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 idea of water wars to follow soon in the wake of oil wars has been around as another doomsday scenario for a while. But a dismissal of the scenario as something that has not materialised, and will not, has meant also an under-rating of the potential for conflict that continues to float around water sharing.
Public water providers need to be at the heart of efforts to tackle the global water crisis, say anti-poverty campaigners the World Development Movement in a report released to mark World Water Day, 22 March.
Rome, 14 February 2007 -- By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stress conditions, FAO said today.
Opponents of the current Bush administration's policies who take to heart the famous words of iconoclastic muckraker I.F. Stone -- "If you want to know about governments, all you have to know is two words, 'governments lie.'" -- too often ignore that powerful people can be quite sincere and honestly believe in the policies they formulate and implement. Generation after generation, these people have used brute force and the abundance of cheap resources to create material wealth, which though unequally shared is undeniable. While the United States economy has been in relative decline since the 1950s the U.S. remains by far the wealthiest country on earth. Why then would these people change policies -- the acquisition of resources through coercion -- that have worked so well for so long? And why would the American people want to change course when it has in its majority benefited from these policies, especially when no other course, say a specific programmatic agenda, is presented to them? To ignore these facts, to keep howling against systemic policies, to revel in focusing one's attention and energy on the darkness, the ulterior motives of our decision makers (the powers that be), without offering any positive alternatives and solutions to the challenges the country and the world confront are a distinct failing of our imagination and proof of our lack of intellectual and political credibility. What is more and more urgently needed is to break with the conceptual framework that creates enemies out of people one disagrees with -- actually mirroring the attitude of those powerful people -- and come up with practical solutions. We must confront the issues, not the personalities.
The United Nations has recognized access to water as a basic human right, stating that water is a social and cultural good, not merely an economic commodity. Today, due to increasing consumption patterns water is becoming scarce and this scarcity is an emerging threat to the global population. Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. At present more than one billion people on earth lack access to fresh drinking water. By the year 2025 the demand for freshwater is expected to rise to 56% above what currently available water can deliver if current trends persist (Barlow, 2003).
The price of corn shot up during the last months of 2006. Corn sold for $2 per bushel at the beginning of 2006, and by the end of the year, the price had zoomed to $3.75.
