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  • From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Water Crisis Coming Soon
  • Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 06:04:24 -0800 (PST)

This subject has been discussed a few times on the list. It is something
about which I am almost paranoid, like privacy issues. This woman being
interviewed has her own political leanings and agaendae, which are, to me,
beside the point.

For rural or urban homesteading, in general clean water is important not just
for survival but for the indepependence and self-sufficiency that most of us
seek.

Concepts like 'man-made global warming' are hard for me to grasp, because I
can't see anything but theory and conjecture. It could be absolutely right
or partially right, my head spins trying to separate the science from the
propoganda. Clean Water, or lack of it, I can see; 'now', as a huge issue
that hardly anyone discusses .

The woman in this interview about water uses an idea she calls "virtual
water", water that you import or export in things that take water to make,
grow, or process. That is something about which to think.


History sometimes is made about things which are not expected. What this
administration does with its world leadership about water may become its real
place in history, for the good or the bad. ....bobford


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>From today's wsj:


LIFE & STYLE NOVEMBER 8, 2008 Resources
How to Quench the World's Thirst
The U.N.'s new water adviser talks about privatization, policy and the issue
of 'virtual water

'By ALEXANDRA ALTER

Water has become a booming $500 billion industry, by some estimates.
Economists and investors call it "the new oil" and "blue gold."

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who has bought water rights for a chunk of the
Ogallala aquifer in Texas and owns more water than any individual in the
United States, has said the natural resource should be treated like any other
commodity -- bought and sold for a profit.

In the U.S., companies such as Nestlé, which owns Poland Spring, extract
hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater a year. The companies often
pay little to nothing for the water that they bottle and sell.

View Full Image

AFP/Getty Images
A young worker goes looking for water on a cassava plantation in Los Chiles,
Costa Rica, which has been hit by a severe drought.
But where some see profits, others see peril. The world is running out of
fresh H20, which accounts for just 3% of the earth's water. Recent moves by
multinational corporations to privatize water sources could spell disaster
for poor countries and residents with no means to pay.

In Bolivia, price spikes following water privatization led to riots in 2000;
eventually, Bolivia expelled Bechtel, the engineering company that the
government had contracted to take over management of the municipal water
supply in the city of Cochabamba. Similar clashes over privatization and
price hikes have broken out in Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa and Mali.

Geopolitical experts warn that water scarcity poses not just a public health
risk, but a threat to global security. Currently, some 1.1 billion people,
one-sixth of the world population, lack safe drinking water. Global water
consumption is growing at unsustainable rates, doubling every 20 years,
according to a March 2008 report by Goldman Sachs. A study by International
Alert, a London-based conflict-resolution group, listed 46 countries with a
combined population of 2.7 billion that have a "high risk" for violent
conflict over water in the next two decades.

Maude Barlow, a Canadian water activist who has opposed privatization for
more than 20 years, was recently appointed as the United Nation's first
senior adviser on water issues. Her position, which is unpaid, was created by
the Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the United Nations General
Assembly. Here are highlights from her conversation with the Wall Street
Journal.

WSJ: You've been an outspoken critic of the U.N.'s and the World Bank's water
policies, saying that both have aided the "corporate takeover of the world's
water." Were you surprised to be offered an advisory role at the U.N.?

View Full Image

The Council of Canadians
Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow: I don't think I would have been offered a role there by anyone
but someone like Father Miguel. He cares deeply about the poor. He's a
liberation theology priest from Nicaragua.

I've been critical and will continue to be critical of the overly close
relationship of the U.N. to big water corporations. At a time when the need
was growing so much, they said, 'Well, the private companies will pay for
it,' and they didn't. No one has the right to appropriate water for profit
while other people are dying.

What will you try to change about the U.N.'s water policies?

I would like to see it shift from reliance on water companies and
privatization, what I call the hard path, to the soft path -- watershed
protection, rain harvesting and watershed restoration. You can't have the
human right to water if there's no water. Studies show that as we remove
water from aquifers, we dry up the land. The rain won't come if there's no
vegetation.

Some economists argue that privatization will reduce water consumption and
waste, the way oil prices have spurred efforts toward more efficient energy
use. Wouldn't putting a price on water actually help to reduce waste?

To me, the issue isn't whether you price or not, it's the conditions. There
are three important conditions to putting a price on water. The first is that
no one should be denied access because they can't pay. The second is that
water is maintained by the public sector, so it's like a tax, not a fee. The
third is, you're paying for the service, you don't own the water. It's very
important that we say water is not a commodity.

Do you see any role for the private sector?

In the building of infrastructure and pipes. There's an important place for
the private sector in water cleanup technology. There's no place for the
private sector in water delivery. It should be delivered by the public sector
on a not-for-profit basis.

The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty include the
objective of cutting the number of people without access to clean water in
half by 2015. You have said that at the rate they're going, it will take much
longer. What steps will you recommend to speed things up?

The twin pillars of a water secure future for the world are on the one hand,
conservation and protection, and on the other hand, the human right to water.

One of my criticisms of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals about water has
been the disconnect between those who are working on the environmental side
and those who are working on the human-rights side. I don't think there's
been nearly enough attention paid to protecting source water. Seventy-five to
80% of surface water in India, China or Russia is too polluted to bathe in,
drink or fish in.

The U.N. bought into the World Bank's solution, which is, bring in water
companies and let them provide these huge projects, and if you're wealthy you
can pay for water. They don't see it as their responsibility to provide water
for the poor. I've been in communities with prepaid water meters. There's
water, but they can't afford to turn the tap on, so they go to the river,
where there are cholera warning signs.

In your latest book, "Blue Covenant," you write about virtual water -- the
water that is used to produce commodities like cars and computer chips -- as
a big source of water consumption.

I think we're going to hear a lot more about that in the next few years. The
U.S. is exporting a third of its water in the form of virtual water exports
through commodities. Britain and Japan import most of their virtual water.

Europe grows its roses in Africa around Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The lake is
so damaged now that these companies are looking for new lakes in Uganda. It's
not just looking at our water footprint in our own country and community and
household. It's where your water footprint is coming from.

Has the financial crisis slowed the pace of global investments in water
indexes?

What worries me is the opposite. It's the one area where people are still
going to invest. It's not going to fluctuate the way other commodities do,
because we're a species running out of clean water.

The other thing I'm worried about from the credit crisis is that
cash-strapped municipalities and states may sell off water treatment plants
to the private sector.

You've criticized the Bush administration for "gutting the Clean Water Act."
and have noted that funding for water research in the U.S. has been stagnant
for 30 years. Do you expect to see changes under an Obama administration?

I'm sure hoping. I think this is a much more environmentally conscious
president coming in, as the issues around food, water and energy are becoming
more prominent. I do think that we may have an opportunity with a more open
administration and a more aware public to really start to move these issues
forward. But if it doesn't happen, the U.S. is going to be one big Atlanta .

Which countries would you hold up as models in terms of sustainable water
management?

None. Europe is way ahead in terms of how it cares for its water. However,
Europe imports the bulk of its water footprint, so the way it protects its
own water is to use and abuse other countries' water.

Write to Alexandra Alter at alexandra.alter AT wsj.com








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