Fighting The Corporate Theft Of Our Water
Excerpt:
By Tara Lohan
The Bush administration is helping multinationals buy U.S. municipal water systems, putting our most important resource in the hands of corporations with no public accountability. All across the United States, municipal water systems are being bought up by multinational corporations, turning one of our last remaining public commons and our most vital resource into a commodity.
The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival. The effects of the federal government's actions are being felt all the way down to Conference of Mayors, which has become a "feeding frenzy" for corporations looking to make sure that nothing is left in the public's hands, including clean, affordable water.
Documentary filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman recently teamed up with author Michael Fox to write "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water" (Wiley, 2007). The three followed water privatization battles across the United States -- from California to Massachusetts and from Georgia to Wisconsin, documenting the rise of public opposition to corporate control of water resources.
They found that the issue of privatization ran deep.
"We came to see that the conflicts over water are really about fundamental questions of democracy itself: Who will make the decisions that affect our future, and who will be excluded?" they wrote in the book's preface. "And if citizens no longer control their most basic resource, their water, do they really control anything at all?" As the effects of climate change are being felt around the world, including decreasing snowpacks and rainfall, water is quickly becoming the market's new holy grail.
Mayor Gary Podesto, in his State of the City address to his constituents in 2003, sang the praises of privatization to his community, located in California's Central Valley. "It's time that Stockton enter the 21st century in its delivery of services and think of our citizens as customers," he said. And there is the crux of the issue -- privatization means transforming citizens into customers. Or, in other words, making people engaged in a democratic process into consumers looking to get the best deal.
It is also means taking our most important resource and putting it at the whims of the market.
Currently, water systems are controlled publicly in 90 percent of communities across the world and 85 percent in the United States, but that number is changing rapidly, the authors report in "Thirst." In 1990, 50 million people worldwide got their water services from private companies, but by 2002 it was 300 million and growing.
There are a number of reasons to be concerned.
End of excerpt.
~~~~
The article linked above is a most comprehensive look at the schemes involved in buying up our public trust to keep us hostage. And it is happening now, and in this country under the radar.
With their insatiable desire for profit corporations globally are going too far regarding infringing on a resource that is not their own. What gives a corporation the right to come into any state and take the ground water and use it to make a profit for themselves by selling it elsewhere? A resource that is a fundamental human right? This will happen more and more in the United States however, as water resources become more depleted elsewhere and demand for bottled water increases. It is a problem we must deal with now, especially also in light of changes predicted from the climate crisis should conditions remain the same or worsen as governments collude with corporations to control dwindling resources in order to extort higher prices to make a profit.
Just look at the climate crisis and the affects of it already being felt globally ( with Darfur a clear example of how far environmental devastation can go and its effects.) The Bush regime knows full well the truth about this crisis and the extent of it, and that is why I believe they are purposefully fronting a disinformation campaign to keep doubt in the minds of people as to its true repercussions in order to buy up the water resources in the meantime before people enmasse truly wake up.
This is why the politics of fear and secrecy is so important to address and fight, because it is affecting our very ability to survive.
And it is not only the privitization of our resources that we must be concerned about. The water bottling industry in this country alone is a 400 billion dollar industry. It pulls in three times more than the pharmaceutical industry and demand is rising. So as population rises and demand rises with it worldwide, freshwater resources will begin to dwindle to satisy the demand, and once it's gone it's gone. One in six Americans drink only bottled water. Moreso, bottled water is often not what it appears to be.
Corporations spend millions of dollars promoting it as safe, clean healthy, and superior in quality to tap water, while many popular brands actually come from our public taps. A Natural Resources Defense Council study found that bottled water is no more "pure" or safe than tap water. The bottled water industry is also the least regulated industry in the US. And it can be seen by the price which in many cases is marked up to cost more per gallon than gasoline! Which of course makes those in this industry very happy, but at what price to us in the costs it brings to our land and to our global environment? Do they truly have the universal right to simply use this precious resource for their own profit over the needs of others?
It was Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle which sponsored the World Water Forum which took place last March, and they account for half the global bottled water market. And they are also pushing for privatization of water resources with the World Bank backing them up. I think you get the picture.
Water should remain a public trust controlled by local government at the behest of the taxpayers. It should also be declared a fundamental human right. It is the utter insensitivity and indifference of these companies overshadowed by their greed that makes this all so unfair and so morally wrong. I believe there need to be more stringent guidelines in allowing just anyone with a permit to take water out of the ground. Again, the taxpayers of any state should have rights over corporations who come in simply to raid their water resources for profit and privitize their systems. So we must keep fighting to see the day when water, that most sacred, beautiful, and life sustaining force is treated with the respect it should be treated with and used to give life to all equally who need it.
Link here:
Fighting The Corporate Theft Of Our Water
Don't wonder why Bush bought acreage in Paraguay.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Australia's Epic Drought: The Situation is Grim
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.
Australia's Epic Drought: The Situation Is Grim
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 20 April 2007
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation. The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies.
Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate-change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock. A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought.
End of excerpt.
~~~~
But let's continue to sit and waste time continuing to debate whether or not this is real. Let us pretend that the government of PM Howard has truly cared about this all along knowing what the consequences would be for their continued political stonewalling.
This is what happens when you have a global warming denier as your leader. This is what happens when profit trumps morality. This is what happens when political gain supercedes doing what is right. This is what happens when people are not given information about conservation with an emphasis on proper agricultural irrigiation practices, fishing practices, and management of water reources for human use and consumption.
PM Howard is now seeing his country wither away and it is the people who are paying for it. Now we will see the special interests looking to invest in nuclear power and build expensive reclamation plants and desalinization plants with their coal fired plants that will not begin to make up for the damage already done in the amount of time it will take to meet this challenge today.
