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[permaculture] Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice, Radio interview and transcript
- From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
- To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org, "international Permaculture List" <permaculture@openpermaculture.org>, scpg@arashi.com, lapg@arashi.com, ccpg@arashi.com, sdpg@arashi.com
- Subject: [permaculture] Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice, Radio interview and transcript
- Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:32:25 -0800
Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice Radio interview and transcript
Listen to interview with Amy Goodman Democracy Now Feb 27 www.democracynow.org/2008/2/27/maude_barlow_on_the_global_movement
Maude Barlow is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canadas largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. Barlow is author of the new book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.
Guest:
Maude Barlow, Head of the Council of Canadians, Canadas largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. She is the author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold. Her latest is Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. She is a recipient of Swedens Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel.
AMY GOODMAN: Eight of the nations largest water providers from California to New York have announced the formation of a coalition to develop strategies on dealing with climate change. The members of the newly formed Water Utility Climate Alliance together provide water to more than thirty-six million people in the United States. The group has developed a list of goals that include expanding climate change research, developing strategies for adapting to climate change and identifying greenhouse gas emissions from individual operations.
Today, were going to spend the rest of the hour looking at the global water crisis. Flow: For Love of Water http://www.flowthefilm.com/ is a new documentary screened here in New York last night. The film examines how the worlds water supplies are diminishing and how the privatization of water is worsening the crisis.
PETER H. GLEICK: For the longest time, people have taken water for granted. Most people dont think about where their water comes from. They just turn on the tap, and they expect it to be there. Those days are ending.
MAUDE BARLOW: This notion that well have water forever is wrong. California is running out. Its got twenty-some years of water. New Mexico has got ten, although theyre building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, theres huge new demand.
PETER H. GLEICK: The Nile River doesnt reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, dont flow anymore to the sea.
MAUDE BARLOW: So this notion that somehow these problems are far away, get rid of that. You know, take it out of your head. You know, delete that.
PATRICK McCULLY: Were treating the water resources of the planet with contempt, which is just so stupid, because we depend on them. We need water to live. We will only survive for a day or two if we dont have water.
WILLIAM E. MARKS: Scientists, through decades of study and millions and millions of pieces of data, now recognize the fact that were on the brink of the sixth great mass extinction ever to be experienced on the face of the earth. The fifth mass extinction was the dinosaur age.
MAUDE BARLOW: You know those movies where theres the comet coming at the earth, and all of a sudden the governments of the world say, Gee, were notour differences arent so big anymore, because were about to all die? Thats really where we are. There is a comet coming at us. Its called water shortage.
PETER H. GLEICK: Climate change is a real problem. Humans are changing the climate. We already see evidence about it. One of the most significant impacts of climate change will be on our water resources.
PATRICK McCULLY: Were going to see a lot of people are going die because of the floods and droughts and various social upheavals that are caused by global warming. Whats also tragic is that theres a lot of awareness of that now, but so much of that awareness is then being used by corporate interests. Oh, were running out of water, and we need to invest so much money in water, and its so terrible how water is managed. And then, somehow they make the flip to: oh, we must privatize it, so then well use it more efficiently and everybody will be better offwhich is total nonsense, total amount of nonsense. It means merely that these people have an interest clearly in making money or to selling water to people.
MAUDE BARLOW: There are private corporate interests that have decided that water is going to be put on the open market for sale. Its going to be commodified and treated as any other saleable good.
REPORTER: Water is now a $400 billion global industry, the third largest behind electricity and oil.
WATER EXECUTIVE: I bought the green. I had the blue. And I have about half of the yellow.
MAUDE BARLOW: The market is amoral, and its going to lead you to taking advantage of pollution and scarcity, frankly. Its going to lead you to selling it to those who can buy it but not to those who need it.
ROD PARSLEY: The water sector is going to grow two to three times the global economy over the next twenty years. By buying the companies that source, treat, distribute and monitor our water supply, youre likely to have a pretty strong investment over the next decade or so.
BOONE PICKENS: People say that, well, water is a lot like air. Do you charge for air? Of course not. You shouldnt charge for water. Well, OK, watch what happens.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the documentary Flowthats F-L-O-WFor Love of Water by filmmaker Irena Salina. The documentary features one of the leading figures in the global water justice movement, Maude Barlow. She is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canadas largest public advocacy group, founder of the Blue Planet Project. Maude Barlow is author of sixteen booksher latest just came out; its called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Waterjoining us now in our firehouse studio.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
MAUDE BARLOW: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the crisis. Where has all the water gone?
MAUDE BARLOW: Well, I guess the most important thing I want to put out to the world is that we always hear that climate changeand that is, greenhouse gas-induced climate changeis affecting water, which is truemelting glaciers and all of that. But I am, with this book, trying to put a new wrinkle, if you will, into the whole debate. Its kind ofI call it the inconvenient truth of water. And that is that our abuse, pollution, misplacement, displacement and just mismanagement of water is actually one of the causes of climate change. And its a really different kind of way of looking at it.
