A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs “Top Five Risks” conference.
Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said.
“A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he said.
# California faces water rationing due to drought
# Will climate change destroy us this century? I doubt it
# More of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Lord Stern, the World Bank’s former chief economist, said governments had been slow to accept the awful truth that usable water is running out. Fresh rainfall is not enough to refill the underground water tables.
“Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it without restraint because it has not been priced properly,” he said.
Farming makes up 70pc of global water demand. Fresh water for irrigation is never returned to underground basins. Most is lost through leaks and evaporation.
A Goldman Sachs report said water was the “petroleum for the next century”, offering huge rewards for investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom. The US alone needs up to $1,000bn (£500bn) in new piping and waste water plants by 2020.
“Demand for water continues to escalate at unsustainable rates. At the risk of being alarmist, we see parallels with Malthusian economics. Globally, water consumption is doubling every 20 years. By 2025, it is estimated that about one third of the global population will not have access to adequate drinking water,” it said.
China faces an acute challenge. It makes up 21pc of humanity but controls just 7pc of the water supply. The water basin in parts of northern China is falling by one meter a year due to overpumping. In Heibei province the aquifer fell three meters last year. An increasing number of rivers are running dry.
Disputes over cross-border water basins have already prompted Egypt to threaten military action against any country that draws water off the Nile without agreement.
The shift to an animal protein diet across Asia has added to the strain. It takes 15 cubic metres of water on average to produce 1kg of beef, compared to six for poultry, and 1.5 for corn.
Goldman Sachs advises investors to focus on the high-tech end of the world’s $425bn water industry. But beware the consumer “backlash” against bottled water, now viewed as an eco-hostile waste of fuel.
It is eyeing companies that produce or service filtration equipment (which can now extract anything from caffeine to animal growth hormones by using nanotechnologies), ultraviolet disinfection, desalination technology using membranes, automated water meters and specialist niches in water reuse.It is difficult to find a “pure play” on water equities. GE is a market leader in the field, but the sector makes up just 2pc of its colossal turnover.
The revenue share of the world’s top water companies that comes from the sector is Veolia (34pc), Suez (16pc), Ferrovial (20pc), Sabesp (100pc), Severn Trent (100pc), RWE (23pc), ITT Corp (32pc) and Pentair (75pc).
Goldman Sachs said the best option is to spread investments across a basket of small “potential takeout candidates” such as Badger Meter, Calgon Carbon, Clarcor, Pentair, Pall, Instituform, Hyflux, Tetra Tech, Acqua America and Watts Water.
Stanford professor Donald Kennedy said global climate change was now setting off a self-feeding spiral. “We’ve got droughts combined with a psychotic excess of rainfall,” he said.
“There are 800m people in the world who are ‘food insecure’. They can’t grow enough food, or can’t afford to buy it. This is a seismic shift in the global economy.”
Let’s imagine a world without warnings, or guides and a universe filled with safe products and do good business’ whose sole ambition is not profitability but the betterment of mankind. O.K now that we finished our little journey into la al land we can now ask ourselves and our dear friends at the EPA if they were lost in la la land when deciding to distribute pesticide labels electronically, in lieu of traditional labeling. Yes - you read it right. The EPA is planning on pulling all labels off pesticides, including instructions for proper use. The move clearly is raising more than a few eye brows. Are pesticide companies trying to save all the trees used for labels? What possible “do good spin” can they put on this absurd decision?
“Benefits from using this system will include faster access to new pesticide uses, quicker implementation of protective measures for public health and the environment, improved compliance with label directions, and lower costs for industry and EPA,” the agency said May 12 in a statement on its pesticides website. Well, we believe the last part. The utterly absurd system will rely on users to contact either the pesticide labeling website or a toll-free telephone number to obtain the detailed-use instructions that previously were attached to pesticide containers, EPA said. So let me just get this straight - their method of protecting public health is by removing labels off toxic chemicals and asking consumers to call toll free numbers or access web site? Huh? Are they installing phones and access to the web at every retail location? What am I missing here?
According to Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, “EPA knows historically from its label improvement program that it has a difficult time getting people to read labels. Instead of further removing labels from the consumer’s sight, EPA should be enhancing label information and design to ensure better disclosure of product hazards so that consumers can make better decisions regarding pesticide product purchase and use.”
This past Fall the EPA said in its presentation on electronic labeling that it “may replace the Directions for Use on the physical container,” but that the “container label would still have all FIFRA mandated elements, e.g. product name, registration number, net contents, and ingredients (I am guessing without a dictionary enclosed). ” The enforcement of the new system as described last fall involved a number of steps, including that “users would need to have a copy of the labeling from the website at the time of application” and “labeling would be good for a specified duration of time (e.g. six months) from the date of ‘printing.’” Cumbersome, inconvenient, unrealistic and clearly not serving the best interests or safety of the consumer - the EPA misses the mark yet again.