How many different organizations around the world have to tell the leaders of the world over and over again how absolutely urgent it is for governments to begin working on this crisis NOW for the sake of our planet? Exactly what has to happen before that morality trumps politics? How many suicides? How many mass migrations? How many lives shattered? How many species destroyed?
Tomorrow is Earth Day, and while I have hope that at least this crisis is in the consciousness of more people than it was last year, there is still such a long way to go to see progress that sustains our resources for future generations. The Howards and Bushes of this world need to move out of the way if they are not going to understand the reality of this situation and let those who do come to the forefront to join with people to try to do all we can to fix the damage we have done to this planet. That is, the damage that is not too far gone already. This is truly tragic.
And Australia is just the starting point.
Report On Australian Drought And Global Warming
There was a report put out in 2003 that already linked the drought to human induced global warming. And yet, here we are.
Australia's Epic Drought: The Situation Is Grim
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 20 April 2007
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation. The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies.
Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate-change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock. A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought.
End of excerpt.
~~~~
But let's continue to sit and waste time continuing to debate whether or not this is real. Let us pretend that the government of PM Howard has truly cared about this all along knowing what the consequences would be for their continued political stonewalling.
This is what happens when you have a global warming denier as your leader. This is what happens when profit trumps morality. This is what happens when political gain supercedes doing what is right. This is what happens when people are not given information about conservation with an emphasis on proper agricultural irrigiation practices, fishing practices, and management of water reources for human use and consumption.
PM Howard is now seeing his country wither away and it is the people who are paying for it. Now we will see the special interests looking to invest in nuclear power and build expensive reclamation plants and desalinization plants with their coal fired plants that will not begin to make up for the damage already done in the amount of time it will take to meet this challenge today.
How many different organizations around the world have to tell the leaders of the world over and over again how absolutely urgent it is for governments to begin working on this crisis NOW for the sake of our planet? Exactly what has to happen before that morality trumps politics? How many suicides? How many mass migrations? How many lives shattered? How many species destroyed?
Tomorrow is Earth Day, and while I have hope that at least this crisis is in the consciousness of more people than it was last year, there is still such a long way to go to see progress that sustains our resources for future generations. The Howards and Bushes of this world need to move out of the way if they are not going to understand the reality of this situation and let those who do come to the forefront to join with people to try to do all we can to fix the damage we have done to this planet. That is, the damage that is not too far gone already. This is truly tragic.
And Australia is just the starting point.
Report On Australian Drought And Global Warming
There was a report put out in 2003 that already linked the drought to human induced global warming. And yet, here we are.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Living With Water Scarcity-World Must Act Now
Living With Water Scarcity-World Must Act Now
Living With Water Scarcity -- World Must Act Now
Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture News
Article Date: 25 Mar 2007 - 11:00 PDT
Only if we act to improve water use in agriculture now will we meet the acute water-environment-poverty challenges facing humankind over the next 50 years. "With earth's water, land and human resources it is possible to produce enough food for the future - but it is probable that today's food production and environmental trends will lead to crises in many parts of the world" says David Molden Deputy Director General of the International Water Management Institute.
This is the opening prognosis given in the Earthscan publication Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. The Assessment, the first of its kind, brings together the work of over 700 specialists from hundreds of institutes around the world into the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of water and food ever written, critically examining policies and practices of water use and development in the agricultural sector over the last 50 years.
Spearheaded by International Water Management Institute (IWMI), one of 15 CGIAR agricultural research centres striving to increase food production, increase rural incomes, and safeguard the environment, the report is co-sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), FAO, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Biological Diversity in a bid to find solutions to the challenge of balancing the water-food-environment needs.
The assessment finds that 1/3 of the world's population live in areas where water scarcity must be reckoned with. While much of this water scarcity cannot be avoided, water problems can be averted through better water management.
For example: A litre per calorie. A main driver of water use and scarcity comes from us - and what we eat. As a rule of thumb, about one litre of liquid water gets converted to water vapor to produce one calorie of food. "Each of us is responsible for consuming between 2,000 and 5,000 liters of water every day, depending on our diet and how the food is produced - far more than the 2 to 5 litres we drink every day" says Molden. A heavy meat diet requires much more than a vegetarian diet.
In developed countries water scarcity poses no threat to what appears on the dinner plate. In contrast, the relation between water and food is a real struggle for over two thirds of world's 850 million under-nourished people, where water is a key constraint to food security. There is already physical water scarcity in India and China, two water use giants. Because of rapid economic growth in both countries, diets are changing, with more dependence on animal products. In China, per capita meat demand has quadrupled over the last 30 years, and in India milk and egg products are becoming increasingly popular - meaning an accelerated demand for more water to grow more food.
Growing cities take more water, and environmental concerns are rising. A water-food-environment dilemma. Water use in agriculture is recognized as one of the major drivers of ecosystem degradation, causing habitat loss, drying up of rivers, and reduction in groundwater levels. Flows in the Colorado River in USA, the Yellow River in China, the Indus in India and Pakistan - all important food producing areas - dry up because of the water needed for irrigated agriculture. Clearly limiting agricultural water use is key for environmental sustainability. Therein lies the dilemma. More people require more water for more food; more water is essential in the fight against poverty; yet we should limit the amount of water taken from ecosystems.
How much more water? To rid the world of poverty and hunger, and to feed a growing wealthier population, the global food demand will double over the next 50 years. In the worst case scenario where practices don't change, water use will also double. Agricultural practices are changing, but not fast enough. The Assessment shows that with wise policies and investments in irrigation, upgrading rainfed agriculture, and trade it is possible over the next 50 years to limit future growth in water withdrawals to 13% and cultivated land expansion to 9%. But, further complicating the situation are effects of climate change, and the increased use of biofuels, and the necessary actions to address these. "The bottom line is that water scarcity is with us to stay, and we have to learn to live with it. This will require making some hard choices now instead of deferring them until later," says Molden. It starts at home.
