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A City Council member wants New Yorkers to brush their teeth – and not rely on the public water system to provide fluoride – for healthy teeth.

We're kicking off a series of Please Explains on how to save the world—ways to approach complex global problems such as climate change, food supply, garbage disposal, population control, and violence. Today's topic is how to protect the world's water supply. Upmanu Lall, Director of the Columbia Water Center, and Sandra Postel, founder of the Global Water Policy Project and National Geographic Freshwater Fellow join us to discuss the state of fresh water around the globe.

A county executive in the Catskills says New York City is acting like an "occupying nation" in communities within its upstate watershed, polluting waterways, flooding homes and paying too little in taxes as it maintains the purity of its water supply.

New York's beaches have the seventh worst water quality in the nation because of pollution from storm runoff and sewer overflows, according to the annual beach report from the Natural Resources Defence Council.