Water becomes the new oil as the world runs dry. Western companies have the know-how - and the financial incentive to supply water to poor nations. But, as Richard Wachman reports, their involvement is already provoking unrest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/09/water.climatechange/print
Richard Wachman The Observer, Sunday December 9 2007
Richard Wachman The Observer, Sunday December 9 2007
"The midday sun beats down on a phalanx of riot police facing thousands of jeering demonstrators, angry at proposals to put up their water bills by more than a third. Moments later a uniformed officer astride a horse shouts an order and the police charge down the street to embark on a club-wielding melee that leaves dozens of bloodied protesters with broken limbs.
A film clip from the latest offering from Hollywood? Unfortunately not. It's a description of a real-life event in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city, where a subsidiary of Bechtel, the US engineering giant, took over the municipal water utility and increased bills to a level that the poorest could not afford.
Welcome to a new world, where war and civil strife loom in the wake of chronic water shortages caused by rising population, drought (exacerbated by global warming) and increased demand from the newly affluent middle classes in the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America.
At a City briefing by an international bank last week, a senior executive said: 'Today everyone is talking about global warming, but my prediction is that in two years water will move to the top of the geopolitical agenda.'
The question for countries as far apart as China and Argentina is whether to unleash market forces by allowing access to private European and American multinationals that have the technological know-how to help bring water to the masses - but at a price that many may be unable, or unwilling, to pay. ..
So pressing are issues surrounding water that China has invited Western companies to run systems in many towns and cities. One of the biggest is French-owned Veolia, once part of the Vivendi utilities empire. In parts of China, water provided by Veolia no longer has to be boiled, but the cost to consumers has doubled. For the middle class, the price is still relatively low - but most Chinese are not middle class. Many say up to half their income is now being swallowed by water bills. ...
GE and Dow Chemical are among big US companies diversifying into water services, while the UK-based Thames Water is expanding overseas.
But the crux of the problem remains: according to a report from Credit Suisse, annual world water use has risen sixfold during the past century, more than double the rate of population growth. By 2025, almost two-thirds of the global population will live in countries where water will be a scarce commodity. And that could lead to conflict, as United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned last week.
Asia looks vulnerable, with China planning to syphon off Tibet's water supply to make up for shortages in the parched north. Elsewhere, the Israel-Palestine conflict is at least partly about securing supplies from the River Jordan; similarly, water is a major feature of the strife in Sudan that has left Darfur devastated."
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BACKGROUND :
Water (I) July 22, 2007 -- Hot and Salty Most of us know very little about water. It comes in two types, salt and fresh. It has two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms.... . .
Water (II) July 23, 2007 - And Nary a Drop to Drink (This is the second of two essays on water) It is generally thought that for immediate personal needs...
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Comments: 11
My brother, who is a former geology and ecology professor at the University of Hawaii, says that fresh water shortages will become a crisis in many parts of the world long before oil.
I have read that 1 Billion people...nearly a sixth of the world's population, do not have ready access to clean water. As the supplies of fresh water shrink, the competition for a scarce resource is bound to lead to conflict, even war.
As if we needed yet another thing to fight over...
I don't think we should wait for God to solve this problem.
Anyway, Kim, he was talking about the way corporations take things away from people, like water, (air will no doubt be next) that is their natural right coming straight from the earth to their bodies, and making these things into a "commodity" that only the rich can afford. Naturally, the US is in it, as always.
The second major aspect is the fear induced greed of powerful and rich people who seek control over every aspect of earth life, a very "selfish" philosophy based upon the non-spiritual duality of "competition" based upon win/lose ..."they" have been the winners of contests of the physical, and the leaders of the major religions of things spiritual (so far) ... but all of that is subject to great change also ... these are most interesting of times that we are living in.