Jan Lundqvist of the Stockholm International Water Institute points out that "reducing losses in the food chain and being careful with our diets can lead to significant water savings. Combined with other good agricultural production practices, water use could stabilize at present levels." In developed countries, people eat more than what is healthy and 30% to 40% of food is lost between farmers fields to our forks. In developed countries, much of this loss is between the shop and our plates, and could be avoided if we are more careful.
The way forward. The Comprehensive Assessment challenges all of us - not just policy makers and investors - to think differently about water and food. Instead of viewing water for food as different and competing from water for environment, we need to consider agriculture as an ecosystem producing multiple services for people and sustain biodiversity, and we need to protect the natural resource base on which it depends. We need to be more proactive in our policies and reform processes, crafting water institutions to meet local needs. And we need to place the means of getting out of poverty into the hands of poor people by focusing on water as a means to raise their own food and gain more income. Growing more food with less water - increasing water productivity - can reduce future demand for water, thus easing competition for water and environmental degradation. A 35% increase in water productivity could reduce additional crop water needs from 80% to 20% by 2050.
"While getting more crop, fish, meat and milk per drop is important for the environment, getting more value and nutrition per drop of water is a key for poverty reduction" says Molden. Improving access to water, and using it better are essential in the fight against poverty. Actions that target livelihood gains of smallholder farmers by securing water access through water rights and investments in water storage and delivery infrastructure are essential ingredients. The value obtained per drop of water can be improved by pro-poor water technologies, and investments in roads and markets. Multiple use systems - operated for domestic use, crop production, aquaculture, agroforestry and livestock - can improve water productivity and reduce poverty. The Assessment finds that the greatest potential is found in those rainfed areas of the world that are home to the highest number of poor people. A little additional water can go a long way in these areas. "Upgrading these rainfed lands through better water management holds the greatest potential to increase productivity, and decrease poverty," says Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm Environment Institute and author of the Assessment chapter on managing rainfed agriculture.
Since climate change is expected to hit these areas hard, better water systems will be a key to helping people cope with dry spells. Poverty, hunger, gender inequality, and environmental degradation continue to afflict developing countries not because of technical failings but because of political and institutional failings. There is need for drastic reform in the water sector. Governments must lead the reform process, but ironically state institutions themselves are in greatest need of reform. While water scarcity is here to stay, many of the problems associated with water scarcity can be avoided.
This will require that we deal with difficult choices and tradeoffs. Reconciling competing demands on water requires informed negotiations by the many stakeholders involved in water with transparent sharing of information. "The hope is in realizing the unexplored potential that lies in better water management along with non-miraculous changes in policy and production techniques" says Margaret Catley Carleson, Chair of the Global Water Partnership, "but world leaders must take action now." As Sunita Narain, 2005 Stockholm Water Prize Winner says, "this issue must become the world's obsession."
~~~~~~
Amen to that.
This is also not only about "eco talk" as some label it. This is about who we are as human beings. Climate change is affecting water tables, glacier melt, weather patterns that affect rainfall, and driving drought in many places, particularly in Africa and Australia, and now beginning in North America. However, much of this crisis is due to people wasting this precious resource, mismanaging it, polluting it, the proliferation of dam building for profit that cuts off basic water supplies that devastate environments and marinelife, overpopulation, lack of education, and violating the basic principle that guides its use: it is a human right.
If we are to see any progress in water management in the next 50 years, there will have to be a massive shift from apathy regarding its use and management with an emphasis on making sure it is declared a human right globally to keep corporatization and commoditizing it at bay and holding polluters accountable. This is why I believe any global climate treaty agreed upon next year (should that miracle actually occur) must include water conservation as one of its principle points of reference based on the severity and rapidness of glacier melt currently taking place globally. Billions depend on this water for their lives. Once it is gone, well, should we even contemplate what will happen then?
This crisis is real and is being made worse by human behavior. We have the water we need to sustain our planet if we only look beyond our egos and do what must be done now to preserve it for all. However, melting glaciers will not wait, and the longer we wait the more peril we put our own species in. This is also for me the most crucial environmental challenge of this century, and I have devoted my life to writing about it and bringing that information to others. I can only hope that with the water justice movement gaining steam and other events currently taking place, that we will see that shift in time.
Living With Water Scarcity -- World Must Act Now
Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture News
Article Date: 25 Mar 2007 - 11:00 PDT
Only if we act to improve water use in agriculture now will we meet the acute water-environment-poverty challenges facing humankind over the next 50 years. "With earth's water, land and human resources it is possible to produce enough food for the future - but it is probable that today's food production and environmental trends will lead to crises in many parts of the world" says David Molden Deputy Director General of the International Water Management Institute.
This is the opening prognosis given in the Earthscan publication Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. The Assessment, the first of its kind, brings together the work of over 700 specialists from hundreds of institutes around the world into the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of water and food ever written, critically examining policies and practices of water use and development in the agricultural sector over the last 50 years.
Spearheaded by International Water Management Institute (IWMI), one of 15 CGIAR agricultural research centres striving to increase food production, increase rural incomes, and safeguard the environment, the report is co-sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), FAO, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Biological Diversity in a bid to find solutions to the challenge of balancing the water-food-environment needs.
The assessment finds that 1/3 of the world's population live in areas where water scarcity must be reckoned with. While much of this water scarcity cannot be avoided, water problems can be averted through better water management.
For example: A litre per calorie. A main driver of water use and scarcity comes from us - and what we eat. As a rule of thumb, about one litre of liquid water gets converted to water vapor to produce one calorie of food. "Each of us is responsible for consuming between 2,000 and 5,000 liters of water every day, depending on our diet and how the food is produced - far more than the 2 to 5 litres we drink every day" says Molden. A heavy meat diet requires much more than a vegetarian diet.