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won’t ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
At least 36 states are expected to face water shortages within the next five years, according to U.S. government estimates. Available freshwater supplies are dwindling across the country due to rising temperatures and droughts, while increasing sprawl, population and inefficient resource usage are leading to rising demand.
“Is it a crisis? If we don’t do some decent water planning, it could be,” said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association. Rising temperatures due to global warming have increased evaporation rates across the country and reduced the availability of important water sources. One of these is the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies a significant portion of California’s water. Across the West, similar trends are expected to reduce flows of the Colorado River, which supplies water for seven states.
Meanwhile, rising sea levels are expected to cause saltwater to infiltrate freshwater aquifers in coastal states, rendering that water unusable.
California uses about 23 trillion gallons of fresh water per year. The United States as a whole uses more than 148 trillion gallons for all purposes, including agriculture, manufacturing and other uses.
Other threatened regions include the Midwest, where the Great Lakes are shrinking, and upstate New York, where reservoir levels have fallen to record lows. Georgia’s crisis has already arrived, and Florida’s is expected to hit soon.
While Florida has no shortage of rainfall, widespread draining and paving of the region’s natural wetlands has left the water unable to drain back into the soil. As a consequence, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of water into the ocean per year to avert floods. The state’s environmental chief, Michael Sole, has asked the Florida legislature to increase the use of reclaimed wastewater. Other states are encouraging measures such as desalinization, but it is widely accepted that conservation is the cheapest alternative.
Even with such measures, the forecast is not expected to improve. “Unfortunately, there’s just not going to be any more cheap water,” said Randy Brown, utilities director for Pompano Beach, Fla.
The Water Restoration Act of 2007, along with others, gives the federal government complete control over every waterway, river, stream, lake, aquifer, creek, slew, swamp, underground spring and even the rain that runs off your roof. Why? Well to better protect you from polluters and to ensure water safety, and of course “national security”.
Here’s the real deal. Oil which has been deemed the worlds most valuable commodity (remember that word) is quickly being replaced by water. Water is the new “gold”. Under the Public Trust doctrine, the government is prohibited from converting something such as water (a human right…we can’t live without it) to a commodity. It must remain in a public trust, meaning that it is so important to our survival that it should never be subjected to markets, trading or private interests. In other words, it should never be reclassified as a commodity. But this Act lays the groundwork for removing from the Public Trust this basic human right which is a necessity, and will facilitate it being reclassified a “needed commodity”. Enter the multi-national corporations.
What is under way is the effort to classify water as a commodity and not a right. All of this actually started with NAFTA and then CAFTA. Both agreements, which are not enforceable as they are both unconstitutional have been parts of a puzzle that until recently seemed not to make any sense at all. Both are focused on giving multinational corporations the right to lay claim to food production whether it is agriculture or animal ranching, to force out family farms, to patent their new “frankenseeds” and put the resulting GMO food on our grocery shelves without labeling the foods as altered.
The corporations can now sue the government (and have) if it acts in any way to prevent it from making profits it believes it is entitled to. This ability to sue for impaired profit making can be the result of environmental regulations, of Federal laws which may prevent the corporations from hiring illegal workers, or issues of eminent domain in which an individuals’ land stands in the way of corporate profiteering and the courts have not acted to protect the interests of the corporation. The corporation then claims “trade illegal” provisions of NAFTA and CAFTA and our federal laws and regulations are put aside, along with property rights.
All that was left to capture from the public was the water supply. CAFTA goes a long way in establishing the privatization of water supplies, including in-land navigated waters and the right to use and access the water supplies.
If the federal government is not able to gain total control of all water from whatever source, it is highly unlikely that water can be taken from the status of Public Trust and moved to one of a commodity, which is exactly what the Water Restoration Act of 2007 will enable.
If CAFTA protections and provisions for corporations and the provisions within CAFTA that put the rights of investors above those of the individual, or human rights, cannot come into play, it will be nearly impossible to expose our water supply to global markets. CAFTA’s primary aim is to protect and promote investors regardless of the cost to individuals or communities.
Water is not only a basic human right, but also a natural resource. Inland states like Minnesota have Public Trust Laws (in addition to federal doctrine) which maintain the use of waterways for drinking and for recreation purposes. Every lake here has public water access due to the Public Trust which everyone contributes to in one way or another. No one can claim land at the bottom of a lake……its commonly held. No one can claim private ownership of lake fish stocks, or other natural resources resulting from the lake’s existence. This applies to rivers also, including the Mississippi which runs through the state.
The Water Restoration Act of 2007 would federalize all inland and coastal waters from any source. This act is needed to set the stage for the privatization guaranteed to corporations under CAFTA and would effectively convert the entire water supply from any source into a commodity.
As it is, any corporate agriculture business operating in any area is allowed to bypass water treatment plants, sewage treatment and the associated costs and to tap directly into underground aquifers even at the cost of depleting the water supply to the surrounding communities. GMO seeds, especially “traitor” seeds require as much as three times the normal amount of water to activate and to grow, but any efforts to limit use or regulate disposal even by monetary assessment have been unsuccessful. The corporate rights now exceed that of the individual or community. CAFTA clearly states repeatedly that “investor protections” must be a priority.
