World Water Day, March 22
March 21, 2007 - 8:41pm
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Syndicate
March 22 is World Water Day.
quote:The world water crisis is one of the largest public health issues of our time. Nearly 1.1 billion people (roughly 20% of the world’s population) lack access to safe drinking water. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill almost 4,500 children per day. In fact, out of the 2.2 million unsafe drinking water deaths in 2004, 90% were children under the age of five. Water is essential to the treatment of diseases, something especially critical for children.
This problem isn’t confined to a particular region of the world. A third of the Earth’s population lives in “water stressed” countries and that number is expected to rise dramatically over the next two decades. The crisis is worst in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.Source
quote:There are ten major corporate players now delivering freshwater services for profit. The two biggest are both from France--Vivendi Universal and Suez--considered to be the General Motors and Ford of the global water industry. Between them, they deliver private water and wastewater services to more than 200 million customers in 150 countries and are in a race, along with others such as Bouygues Saur, RWE-Thames Water and Bechtel-United Utilities, to expand to every corner of the globe. In the United States, Vivendi operates through its subsidiary, USFilter; Suez via its subsidiary, United Water; and RWE by way of American Water Works.
They are aided by the World Bank and the IMF, which are increasingly forcing Third World countries to abandon their public water delivery systems and contract with the water giants in order to be eligible for debt relief. The performance of these companies in Europe and the developing world has been well documented: huge profits, higher prices for water, cutoffs to customers who cannot pay, no transparency in their dealings, reduced water quality, bribery and corruption.
Water for profit takes a number of other forms. The bottled-water industry is one of the fastest-growing and least regulated industries in the world, expanding at an annual rate of 20 percent. Last year close to 90 billion liters of bottled water were sold around the world--most of it in nonreusable plastic containers, bringing in profits of $22 billion to this highly polluting industry. Bottled-water companies like Nestlй, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are engaged in a constant search for new water supplies to feed the insatiable appetite of this business. In rural communities all over the world, corporate interests are buying up farmlands, indigenous lands, wilderness tracts and whole water systems, then moving on when sources are depleted. Fierce disputes are being waged in many places over these "water takings," especially in the Third World. As one company explains, water is now "a rationed necessity that may be taken by force."- Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke
Considering Canada has 1/4 of the worlds fresh water not only should we be securing it better, keeping it clean, but we should also have the largest company selling water to the world.
There will be strong competition from the water works from Antarctica and Greenland. They are just starting the conversion from ice to water, with our help, and they have enough to cover the world with some 60 ft of it I understand. Investing there might be more productive.
quote:You might be surprised to discover there are two competing walks [in Toronto] this weekend promoting World Water Day.
On the surface, they may look identical, but underneath, two very different forces are at work.
The 6-kilometre strollathon Sunday (March 25), starting at 11 am at Queen's Park, is the fundraising project of WaterCan, an NGO/charity that funds local, community-controlled, sustainable water projects in 32 developing countries [Honorary President: Margaret Trudeau].
WaterCan communication coordinator Jennifer Davis explains from their Ottawa office that her group has no connection to the Walk For Water on Saturday (March 24), beginning at 10 am at High Park. That effort is being organized by a wing of the Starbucks Corporation called Ethos Water.
"We've been bumped out of the limelight by Starbucks, and we're not very happy about the whole thing," says Davis.Read more
[ 22 March 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
Ack! Sidescroll.
And I have no idea how to make the image smaller. Oh well.
Aha!
Screw it. I'll just link to it.
Ethos Water: Every bottle makes us a huge profit!
[ 22 March 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Hey, you copied my link! [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Did I? I thought I linked to something that was linked to in your link. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Click on the red words "Ethos Water" in my antepenultimate post.
Oh! I thought that was the real Ethos Water site. Hee!
You know, it's bad enough when I have to work alongside a co-moderator who uses words like "antepenultimate"... [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
quote:The unquenched thirst of corporations for water is one of the reasons for the water crisis. Agriculture, much of it fueled by profit-driven, industrialized food systems around the world, uses about 70% of the world’s available water. Industry uses another 20%, leaving just 10% for people and their communities. As corporations have claimed a growing share of water in recent decades, the water remaining available to people has rapidly diminished.
And yet this World Water Day, a growing number of corporations, including Coke, Nestlй and Starbucks ask us to believe that they offer the solution to the world’s water woes, in a public relations effort that seeks to draw attention away from corporation’s role in helping to create the problem.
Coke, Nestlй and Starbucks are each part of the new water-industrial-complex, buying water cheaply, then bottling it and selling it as a high profit-margin consumer product. Bottled water is the fastest growing – and one of the most profitable – segments of the beverage market.