In developed countries water scarcity poses no threat to what appears on the dinner plate. In contrast, the relation between water and food is a real struggle for over two thirds of world's 850 million under-nourished people, where water is a key constraint to food security. There is already physical water scarcity in India and China, two water use giants. Because of rapid economic growth in both countries, diets are changing, with more dependence on animal products. In China, per capita meat demand has quadrupled over the last 30 years, and in India milk and egg products are becoming increasingly popular - meaning an accelerated demand for more water to grow more food.
Growing cities take more water, and environmental concerns are rising. A water-food-environment dilemma. Water use in agriculture is recognized as one of the major drivers of ecosystem degradation, causing habitat loss, drying up of rivers, and reduction in groundwater levels. Flows in the Colorado River in USA, the Yellow River in China, the Indus in India and Pakistan - all important food producing areas - dry up because of the water needed for irrigated agriculture. Clearly limiting agricultural water use is key for environmental sustainability. Therein lies the dilemma. More people require more water for more food; more water is essential in the fight against poverty; yet we should limit the amount of water taken from ecosystems.
How much more water? To rid the world of poverty and hunger, and to feed a growing wealthier population, the global food demand will double over the next 50 years. In the worst case scenario where practices don't change, water use will also double. Agricultural practices are changing, but not fast enough. The Assessment shows that with wise policies and investments in irrigation, upgrading rainfed agriculture, and trade it is possible over the next 50 years to limit future growth in water withdrawals to 13% and cultivated land expansion to 9%. But, further complicating the situation are effects of climate change, and the increased use of biofuels, and the necessary actions to address these. "The bottom line is that water scarcity is with us to stay, and we have to learn to live with it. This will require making some hard choices now instead of deferring them until later," says Molden. It starts at home.
Jan Lundqvist of the Stockholm International Water Institute points out that "reducing losses in the food chain and being careful with our diets can lead to significant water savings. Combined with other good agricultural production practices, water use could stabilize at present levels." In developed countries, people eat more than what is healthy and 30% to 40% of food is lost between farmers fields to our forks. In developed countries, much of this loss is between the shop and our plates, and could be avoided if we are more careful.
The way forward. The Comprehensive Assessment challenges all of us - not just policy makers and investors - to think differently about water and food. Instead of viewing water for food as different and competing from water for environment, we need to consider agriculture as an ecosystem producing multiple services for people and sustain biodiversity, and we need to protect the natural resource base on which it depends. We need to be more proactive in our policies and reform processes, crafting water institutions to meet local needs. And we need to place the means of getting out of poverty into the hands of poor people by focusing on water as a means to raise their own food and gain more income. Growing more food with less water - increasing water productivity - can reduce future demand for water, thus easing competition for water and environmental degradation. A 35% increase in water productivity could reduce additional crop water needs from 80% to 20% by 2050.
"While getting more crop, fish, meat and milk per drop is important for the environment, getting more value and nutrition per drop of water is a key for poverty reduction" says Molden. Improving access to water, and using it better are essential in the fight against poverty. Actions that target livelihood gains of smallholder farmers by securing water access through water rights and investments in water storage and delivery infrastructure are essential ingredients. The value obtained per drop of water can be improved by pro-poor water technologies, and investments in roads and markets. Multiple use systems - operated for domestic use, crop production, aquaculture, agroforestry and livestock - can improve water productivity and reduce poverty. The Assessment finds that the greatest potential is found in those rainfed areas of the world that are home to the highest number of poor people. A little additional water can go a long way in these areas. "Upgrading these rainfed lands through better water management holds the greatest potential to increase productivity, and decrease poverty," says Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm Environment Institute and author of the Assessment chapter on managing rainfed agriculture.
Since climate change is expected to hit these areas hard, better water systems will be a key to helping people cope with dry spells. Poverty, hunger, gender inequality, and environmental degradation continue to afflict developing countries not because of technical failings but because of political and institutional failings. There is need for drastic reform in the water sector. Governments must lead the reform process, but ironically state institutions themselves are in greatest need of reform. While water scarcity is here to stay, many of the problems associated with water scarcity can be avoided.
This will require that we deal with difficult choices and tradeoffs. Reconciling competing demands on water requires informed negotiations by the many stakeholders involved in water with transparent sharing of information. "The hope is in realizing the unexplored potential that lies in better water management along with non-miraculous changes in policy and production techniques" says Margaret Catley Carleson, Chair of the Global Water Partnership, "but world leaders must take action now." As Sunita Narain, 2005 Stockholm Water Prize Winner says, "this issue must become the world's obsession."
~~~~~~
Amen to that.
This is also not only about "eco talk" as some label it. This is about who we are as human beings. Climate change is affecting water tables, glacier melt, weather patterns that affect rainfall, and driving drought in many places, particularly in Africa and Australia, and now beginning in North America. However, much of this crisis is due to people wasting this precious resource, mismanaging it, polluting it, the proliferation of dam building for profit that cuts off basic water supplies that devastate environments and marinelife, overpopulation, lack of education, and violating the basic principle that guides its use: it is a human right.
If we are to see any progress in water management in the next 50 years, there will have to be a massive shift from apathy regarding its use and management with an emphasis on making sure it is declared a human right globally to keep corporatization and commoditizing it at bay and holding polluters accountable. This is why I believe any global climate treaty agreed upon next year (should that miracle actually occur) must include water conservation as one of its principle points of reference based on the severity and rapidness of glacier melt currently taking place globally. Billions depend on this water for their lives. Once it is gone, well, should we even contemplate what will happen then?
This crisis is real and is being made worse by human behavior. We have the water we need to sustain our planet if we only look beyond our egos and do what must be done now to preserve it for all. However, melting glaciers will not wait, and the longer we wait the more peril we put our own species in. This is also for me the most crucial environmental challenge of this century, and I have devoted my life to writing about it and bringing that information to others. I can only hope that with the water justice movement gaining steam and other events currently taking place, that we will see that shift in time.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Where China's Rivers Run Dry
This report begs the question: At what price progress?
