The End of Water by Sura, March 3
Brave, bold and brutally honest interview with Maude Barlow by Amy Goodman.
The Great Lakes are discussed.
Water is now a $400 billion global industry, the third largest behind electricity and oil. (Water is the new oil)
By the way, the focus of corporations, in response to the water crisis, is to clean up dirty water, instead of preserving water at its source. There’s a lot of money in cleaning up water.
This is why we desperately need a strong Great Lakes Compact. (The Midwest is the new MidEast)
Watch, listen or read about the end of our civilization as we know it, and the privatization of water here
Read the full interview here
AMY GOODMAN: Eight of the nation’s 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, we’re going to spend the rest of the hour looking at the global water crisis. Flow: For Love of Water is a new documentary screened here in New York last night. The film examines how the world’s 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 don’t 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 we’ll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It’s got twenty-some years of water. New Mexico has got ten, although they’re building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there’s huge new demand.
PETER H. GLEICK: The Nile River doesn’t reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don’t 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: We’re 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 don’t have water.
WILLIAM E. MARKS: Scientists, through decades of study and millions and millions of pieces of data, now recognize the fact that we’re 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 there’s the comet coming at the earth, and all of a sudden the governments of the world say, “Gee, we’re not—our differences aren’t so big anymore, because we’re about to all die”? That’s really where we are. There is a comet coming at us. It’s 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: We’re 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. What’s also tragic is that there’s a lot of awareness of that now, but so much of that awareness is then being used by corporate interests. Oh, we’re running out of water, and we need to invest so much money in water, and it’s so terrible how water is managed. And then, somehow they make the flip to: oh, we must privatize it, so then we’ll use it more efficiently and everybody will be better off—which 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.
3 Mar 2008 | 2:32 pm | Water, Health
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