Very simply, Amy, the story is that as we have polluted the worlds surface water, we are taking water from the ground, from ground water or from wilderness or from watersheds, and were moving it where we want it to be, so to water great big huge cities that then dump it into the ocean, so dont return it to the watershed, or we pave over whats called water-retentive lands, so we dont have the hydrologic cycle able to fulfill its responsibility and bring water back. Were doing something called virtual water trade, which is where we use our water to grow or produce something that then is exported. In the United States, you export a third of your water, domestic water, every day out of the United States in terms of these exports. You dont have enough water to do that. And
AMY GOODMAN: Who exports it?
MAUDE BARLOW: Mainly large agribusiness. Its mainly commodities and corporations that are using this water towell, to export massive amounts of commodities. But all sorts of countries are doing it. Australia is doing it. Australia has hit the water wall, and Australia is absolutely in crisis right now, and theyre still exporting massive amounts of water through virtual water, say, to China. So the question is herewe all learned somewhere back in school that its impossible for us to interrupt the hydrologic cycle. Not true. The hydrologic cycle has been dramatically and deeply affected by our abuse and displacement of water, and we have to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who the corporations are and how they get their hands on this water. In the film and in your book, you talk about this. I mean, theres the struggle in Michigan. Theres the companies in California that get the water for freeexplain how it happensand sell it for
MAUDE BARLOW: Well, basically, if there was lots of water, it wouldnt matter, I suppose, if some people were getting wealthy from it. But the fact is that were living in a world of diminishing water. Were actually running out. And I want to make this point so clearly. And youre running out in many parts of the United States. It is not cyclical drought. This is the end of water in many parts of the world unless we change our behavior.
Just last week, there was a report that came out that Lake Mead may not be gone in thirteen years. This is the big backup system for Las Vegas and Phoenix. I mean, this is crisis. The Colorado is in catastrophic declineis the language of one scientist. And we need to understand this isnt cyclical drought.
So if this is the caseand it is the casethen the question of who owns and controls water is very important. Whos going to make the decisions around water in the future? And whats happened is that a large number corporations are now coming into the field sayingactually creating a kind of global water cartel, just as there exists for energy now, a cartel of corporations that control every drop of oil before its taken out of the ground. These companies are either big utility companies, like Veolia and Suez from Europe, that run municipal water systems on a for-profit system, and in the third world they deny millions of people who cant afford it.
Theres also bottled water. We put something like fifty billion gallons of water in plastic bottles around the world last year, dumping those bottles everywhere.
AMY GOODMAN: That theyre not biodegradable.
MAUDE BARLOW: Mostly not biodegradable. About 95 percent of them dont get recycled. But the newest corporate player on the block is the whole water reuse and recycling industry. And this isthe biggest water company in the world is probably General Electric now. Who knew, right? Dow Chemical
AMY GOODMAN: General Electric, which owns NBC.
MAUDE BARLOW: Which ownsyes.
AMY GOODMAN: Among many other companies.
MAUDE BARLOW: And is now getting heavy-duty into the water recycling industry. Now, let me be very clear, theres a very important place for water recycling, of course. And weve got to
AMY GOODMAN: What is water recycling?
MAUDE BARLOW: Water recycling is either toilet-to-tap recycling of water or theres nowor desalination. Theres many forms water recycling, and its the big industry. Its the fastest-growing part of the water industry. And this is the cleanup of dirty water.
And my concernand the more research I did on this, the more concerned I gotwas that this government, in particular, the United States, but many governments, are putting all their water eggs in the basket of cleaning up dirty water, instead of conservation, instead of protecting water at its source. What theyre coming atthe way theyre coming at it now is to clean up water after its been polluted. And theres huge amounts of money to be made. And my concern is, whos going to control that? Whos going to own the water itself? If Coca-Cola can own the water it sells you, why wouldnt General Electric or Suez be able to say, Well, we own the water that we cleaned up, and we will decide how much money we make, and we will decide how muchwho gets it and whos not going to get it? So its very much an issue of control, and also control about regulation at the other end.
One of the things, Amy, that I found that really kind of surprised me, because I wrote another book called Blue Gold six years ago, and at the time there was no recognition at the federal level in this country that this country was in a kind of crisis around water. Water now has moved right up to the top of the agenda, in terms of a national security issue. The United States is as worried about water as it is about energy and finding new and secure sources of water from around the world.
And this is also true for China. China is on the search for water. Its destroyed its water table, so that all the running shoes and toys in the world, and so on, are come from there, so theyve diverted their water from watersheds and from growing green for their people to production. And so, now theyre going to build a great big pipeline up to the Tibetan Himalayas. Theyre going to take the water that belongs to the rivers that feed all of Asia. So if you want to see a water war coming, you keep your eye on that one.