~~~
Where China's Rivers Run Dry
By Orville Schell
Newsweek
April 16, 2007 issue - The view from the top of the luxurious Morgan Centre (which will soon host a seven-star hotel) down onto Beijing's Olympic Green, where the 2008 Summer Games will begin in less than 500 days, is breathtaking. There, far below, lies the stunning Herzog & de Meuron-designed "bird nest" Olympic Stadium. Right next to it is the equally mesmerizing National Aquatics Center, a square structure with bubbled blue translucent walls known as the Water Cube. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has called this soon-to-be-completed sports complex "nothing short of staggering."
How successfully Beijing has turned the Games into a global coming-out party is—for anyone who, like me, came to know China when Mao still held sway—a mind-bending accomplishment. What has happened here in the intervening years is perhaps the most dramatic story of national transformation in human history. However, the environmental costs of China's hell-bent development have been severe. The Aquatics Center in particular poses one critical question: where will all the water to fill this bold but massive architectural masterpiece—and to supply the Games—come from? After all, Beijing sits on the parched North China Plain, one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with 65 percent of China's agriculture and only 24 percent of its water. Moreover, because only 278 of China's 661 major cities have sewage-treatment plants, 70 percent of the country's rivers are severely polluted.
One can drive a hundred miles in any direction from Beijing and never cross a healthy river. Heading north to Shanxi province, China's major producer of coal, one passes river after river that has dried up. And in 80 percent of those Shanxi rivers that are still flowing, water quality has been rated Grade V by Chinese officials, "unfit for human contact" or for agricultural or industrial use.
As you drive south across Hebei and Henan provinces, the cradle of Chinese civilization, the situation is no better. Reaching the famed Marco Polo Bridge over the Yongding River on a recent trip, we crossed our first parched riverbed. From there to the Yellow River, some 300 miles away, we traversed the Zhi, Ming, Anyang, Sha, Zhang, Huai and many other legendary rivers that show as blue lines on the map; all of them are now almost bone dry. All that remains to memorialize these watercourses are highway bridges, left behind like vestigial organs. The Yellow River itself, once known as "China's Sorrow" because of its propensity to flood, killing millions, has in Henan been reduced to a modest-size channel. At its lower reaches in Shandong, it is not uncommon for the river to cease flowing into the Bohai Sea altogether.
Locals seem pretty sure that these rivers—which have been dammed, diverted and pumped dry—may be gone forever: they've begun planting wheat and vegetables and building large polyethylene greenhouses on their flood plains. Some have even installed heavy equipment in the dry river bottoms to mine sand for China's dizzying construction boom.
What is the answer for the 250 million thirsty people who live on the North China Plain? Their per capita daily water use is only one eighth that of Americans, so there are limits to how much more they can conserve. Drought, possibly caused by climate change and overuse of riparian water, has forced farmers to turn to groundwater. But overextraction has caused water tables to fall by as much as 10 feet a year. So desperate officials have taken to making substantial investments in "precipitation-inducement technologies," or cloud seeding. Using aircraft, meteorological balloons and even rockets and artillery shells, they've been attempting to shoot passing clouds full of rainmaking chemicals. The China Meteorological Administration—which even has an Institute of Artificial Rain—reports that hundreds of aircraft and thousands of rockets and shells are used each year in the effort. Such campaigns have been only modestly successful and have created tensions between different localities, each claiming that clouds are being "intercepted" upwind by the other and their precious moisture stolen!
Then there is the monumental South-North Water Transfer Project, a $62.5 billion plan to move 50 billion cubic meters of water via three new diversion projects from the Yangtze River in the central part of the country to the North China Plain. The first phase of this Herculean project, the 722-mile-long Eastern Route along the old Grand Canal, is scheduled to come online later this year. But some environmentalists fear that shifting the increasingly polluted water of the Yangtze northward will also introduce a whole host of new toxic pollutants to the breadbasket of China.
No one knows what the consequences of all these Promethean efforts will be. For a century and a half, China's inability to defend itself against the industrialized world inculcated it with a deeply felt yearning to regain fuqiang, or "wealth and power." In the truly magnificent facilities being built for the Olympics, one can see a clear manifestation of this understandable urge to restore Chinese greatness. The question is whether China's limited natural-resource base can sustain the magnitude of such an ambition. With water, the country is confronting the edge of one very inflexible environmental envelope. Beijing's glorious Water Cube is a symbol both of China's remarkable accomplishments, and its all-too-pressing limits.
Schell is the Arthur Ross director at the Asia Society's Center for U.S.-China Relations.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc. Subscribe to Newsweek
Warming Could Spark Water Scramble
Warming Could Spark Water Scramble
By Timothy Gardner Wed Apr 11, 6:42 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Climate change could diminish North American water supplies and trigger disputes between the United States and Canada over water reserves already stressed by industry and agriculture, U.N. experts said on Wednesday.
More heat waves like those that killed more than 100 people in the United States in 2006, storms like the killer hurricanes that struck the Gulf of Mexico in 2005 and wildfires are likely in North America as temperatures rise, according to a new report that provided regional details on a U.N. climate panel study on global warming issued in Brussels on April 6.
Severe weather already costs North America tens of billions of dollars annually in productivity and damaged property, and those costs are expected to rise, the U.N. report said. The broadest effects of climate change will be water problems across the entire continent -- including more frequent droughts, urban flooding and a scramble for water from the Great Lakes, which border both the United States and Canada.
"Water was an issue in every region ... but in very different ways and very different places," Michael MacCracken, a review editor of the report, said in a telephone interview.