Coke has undertaken a public relations campaign that boasts of the $35 million it will spend this year on water development projects around the world. That sounds like a lot of money, until you consider that Coke spends more than $1.7 billion a year on advertising.
Coke’s $35 million on water development translates into 2.9 cents this year for each of the 1.2 billion people who lack water. By contrast, Coke spent 26.8 cents last year on advertising for every man, woman and child on earth. Coke paid its CEO Neville Isdell $32.3 million in compensation last year, almost as much as it will spend to solve the world’s water problems this year.
Nestlй has responded to critics of its water practices with the argument that the corporation doesn’t really use that much. In reality, Nestlй is the world’s leading bottler of water, using 1.86 liters of water for each 1 liter bottle it sells. This extra .86 liters of wastage, multiplied by the 22 billion liters of water that Nestlй bottles annually, would provide enough water to meet the annual needs of more than one million desperately thirsty people around the world.
Starbucks has undertaken an aggressive advertising campaign promoting the $10 million it expects to donate to water development projects over five years. This will be funded by a nickel for each $1.80 bottle of Ethos water it sells at its stores. But when we do the math, it turns out that Starbucks’ seemingly generous gift amounts to 58 cents per day for each of Starbuck’s 9,446 U.S. stores.
Corporate philanthropy does help a few people gain access to water, but it also creates the false sense that corporation’s are solving the world’s water problems. This is far from the truth.A Drop in the Bucket
This is over time going to become one of the key global issues--right up there with global warming, food security, poverty and democracy.
It is absolutely insidious how various corporate cliques are sleazing their way into first privatizing, and then monopolizing water supply. It's much like patenting human genomes and seed technology and then holding entire populations at fiscal ransom, which we are headed toward.
Here's a great campaign, for those who haven't heard of it yet, by CUPE, Council of Canadians and several eco groups on saving our water supply.
Blue October
Hey, I really like this Wayne Adams guy, who writes for the Halifax Daily News.
quote:Perhaps it's time we had some universal regulations on everything from washing cars, to watering lawns and gardens, to maximum allowable volumes of water per household and industry use - starting with the incredible volume of water used for flushing toilets.
The tighter the water crisis grows, the more likely we are to see Western democracies duelling over water - its use and conservation. After all, it's value as a commodity is high, making a local-1980s debate for a surcharge on water from Lake Major more viable. At the time, it was argued that millions of gallons leaving the North Preston Community to enrich the residential development of Cole Harbour and area could have enriched economic development in the Lake Major/Preston area with a royalty fee.
Water is worth more
I don't like the idea of making water more expensive because that hurts poorer people, and makes it so that people with money can waste as much water as ever. I like his idea about maximum allowable water usage per household better. But only if it takes into account how many people are living in the household. A double-income-no-kids couple living in a big house should not get the same water limit as, say, a house with more than one family, or roommates, with many people in the house. They shouldn't be punished with an inadequate water supply for making the decision to live in a more economically-friendly way.
What about First Nations people? Would it be right to say put a limit on their use, considering whose water it actually is? Despite The Original Holocaust - where white invaders used superior weaponry, biological warfare and five hundred years of systematic racism to try and wipe out the rightful inhabitants of North America - some still survive. Who are we to say how much water they're entitled to? Or how much CO2 they can produce, for that matter. We should remember - we're only guests here - and try to conduct ourselves accordingly.
Yes, obviously that is a separate issue, and one that would have to be dealt by First Nations peoples themselves, how they want to deal with water conservation issues.
Bumping this for World Water Day 2008 on Saturday.
This year's theme is Sanitation.
Fear not! Multinational capitalism is on the case: quote:As liquidity is drained from credit and money markets and pours into oil and gold, another asset class that could offer long-term returns to the discerning investor is water.
Water shortages are on the rise -- stemming from soaring demand, growing populations, rising living standards and changing diets. A lack of supply is compounded by pollution and climate change.
Investors are mobilising funds to buy the assets that control water and improve supplies, especially in developing countries such as China where urban populations are booming, further tightening supply.
"Many of these cities have tripled in size in the last 10 years so there's just an unaddressed need, there's an enormous opportunity for investment," said Kimberly Tara, chief executive of commodities investor FourWinds Capital Management. - The Guardian
ETA: The following link has heretofore been shockingly absent from this thread:
Blue Planet Project
[ 19 March 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
In this land of fun and sun,
We don't flush for #1;
But if you have to #2,
then you will know what to do.
quote:Originally posted by Fleabitn:
In this land of fun and sun,
We don't flush for #1;
But if you have to #2,
then you will know what to do.
I was reading a biography the other day of a guy who said that when he was a little kid, one of his classmates was not familiar with the euphemisms of "#1" and "#2". When his classmate asked his teacher if he could go to the bathroom, the teacher asked him, "Do you have to go #1 or #2?" Since the kid had to go really bad, he said, "I think I have to got to go #3 or #4."
