept the challenge by uploading a video of them accepting the ice bucket challenge, and then have someone pour a bucket of water on their head. They can do that or forfeit by donating $100.
This challenge can be a good thing for those who are actually trying to promote awareness of Lou Gehrig’s disease. I have some friends who have taken the challenge and then donate.
The whole Ice Bucket Challenge is to “raise awareness” to give funds to help research Lou Gehrig’s disease. Donating to a reasonable charity is good because it shows in your heart that you want to help for a cause. There is just one problem with this that has made me a bit skeptical about this so called challenge.
Some people avoid giving money to a charitable cause just so they can record themselves accepting a challenge and then dumping water on their head.
This program is dedicated to find effective treatments and cures for the disease. I believe helping them out with a simple donation would be a better thing to do than just wasting water.
ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) came into fame after 1941, when the famed baseball player succumbed to it.
ALS is a degenerative disorder in which the nerves of the brain and spinal cord that control muscle movement deteriorate. As a result, muscles waste away, leading to paralysis and death, with a life span of up to 5 years, according to an article from WEBMD. Also, according to ALS Association website, there have been $99 million dollars committed to helping them find treatments and cures.
What I find ironic is the fact that Lou Gehrig’s disease has been known about since 1941 and a lot of money has been given to ALS and nobody has ever been cured according to Harvard Neuro Discovery Center.
America is in a drought season right now and the best thing to do is to try and conserve water. Governor Brown declared a statewide drought emergency and is asking all Californians to lower their water use by 20 percent, yet people are wasting one of the world’s most valuable resource.
One of the things that also scared me the most is the fact that, according to The Washington post, over 5-million gallons of water were used during the Ice bucket Challenge.
It does not sounds like too much of a big deal but that is a lot of water lost that could have been saved up in case of a more severe drought to come later on.
I appreciate the fact that people are bringing awareness through the whole ice bucket campaign and some have donated as well, but the disease has been around for such a long time and if you still want to help ALS, try to donate in hopes that they will find a cure. Let’s do this without wasting water.
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