Unlike many continents, North America has no east to west mountain ranges that limit droughts by forcing rapidly moving wet air to release rain, said MacCracken, also chief scientist for climate change at the Climate Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
Cities will also be threatened as glacial melt leads to higher ocean levels. Late in the 21st century, severe flooding that occurs in New York once every 500 years could happen as often as once in 50 years, putting at risk much of the infrastructure in the New York region, the report said. Droughts would also occur more often in the U.S. Midwest and Southwest as warmer temperatures evaporate soil moisture.
Those droughts could diminish underground supplies like the Edwards Aquifer in Texas, which supplies 2 million people with water, by up to 40 percent, and cut levels of the Ogallala aquifer which underlies eight U.S. states, the report said. During droughts like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, U.S. farmers pumped water from underground aquifers to save their fields through irrigation. "Much of that water is now gone," said MacCracken. "We've used up our savings bank."
Tight underground water supplies could kick off a scramble for large above-ground supplies in the Great Lakes, the report said. Spats have already occurred over diversion of the lakes' water for distant cities and farms, while calls have increased for channeling water to the Mississippi River to supply U.S. cities during hot summers. Problems are also expected to intensify as warmer temperatures lower water levels through evaporation. "Climate change will exacerbate these issues and create new challenges for binational cooperation," the report said.
The tension could be heightened by the fact that a majority of the Canadian population lives close to the Great Lakes, while only a small fraction of the U.S. population reside nearby, MacCracken said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep taking water for granted.
Keep thinking it is an infinite source at your disposal for whatever leisurely activity you wish to engage in while others thirst for it.
Let it run from your faucets and spickets not giving a thought to what you are doing.
Fill your huge olympic sized swimming pools.
Water your lawns for hours on end.
Water your huge golf courses so that the rich have a place to play.
Keep buying the bottled water that makes huge American corporate conglomerates richer as they steal the sources of water from indigenous peoples.
And then dare to make others in this world believe you give a damn.
It seems to be the American way.... waste, selfishness, and not caring unless it effects you personally.
People in the arid Sub Saharan deserts and the Horn of Africa who see the rotting bones of their cattle that were their lives know the pain of having no water.
Those whose children are emaciated by famine know the cost of having no water.
Those who lost loved ones in Australia, India, and other places to drought through suicide because it took all they had including their spirits know the price of having no water.
Those farmers who lost crops to drought in the Southwest of our own country know the price of indifference.
Those in China who can now walk on the river beds of rivers that have evaporated as their environmental and life support have know the price of pollution and greed.
The land that cracks and bakes due to our waste and indifference to the climate and the forests know the cost of having no water.
Our Mother Earth that is crying for us to stop this insanity knows the cost of our continued greed and waste.
We here in America are not immune to the affects of our behavior any longer. It is time we learned that. It is way past time.
By Timothy Gardner Wed Apr 11, 6:42 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Climate change could diminish North American water supplies and trigger disputes between the United States and Canada over water reserves already stressed by industry and agriculture, U.N. experts said on Wednesday.
More heat waves like those that killed more than 100 people in the United States in 2006, storms like the killer hurricanes that struck the Gulf of Mexico in 2005 and wildfires are likely in North America as temperatures rise, according to a new report that provided regional details on a U.N. climate panel study on global warming issued in Brussels on April 6.
Severe weather already costs North America tens of billions of dollars annually in productivity and damaged property, and those costs are expected to rise, the U.N. report said. The broadest effects of climate change will be water problems across the entire continent -- including more frequent droughts, urban flooding and a scramble for water from the Great Lakes, which border both the United States and Canada.
"Water was an issue in every region ... but in very different ways and very different places," Michael MacCracken, a review editor of the report, said in a telephone interview.
Unlike many continents, North America has no east to west mountain ranges that limit droughts by forcing rapidly moving wet air to release rain, said MacCracken, also chief scientist for climate change at the Climate Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
Cities will also be threatened as glacial melt leads to higher ocean levels. Late in the 21st century, severe flooding that occurs in New York once every 500 years could happen as often as once in 50 years, putting at risk much of the infrastructure in the New York region, the report said. Droughts would also occur more often in the U.S. Midwest and Southwest as warmer temperatures evaporate soil moisture.
Those droughts could diminish underground supplies like the Edwards Aquifer in Texas, which supplies 2 million people with water, by up to 40 percent, and cut levels of the Ogallala aquifer which underlies eight U.S. states, the report said. During droughts like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, U.S. farmers pumped water from underground aquifers to save their fields through irrigation. "Much of that water is now gone," said MacCracken. "We've used up our savings bank."
Tight underground water supplies could kick off a scramble for large above-ground supplies in the Great Lakes, the report said. Spats have already occurred over diversion of the lakes' water for distant cities and farms, while calls have increased for channeling water to the Mississippi River to supply U.S. cities during hot summers. Problems are also expected to intensify as warmer temperatures lower water levels through evaporation. "Climate change will exacerbate these issues and create new challenges for binational cooperation," the report said.
The tension could be heightened by the fact that a majority of the Canadian population lives close to the Great Lakes, while only a small fraction of the U.S. population reside nearby, MacCracken said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep taking water for granted.
Keep thinking it is an infinite source at your disposal for whatever leisurely activity you wish to engage in while others thirst for it.
Let it run from your faucets and spickets not giving a thought to what you are doing.
Fill your huge olympic sized swimming pools.
Water your lawns for hours on end.
Water your huge golf courses so that the rich have a place to play.
Keep buying the bottled water that makes huge American corporate conglomerates richer as they steal the sources of water from indigenous peoples.
And then dare to make others in this world believe you give a damn.
It seems to be the American way.... waste, selfishness, and not caring unless it effects you personally.
People in the arid Sub Saharan deserts and the Horn of Africa who see the rotting bones of their cattle that were their lives know the pain of having no water.
Those whose children are emaciated by famine know the cost of having no water.