Using the NAFTA provisions, along with even more detrimental CAFTA provisions, the World Bank along with the United Nations are active in the effort to convert the worlds’ water supply into a commodity to be controlled by private investors via global trade and investment agreements. If these efforts are successful, water will no longer be a community or individual right and resource necessary to maintain life, but a globally traded commodity subject to markets and your ability to pay.
The World Trade organization in collusion with provisions of NAFTA, have been instrumental in converting water into a tradable commodity and as such subject to international trade policies which favor no one but the giant corporations. In each instance of corporations attempting to overturn domestic environmental laws or regulations, the laws have been rendered null using the “trade illegal” provisions of both NAFTA and CAFTA which declare that the right of the corporation cannot be superseded or infringed upon by laws or regulations that hinder the amount of profit they estimate can be attained.
The World Bank already has established a system whereby credit or loans will not be issued to Third World countries and even less stressed countries, unless they agree to allow foreign investors access to privatize the water supply. In Bolivia this resulted in mass demonstrations that finally forced out a subsidiary of Bechtel that had privatized the water supply, increased costs three-fold minimally, dispensed with upkeep and left ¼ of the rural homes without access to water.
England has privatized their water system and costs rose 45% overnight, all but skeleton crews remained of the maintenance sector and the quality of water has dropped significantly.
In one Canadian town several people became ill and one died from an ecoli contamination in the water supply. This occurred after the supply had been privatized, and the owner of the water supply knew of the contamination. The public was never notified until after people became ill.
In March of 2000 at the Hague, a meeting occurred where water executives stated that as long as water was coming out of the tap the public had no right to any information as to how it got there….. Or its quality.
Here in the States, private investors have in some places succeeded in taking over community water supplies, in other places the communities have fought back against the sale of publicly held supplies realizing that this most important element of human survival should never be under the control of private corporations whose one and only duty is to make a profit for investors.
As water has historically been deemed a human right and necessity, so much so that the Public Trust Doctrine was put on paper, how could anyone in good conscience believe water is, or promote water as, a tradable commodity? How can there be so many callous and greedy individuals running around out there who would willingly see another human thirst to death just so they can make a buck? Apparently there are many.
The Water Restoration Act 2007 relies heavily on promotion based on protecting the water supply from pollution, from terrorists, and of course “national security”. The truth is it has nothing to do with any of these things. The WRA will allow unfettered pollution with no recourse for communities or individuals and “trade illegal” treatment of local and state laws. Before the entire water supply can be sold off to private interests the federal government must gain control of the entire water system. This is what the WRA will do.
This Act would be more aptly titled “The Water Confiscation Act” as this is exactly what is intended. All it is set to do is to strike down the Public Trust Doctrine and facilitate the conversion of water from a basic human right into a commodity. The only threat to “national security” here is from the government and the massive corporations who are behind it.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. After all, the Security & Prosperity Partnership refers to people as “human capital”. I wonder how long it will be before they refer to us as a “needed commodity” and trade and sell us on the global market.
Control the food, control the water and you control the people. I believe it was Henry Kissinger who first made this observation when speaking about the importance of depopulation through the use of eugenics. Obviously good old Henry realized that overtaking the food and water supplies would go a long way in deciding who had a right to life.
The big smokestack’s red lights that flash through the night send the unmistakable message that the mothballed smelter is not dead yet. The old American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) copper smelter in El Paso, Texas, may have temporarily stopped spewing toxins, but it still unsettles the Paso del Norte borderlands.
Government agencies and environmental groups have blamed the 111-year- old smelter for severe air, soil and groundwater contamination. Nonetheless, on February 13, 2008 the plant was given a new lease on life when the three members of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) voted unanimously to grant Asarco a five-year air quality permit. The vote was a stinging rebuke to hundreds of border residents who had traveled to the state capital of Austin to convince TCEQ to finally shut it down.
The air permit battle is just the latest chapter in the long, controversial history of the Asarco smelter, which is currently owned by a Mexican company. Operating under a series of previous owners the plant processed lead, zinc, silver and copper between 1887 and 1999. http://waronyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/smokestack-injustice-toxic-texas.html
Let’s imagine a world without warnings, or guides and a universe filled with safe products and do good business’ whose sole ambition is not profitability but the betterment of mankind. O.K now that we finished our little journey into la al land we can now ask ourselves and our dear friends at the EPA if they were lost in la la land when deciding to distribute pesticide labels electronically, in lieu of traditional labeling. Yes - you read it right. The EPA is planning on pulling all labels off pesticides, including instructions for proper use. The move clearly is raising more than a few eye brows. Are pesticide companies trying to save all the trees used for labels? What possible “do good spin” can they put on this absurd decision?
