Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Water: Without It, There's Neither Life Nor Liberty

It all boils down to this (article by by: Maude Barlow, YES! Magazine):

As climate change and worldwide shortages loom, will people fight overwater or join together to protect it? A global water justice movement isdemanding a change in international law to ensure the universal right to cleanwater for all.It's a colossal failure of political foresight that water has not emerged as an important issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign. The links between oil, war, and U.S. foreign policy are well known. But water - whether we treat it as a public good or as a commodity that can be bought and sold - will in large part determine whether our future is peaceful or perilous.Americans use water even more wastefully than oil. The U.S relies on non-renewable groundwater for 50 percent of its daily use, and 36 states now face serious water shortages, some verging on crisis. Meanwhile, dwindling freshwater supplies around the world, inequitable access to water, and corporate control of water, together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, have created a life-or-death situation across the planet.

We heard about this when Atlanta was thirsty, but when that crisis was averted, politics forgot the basics of life.

We forgot to think about water. But the Pentagon did not forget.

Now the Pentagon, as well as various U.S. security think tanks, havedecided that water supplies, like energy supplies, must be secured if the UnitedStates is to maintain its current economic and military power in the world. Andthe United States is exerting pressure to access Canadian water, despiteCanada's own shortages.Under the name, "North American Future 2025 Project," the U.S. Center forStrategic and International Studies (CSIS) brought together high levelgovernment officials and business executives from Canada, the United States, andMexico for a series of six meetings to discuss a wide range of issues related tothe Security and Prosperity Partnership, a controversial and tightly guarded setof negotiations to expand NAFTA."As ... globalization continues and the balanceof power potentially shifts, and risks to global security evolve, it is onlyprudent for Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. policymakers to contemplate a NorthAmerican security architecture that could effectively deal with security threatsthat can be foreseen in 2025," said a leaked copy of a CSIS backgrounder.

And there in plain English, "water consumption, water transfers, and artificial diversions of bulk water" were right on the table.

The water and security connection deepens with the fact that SandiaNational Laboratories, a vital partner with CSIS in its Global Water FuturesProject, also plays a major role in military security in the United States.While Sandia is technically owned by the U.S. government, and reports to theDepartment of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, its managementis contracted out to Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest weaponsmanufacturer.

So why would they want water? For workers and others extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands to drink. But why would a weapons manufacturer be in on this? It has to do with corporate profit and control of resources, both energy resources and that most precious of life resources, water.

In language that will be familiar to critics who argued that the UnitedStates invaded Iraq not for democracy but for access to oil and profits forcorporations, a 2005 report from CSIS's Global Water Futures project had this tosay about water:"Water issues are critical to U.S. national security and integral to upholding American values of humanitarianism and democratic development. Moreover, engagement with international water issues guarantees business opportunity for the U.S. private sector, which is well positioned to contribute to development and reap economic reward."

It's another phase of disaster capitalism: anticipated disaster capitalism. The world is in a water crisis, right? Countries like India and China may be economically "rising", but they also have a huge water crisis - potable water crisis, that is - on their hands. And that's a disaster in the making. So the U.S. wants its "private sector" - not you and me, but huge corporations - to "capitalize" on this "disaster potential" and thus control the world ... again... or something to that effect...

Clearly, the powers that be in the United States have decided that water isnot a public good but a private resource that must be secured by whatevermeans.But there are alternatives.North Americans must learn to live within our means, by conserving water in agriculture and in the home. We could learn from the many examples here and beyond our borders-from the New Mexican "Acequia" system that uses an ancient natural ditch irrigation tradition to distribute water in arid lands to the International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance in Geneva, that works globally to promote sustainable rainwater harvesting programs.

Is it not true that we live in a global economy and one planet, that one nation's disaster is no longer our business opportunity, but somehow the source of our next disaster? And if we privatize what essentially is a human right and a human necessity, do we not endanger our entire species and its civilizations in toto? But the corporate powers are a formidable beast.

Conservation strategies would undermine the massive investment now goinginto corporate technological and infrastructure solutions, such as desalination,wastewater reuse, and water transfer projects. And conservation would be manytimes cheaper, a boon to the public but not to the corporate interests that arecurrently driving international water agreements.

Certainly, corporations will fight tooth and nail for this most lucrative commodity, even though in essence it's a sort of blackmail: we'll take your water and sell it back to you for our profit - and power. This gets especially nasty when multinational or foreign corporations "claim" water belonging to original residents of an area, among them animals and plants... But there is hope, and something we can do, and it is of incredible importance:

At the grassroots, a global water justice movement is demanding a change ininternational law to settle once and for all the question of who controls water,and whether responses to the water crisis will ensure water for the public orprofits for corporations. Ricardo Petrella has led a movement in Italy torecognize access to water as a basic human right, which has support amongpoliticians at every level. The Coalition in Defense of Public Water in Ecuadoris demanding that the government amend the constitution to recognize the rightto water. The Coalition Against Water Privatization in South Africa ischallenging the practice of water metering before the Johannesburg High Court onthe basis that it violates the human rights of Soweto's citizens. Dozens ofgroups in Mexico have joined COMDA, the Coalition of Mexican Organizations forthe Right to Water, a national campaign for a constitutional guarantee of waterfor the public.The U.S. and Canada are the only two countries activelyblocking international attempts to recognize water as a human right. Butmovements in both countries are working to change that. A large network of humanrights, faith-based, labor, and environmental groups in Canada has formedCanadian Friends of the Right to Water to get the Canadian government to supporta U.N. right-to-water covenant. And a network in the United States led by Foodand Water Watch is calling for a national water trust to ensure safekeeping ofthe nation's water assets and a change of government policy on the right towater.

The U.N. recognizes water as a basic right for all humans, which may help. But it is grassroots work on the part of many, with a little help and recognition of the issue from those in power - how about you, Barack Obama??? - that can ensure that our most precious resource is not improperly used, polluted, diverted, or otherwise mishandled to the detriment of all inhabitants of our most valued planet. It is more urgent than almost any other issue - just ask anyone in India who has to spend their entire day on the logistics of obtaining water ... are we going to wait until it comes down to that?