Worldwide water shortage threatens human existence, peace

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Water shortage threatens human existence, peace

Source: China Daily Publication date: Mar 28, 2000

&While the global human population is increasing, the amount of drinking water available is shrinking. As multinational corporations prepare to capitalize on a potentially catastrophic situation, there are predictions that future water shortages will lead "not only to hunger but also to civil unrest and war." Four disturbing facts:

All the Earth's drinkable water could fit inside a cube-shaped tank measuring only 95 miles on a side. This reserve is shrinking because of pollution.

Some 1.2 billion people alive today lack ready access to clean water.

The Earth's human population is expected to double in the next century.

Noting that "40 per cent of the world's food comes from irrigated cropland," Worldwatch predicts that water shortfalls may soon lead "not only hunger but also to civil unrest and war."

United Nations Environment Programme Chief Klaus Topfer is "completely convinced" that water wars may soon rock the planet. "Everybody knows that we have an increase in population, but we do not have a corresponding increase in drinking water, so the result... is conflict."

Oil-rich but water-poor Saudi Arabia purchases half of its water abroad. Israel imports 87 per cent of its water and Jordan imports 91 per cent. Some 31 countries - most in the Middle East and Africa - are now listed as "water-stressed." In another 25 years, 48 countries with more than one-third of the world's population will suffer from water starvation.

Changing weather patterns have made drought commonplace in Britain. The BBC reports that ground water in the Thames Valley has fallen to the lowest levels in a century. Meanwhile, domestic water consumption has doubled over the last 30 years.

\Privatization of the water supply in 1989 has led to a 44 per cent increase in the average UK water bill. The private businesses now profiting off Britain's water have yet to repair thousands of miles of leaking pipes that lose 4.5 million litres (1.2 million gallons) of water each day.

With water in ever-decreasing supply, the forces of the marketplace are positioning themselves to profit from the demand. Because Canada's lakes and rivers hold approximately one-quarter of the Earth's fresh water, global entrepreneurs are vying to ship billions of litres of Canadian water to customers in California, Mexico, Japan and Middle East.

Several US companies have already laid claim to Canada's water under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and they have threatened legal action through the World Trade Organization if their plans are blocked.

The International Joint Commission, a US-Canadian body that overseas protection of the Great Lakes, opposes plans to privatize Canada's liquid assets, noting that future rains and snows can replenish no more than 1 per cent of this water.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy insists that NAFTA does not give US companies the right to grab Canada's water. "This is not a trade-related matter," Axworthy told the BBC. "It is an environmental matter."

Citing Chapter 11 of NAFTA, California-based Sun Belt Water has sued Canada for US$10.5 billion to "compensate" the company for Canada's refusal to sell water to the firm. (Chapter 11 permits foreign firms to sue governments when national or local laws threaten to harm corporate profits.) Sun Belt Chairman Jack Lindsey is determined to win a licence to trade Canada's water. "Canadian courts can not block me," Lindsey boasts.

It is not just business folk like Lindsey that are preparing to profit from the coming global water shortage. Multinational corporations are also busy making plans to capitalize on the catastrophe.

Indian physicist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva has revealed that "the crisis of pollution and depletion of water resources is viewed by (US-based multinational) Monsanto as a business opportunity." Joseph Jenkins, the author of "Humanure Handbook," divides societies into two categories - "those who shit in their drinking water and those who do not. We, in the Western world, are in the former class."

In the United States, water use "exceeds replacement rates by 2.1 billion gallons a day." The flush toilet accounts for nearly half of US domestic water consumption. According to Ecoforum, the magazines of the Nairobi-based UN Environmental Pro-gramme, standard flush toilet use 2,000 tons of water to flush each ton of human waste.

A good first step towards solving the water crisis would be to replace flush toilets with stand-alone dry-composing toilets. Many clean, odour-free composing toilets are already on the market. Redesigning urban landscapes to incorporate rain-catchment areas could help, too. Harvesting rainwater flowing off rooftops provides another time-tested path to local water independence.

Water harvesting, long practised in the underdeveloped world, is undergoing a renaissance in modern cities from Tokyo to Austin, Texas, where both the University of Texas and the National Wildflower Research Centre have incorporated rain tanks.

"Everyone already is drinking rainwater," notes Austin resident Mike McElveen. "The difference is how far the raindrop travels before we drink it." McElveen collects his water pure and straight form the sky and stores it in a 10,700-gallon home-built tank.

A note of caution: In some parts of the world, agricultural and industrial pollution has poisoned the rain. National Wildlife Federation tests revealed that rain and snow falling over Chicago and other Midwest cities can contain mercury concentrations 42 to 65 times higher than the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)'s recommended safety levels. Coal-burning power plants and municipal incinerators are responsible for most of this mercury pollution. Third World Network Features

Publication date: Mar 28, 2000 ) 2000, NewsReal, Inc.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 28, 2000

Answers

This is a very important issue to me...thank you for this article Carl.

Dee

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 30, 2000.


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