But I think, similarly, the United States, its very clear, is looking to Canada, is looking to the Guarani Aquifer in Latin America around water sources. Its looking to secure water as a national security issue, just like energy, because you cant be a superpower and be running out of these essential resources. Soexcuse me, this is an old cold. So, suddenly, water has just become a huge issue.
AMY GOODMAN: Were talking to Maude Barlow. Her latest book is called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. So youre describing the water hunters. You also talk about the water warriors.
MAUDE BARLOW: Yes. Its a term we use to describe the global water justice movement, and its a fabulous movement. We work with people in the Global South, we work with communities across North America and Europe, people who are fighting for local control of their water, either against a local bottled water company like in Fryeburg, Maine, or in Mount Shasta in California, where these big companies come in and take away the local water, or India, where Coca-Cola has just been kicked out of several communities. We work around the world for people who are fighting against the big water transnationals who are coming in and running their water on a for-profit system and putting in meters into peoples homesor, you know, these slums, generallyand telling people that they have to pay. And weve had a tremendous success. We really have created a global water justice movement that has taken off.
And right now, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization and the World Water Council, which has set itself upI call it the Lords of Waterare all on the defensive and understanding and admitting that their program of privatization has been a massive failure. And now were saying governments have to come back into the picture. We have to have public control, public transparency and public accountability.
AMY GOODMAN: Maude Barlow, I want to play another excerpt of the documentary Flow: For Love of Water, where the film takes us to this issue of bottled water.
ERIK D. OLSON: Bottled water is used by millions of people around the world, because they think its safer than tap water. There is less than one person, according to the Food and Drug Administration, regulating the entire multibillion-dollar bottled water industry in the United States. That means that that poor person does multiple things, and one of them is water. The Food and Drug Administration, if you ask them whats in any brand of bottled water, theyll say, We have no idea.
PENN GILLETTE: Its so stupid. Why would people pay such a premium for bottled water? To find out, we took over a very trendy California restaurant. We printed our own elegant water menus with phony imported waters costing as much as $7 per bottle. Our water steward gives our first lucky couple our special water list.
CUSTOMER 1: I guess well get the leau du robinet.
WATER STEWARD: The leau du robinet?
CUSTOMER 1: Yeah.
WATER STEWARD: Oh, fantastic!
PENN GILLETTE: Its French for tap water.
CUSTOMER 1: Cheers! Yeah, it tastes clean.
CUSTOMER 2: It has a flavor to it.
WATER STEWARD: How would you compare it to tap water?
CUSTOMER 2: Oh, yeah, definitely better than tap water.
PENN GILLETTE: What was the actual source of these chic waters? A garden hose on the restaurant patio.
LEE JORDAN: Three-out-of-four Americans drink bottled water, and one-in-five will only drink bottled water. And water is something we already pay for.
UNIDENTIFIED: Leading brands are basically tap water, often sold for more than the cost of gasoline.
GIGI KELLETT: So today were here at Tufts University, organizing our forty-second tap water challenge.
CHALLENGER: I thought for sure that the Dasani water was tap water.
GIGI KELLETT: Theyre spending tens of millions of dollars every year to convince us that bottled water is better than tap water, when, in fact, its much less regulated.
ERIK D. OLSON: We tested over a thousand bottles of water, over a hundred brands that are sold in the United States, and we found that it is not necessarily any safer or better or purer than your city tap water. We found some of them had arsenic in them at high levels, Some of them had organic chemicals in them, a variety of bacteria. So there were problems with about a third of the brands that we sampled. Some of the water we saw had pictures of mountains on it; it was city tap water. Glacier water came from groundwater in Florida. Some of them said that they were pure mountain. I mean, the list is very long. We found a case in Massachusetts where a guy had sunk a well in an industrial parking lot that was near a superfund site. He was pumping water out of this well and selling it under multiple different brands. So people buying this stuff had no idea where it was coming from.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the new documentary Flow: For Love of Water. Its director is Irena Salina, and its producer is Steven Starr. Maude Barlow, youre the chair of the board of Food and Water Watch. In this last thirty seconds, what are you doing with it?
MAUDE BARLOW: Well, were pushing here in the United States for a trust fund for infrastructure. The sewage disposal system in the United States, as in many countries, is in a mess. Were pushingwe have a Think Outside the Bottle or Take Back the Tap campaign for bottled water. Were getting restaurants to agree not to serve bottled water. And were fighting the desalination plants, particularly in California, because its a bad technology, its an admission of failure. And we can do much more with conservation and caring for source water.
AMY GOODMAN: Maude Barlows new book is called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. Thanks for joining us.
MAUDE BARLOW: Thanks for having me.
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- [permaculture] Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice, Radio interview and transcript, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 02/28/2008
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