The three essential resources of land, energy and water are connected by the same crisis of inequality driven by increasing privatization and corporate control. While universal provision remains an eminently practical goal, it requires a shift in global priorities and wide-scale redistribution through a system of international sharing monitored by an effective and representative United Nations.
The energy crisis and our over-dependency on oil demands a total
restructuring of the global economy toward the self-sufficient and
small scale, and signals the end to the transnational
corporation, writes A.K. Gupta.
The tragedy of the commons - which asserts that human beings are helpless
prisoners of biology and the market - is a
useful political myth, and a scientific-sounding way of saying that there
is no alternative to the dominant world order, writes Ian Angus.
Water and
sanitation are not far behind the food, energy and climate crises - and the causes of water scarcity are
essentially identical to those of the food crisis, say development analysts. Reported by Thalif Deen.
A gathering of international thinkers, artists, and activists is
inspiring a new revolution in the right to water and what belongs to
the commons. By Jay Walljasper.
We therefore need to create an institution imbued
with sovereign powers to develop the massive fuel sources in the Arctic
Circle- a necessary and far-reaching step based on enhanced global co-operation,says Jeffrey Garten.
The task is nothing less than reclaiming water as a commons for
the earth and all people that must be wisely and sustainably shared and
managed if we are to survive - and this will not happen unless we are
prepared to reject the basic tenets of market-based globalization, writes Maude Barlow.