Those who lost loved ones in Australia, India, and other places to drought through suicide because it took all they had including their spirits know the price of having no water.
Those farmers who lost crops to drought in the Southwest of our own country know the price of indifference.
Those in China who can now walk on the river beds of rivers that have evaporated as their environmental and life support have know the price of pollution and greed.
The land that cracks and bakes due to our waste and indifference to the climate and the forests know the cost of having no water.
Our Mother Earth that is crying for us to stop this insanity knows the cost of our continued greed and waste.
We here in America are not immune to the affects of our behavior any longer. It is time we learned that. It is way past time.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Water and Youth
Water and Youth
Afirming the right to water, the right to life!
We are youth from every corner of the planet who are launching projects linked to water; whether they be to guarantee the right to access to safe water, promote integrated management of basins, affect public policy, to promote a new water culture, etc. Looking at the wonderful experiences that have risen out of the minds and hands of youth, and taking into account the enormous power of transformation we are attaining, an idea emerged: to combine this energy to build a global youth movement in support of water.
Such an undertaking involves numerous challenges, among them, meeting one another and establishing connections; valuing different ways of seeing and understanding the world; systemizing, sharing and replicating initiatives; finding mechanisms for building consensus; creating one voice which influences decision-making processes.
EVENT
THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING
"WATER AND YOUTH"
Hotel Bauen,
Av Callao 360, Buenos Aires City
Argentine
AFFIRMING THE RIGHT TO WATER, THE RIGHT TO LIFE!
From the 12th to the 14th of April 2007, more than 400 young people highly involved on the water issue will join their voices in the First International Meeting "Water and Youth" to debate this subject. During these 3 days, the participants will share their successful experiences; and will define a new strategy in order to make changes in their communities.
This new platform is a unique opportunity to form dialog between the main figures of our society: several Ministers of Youth and Environment from different countries, as well as representatives of international organizations such as WHO, OIJ, organizations of the civil society and personalities recognized for by their actions toward environment and youth will be present during this meeting. The business world will also share its experience of environmental and social responsibility
Water and Youth ® - info@waterandyouth.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our youth are our future. This initiative seeks to get youth involved in understanding the importance of a precious resource that is now in crisis. If you are interested, please go to the link above and find out what you can do in educating our youth and involving them in the solution.
Afirming the right to water, the right to life!
We are youth from every corner of the planet who are launching projects linked to water; whether they be to guarantee the right to access to safe water, promote integrated management of basins, affect public policy, to promote a new water culture, etc. Looking at the wonderful experiences that have risen out of the minds and hands of youth, and taking into account the enormous power of transformation we are attaining, an idea emerged: to combine this energy to build a global youth movement in support of water.
Such an undertaking involves numerous challenges, among them, meeting one another and establishing connections; valuing different ways of seeing and understanding the world; systemizing, sharing and replicating initiatives; finding mechanisms for building consensus; creating one voice which influences decision-making processes.
EVENT
THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING
"WATER AND YOUTH"
Hotel Bauen,
Av Callao 360, Buenos Aires City
Argentine
AFFIRMING THE RIGHT TO WATER, THE RIGHT TO LIFE!
From the 12th to the 14th of April 2007, more than 400 young people highly involved on the water issue will join their voices in the First International Meeting "Water and Youth" to debate this subject. During these 3 days, the participants will share their successful experiences; and will define a new strategy in order to make changes in their communities.
This new platform is a unique opportunity to form dialog between the main figures of our society: several Ministers of Youth and Environment from different countries, as well as representatives of international organizations such as WHO, OIJ, organizations of the civil society and personalities recognized for by their actions toward environment and youth will be present during this meeting. The business world will also share its experience of environmental and social responsibility
Water and Youth ® - info@waterandyouth.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our youth are our future. This initiative seeks to get youth involved in understanding the importance of a precious resource that is now in crisis. If you are interested, please go to the link above and find out what you can do in educating our youth and involving them in the solution.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Biofuels In Africa: Investment Boon Or Food Threat?
Biofuels in Africa: Investment Boon Or Food Threat?
Biofuels in Africa: Investment Boon or Food Threat?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTH AFRICA: April 4, 2007
JOHANNESBURG - Africa's vast arable lands have the potential to rival top agricultural nations like the United States in supplying biofuels to a world seeking cleaner energy sources.
But using land reserved for food production to supply biofuel demand could squeeze food supplies in a region vulnerable to shortages. It could also hurt poor consumers if the biofuel boom continues to push food prices higher. As alternative energy takes off, Africans hope to cash in on the high prices of the commodities used to produce these fuels.
Already, investors have pledged billions of dollars for plants to produce bioethanol and biodiesel from crops like sugar, maize and soy in Africa.
Ernst Janovsky, head of agriculture at First National Bank in Johannesburg, said the high rainfall belt between Angola, Zambia and Mozambique alone had the potential to rival the United States as a producer of maize used in bioethanol.
"It's almost as big as the size of the midwest of America. It has the same of type of potential and could actually outperform America," he told Reuters.
As is so often the case in Africa, however, there is one major obstacle to this kind of investment -- infrastructure. In Angola, for one, the land in question is covered by dense forest. Roads and manufacturing capacity have been wrecked by two decades of civil war.
Nevertheless, as the energy movement spreads and major agricultural powers find limits to their output, they may be forced to turn to Africa and be willing to spend money on setting up infrastructure, analysts say.
End of excerpt.
~~~~~~~~~
I posted this for an obvious reason. Anything that is a food threat to Africa is also a water threat as most of the water used is for agriculture with much of it being wasted due to outdated methods, and ethanol production is known to use great amounts of water as well. And while I am a proponent of cellulosic ethanol I am not for designating fields just for production of crops to be used for it if it will in any way cause the poor to have a greater burden placed upon their food and water supplies than they already have. However, I fear that the allure of profit will blind companies to the other part of this equation, and we will not see prosperity come to these countries but only more exploitation.