A toast! Happy World Water Day. If you've got it, drink it (while you still can).
quote:Canada emerged as the pivotal nation behind recent manoeuvres to block the United Nations Human Rights Council from recognizing water as a basic human right, according to international observers.
The Geneva-based body wrapped up an intense three-week session late Friday without passing a German-Spanish resolution intended to enshrine its importance in a world where more than 2 billion people live in water-stressed regions.
....
After its 46 members accepted a consensus resolution – essentially for more study – Canadian representative Sarah Geh told the council: "Canada does not view this resolution as creating a human right to water under international human rights law."
In his final speech, disappointed German representative Reinhard Schweppe stressed action is urgent. Access to clean water and sanitation, is "a part of human dignity," he said, adding a child dies every 20 seconds due to water-borne diseases.
Advocates for water rights were devastated by the outcome.
From Oxford, Ashfaq Khalfan, co-ordinator of the U.K.-headquartered Right to Water Program, said he believes the resolution to make water a right would have passed without the resolute lobby efforts of the Canadian delegation.
"It's rather unfortunate Canada put itself in that position," he said in an interview.
Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, said reservations about specific aspects of the motion were raised by member nations, notably Russia and the U.K. But she said it was Canada that "derailed" the process, a view shared by other international observers who monitored the Geneva sessions.
Barlow also suggested Canada acted with support from the United States, which shares Ottawa's view on water but doesn't have a seat at the UN rights council.
"Canada failed to take up the challenge. Canadians would find it shocking to realize our role in this," said Barlow, a veteran of battles about water.
She added that the resolution would have buttressed the argument that nobody should be able to expropriate water for financial profit. There have been battles in countries such as Bolivia over attempts to privatize water.
"It was a benchmark for the concept water is a right, not a commodity," Barlow said, adding claims that the resolution would have forced nations to export water to drought-plagued regions were "fantastical."
MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park), the NDP's water critic, said: "Once again, we're internationally disappointed and embarrassed. ... How do you deny water is a basic human right?"Toronto Star
It would seem that the BIG CON gov't has become a bagman for corporate objectionism.
Back page advertisement appearing in such esteemed publications as "Con & Garden", "New International Imperialist", "Pillage Weekly" and others:
Need an overblown, self-important, middling (meddling??) power with a previously high reputation for sale to the highest bidder to help derail odious regulation and curtailing of the corporate "right" to plunder and pillage? Call Harpo now! Need stonewalling, false science, fire-sale sattelite surveillance technology? Call Harpo now!! As previously seen in Bali.
Today is World Ocean Day.
Maude Barlow gives a lecture in Bobcaygeon on June 20th. Is it a worth a 40km trip, one way , to attend that lecture? She knows a lot about water issues it seems. Would it be worth while to take some teenagers?
Anyway, if anyone out there has attended some of her lectures , a comment would be apreciated.
I would recommend it.
Take as many teenagers as you possibly can. They'll have the shit scared out of them.
[ 08 June 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
Thanks for the link M.Spector. Barlow seems to approach the problem and solution mostly from a political point of view, which so easily turns into a kind of stalemate. I think a lot of people still have problems understanding the environmental causes and implications of this water crisis. Sometimes I think it is counter productive to discuss the political side before a consensus if reached on the environmental consequences of inaction.
Mind you that is easier said then done.
I will try to make it, although it is a bussy day with end of school and all that.
quote:Originally posted by Bubbles:
I think a lot of people still have problems understanding the environmental causes and implications of this water crisis. Sometimes I think it is counter productive to discuss the political side before a consensus if reached on the environmental consequences of inaction.The great value of what Barlow says, in my view, is that it is not solely an environmental problem (which would allow too many people to shrug their shoulders and say we can't control the environment), but it is in large part a problem of the privatization and corporatization of water. Instead of being a human right - an essential part of the common wealth of humanity - water has become a commodity that is bought, sold, and traded to produce profits for the few at the expense (and suffering) of the many.
The water crisis is a paradigm of the whole neoliberal globalization project. Understanding it is a great way to politicize (young) people to what's really going on in the world today.
[ 06 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
M.Spector, I agree when you say, “Understanding it is a great way to politicize (young) people to what's really going on in the world today.” The key there is ‘understanding’ and as long as the understanding is weak young people are easily politically swayed. If one's understanding is well founded then it becomes a lot easier to make the choises that are going to resolve the problem.
Blaming the water crisis on the ‘neoliberal globalization project’ and corporate profit motives is fine , since they are fairly implicated, but is it a complete picture? Does the problem correct itself when those obstacles are removed?
[ 09 June 2008: Message edited by: Bubbles ]
I would drive 80km each way to see Maude talk.