I surely hope I am wrong as African nations and their people deserve a chance to for once be free to steer their own markets and to be able to trickle the profits down to the people who will benefit from them. However, again, water scarcity in Africa and drought is predicted to become much worse in the coming years. The IPCC is having its conference in Brussels this week, and on Friday April 6 will release their report regarding the impacts of climate change for the future by region.
This is what they predict for Africa:
IPCC
Impacts of Climate Change
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------INTERNATIONAL: April 2, 2007
Following are impacts of global warming outlined in a draft UN climate report due to be released in Brussels on April 6. The draft, to be discussed by scientists and government experts in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is looking at the regional effects of warming:
AFRICA --
Reductions in the area suitable for agriculture, and in length of growing seasons and yield potential, are likely to lead to increased risk of hunger. --
An increase of 5-8 percent (60-90 million hectares) of arid and semi-arid land in Africa is projected by the 2080s under various climate change scenarios. --
Current stress on water in many areas of Africa is likely to increase, with floods and droughts. --
Any changes in the productivity of large lakes are likely to affect local food supplies. --
Ecosystems in Africa are likely to experience dramatic changes with some species facing possible extinctions. --
Major delta regions with large populations, such as the Nile and Niger rivers, are threatened by sea level rises.
~~~~~~~~
Therefore, it is going to take more than planting crops to make biofuel to stop the runaway train that is already coming down the tracks. Climate change is already happening. Glaciers that millions around the world depend on for freshwater are already melting. Severe and prolonged droughts that are affecting food and water sustainability are already occuring in Africa and other parts of the world. We then need human intervention to reverse our own behavior that is contributing to this crisis and investment in other forms of renewable energy like solar to save land for the growing of crops to be used as food to feed the hungry as well as to provide affordable and accessible energy. If we do not conserve water as well as hold governments and corporations accountable for their mismanagement and greed to provide a proper balance, our solutions may just wind up becoming bigger problems.
Biofuels in Africa: Investment Boon or Food Threat?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTH AFRICA: April 4, 2007
JOHANNESBURG - Africa's vast arable lands have the potential to rival top agricultural nations like the United States in supplying biofuels to a world seeking cleaner energy sources.
But using land reserved for food production to supply biofuel demand could squeeze food supplies in a region vulnerable to shortages. It could also hurt poor consumers if the biofuel boom continues to push food prices higher. As alternative energy takes off, Africans hope to cash in on the high prices of the commodities used to produce these fuels.
Already, investors have pledged billions of dollars for plants to produce bioethanol and biodiesel from crops like sugar, maize and soy in Africa.
Ernst Janovsky, head of agriculture at First National Bank in Johannesburg, said the high rainfall belt between Angola, Zambia and Mozambique alone had the potential to rival the United States as a producer of maize used in bioethanol.
"It's almost as big as the size of the midwest of America. It has the same of type of potential and could actually outperform America," he told Reuters.
As is so often the case in Africa, however, there is one major obstacle to this kind of investment -- infrastructure. In Angola, for one, the land in question is covered by dense forest. Roads and manufacturing capacity have been wrecked by two decades of civil war.
Nevertheless, as the energy movement spreads and major agricultural powers find limits to their output, they may be forced to turn to Africa and be willing to spend money on setting up infrastructure, analysts say.
End of excerpt.
~~~~~~~~~
I posted this for an obvious reason. Anything that is a food threat to Africa is also a water threat as most of the water used is for agriculture with much of it being wasted due to outdated methods, and ethanol production is known to use great amounts of water as well. And while I am a proponent of cellulosic ethanol I am not for designating fields just for production of crops to be used for it if it will in any way cause the poor to have a greater burden placed upon their food and water supplies than they already have. However, I fear that the allure of profit will blind companies to the other part of this equation, and we will not see prosperity come to these countries but only more exploitation.
I surely hope I am wrong as African nations and their people deserve a chance to for once be free to steer their own markets and to be able to trickle the profits down to the people who will benefit from them. However, again, water scarcity in Africa and drought is predicted to become much worse in the coming years. The IPCC is having its conference in Brussels this week, and on Friday April 6 will release their report regarding the impacts of climate change for the future by region.
This is what they predict for Africa:
IPCC
Impacts of Climate Change
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------INTERNATIONAL: April 2, 2007
Following are impacts of global warming outlined in a draft UN climate report due to be released in Brussels on April 6. The draft, to be discussed by scientists and government experts in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is looking at the regional effects of warming:
AFRICA --
Reductions in the area suitable for agriculture, and in length of growing seasons and yield potential, are likely to lead to increased risk of hunger. --
An increase of 5-8 percent (60-90 million hectares) of arid and semi-arid land in Africa is projected by the 2080s under various climate change scenarios. --
Current stress on water in many areas of Africa is likely to increase, with floods and droughts. --
Any changes in the productivity of large lakes are likely to affect local food supplies. --
Ecosystems in Africa are likely to experience dramatic changes with some species facing possible extinctions. --
Major delta regions with large populations, such as the Nile and Niger rivers, are threatened by sea level rises.
~~~~~~~~
Therefore, it is going to take more than planting crops to make biofuel to stop the runaway train that is already coming down the tracks. Climate change is already happening. Glaciers that millions around the world depend on for freshwater are already melting. Severe and prolonged droughts that are affecting food and water sustainability are already occuring in Africa and other parts of the world. We then need human intervention to reverse our own behavior that is contributing to this crisis and investment in other forms of renewable energy like solar to save land for the growing of crops to be used as food to feed the hungry as well as to provide affordable and accessible energy. If we do not conserve water as well as hold governments and corporations accountable for their mismanagement and greed to provide a proper balance, our solutions may just wind up becoming bigger problems.
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