WATER: drinking, rising, owning

There is a water shortage globally. We don’t like to talk about it ‘round the cooler in the office, but very soon it will become a major issue of our time. And that water cooler may very well become a relic of history.

With 1 billion people already lacking adequate access to clean drinking water this number is projected to rise to 7 billion by 2050 if our current practices remain unchecked.

Wealthy nations use up the water of poorer nations via food production and the manufacturing of goods for export.

The first real crisis of water shortage in the wealthy world is being experienced by Australia. Some regions are in their 5th year of drought. The situation has forced that country’s citizens to learn to ration and collect in several jurisdictions. Crop failures abound. Yet in Sydney there was recently a flash rainfall which elated its inhabitants. Unfortunately the liquid life-force was let to soak through the parks and drain down the sewers.

If governments don’t begin to appreciate this shortage of water the situation will affect global security.

“The primary cause of the water crisis of the twenty-first century is not a shortage of water, but of political commitment and good water management.” – Willem Alexander, Prince of Orange

As a result of our warming climate, the cryosphere is melting. Along with this, our mountain’s glaciers are retreating fast. This water is being added to seas that are already thermally expanding. Should Greenland’s ice-mass succumb we could see millions of “climate exiles” from low-level coastal areas such as India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The Dutch have already accepted that several polders they worked so hard to reclaim from the sea will have to be given back.

Canadians will have to reconcile their hold on water for the greater good of humanity. Blessed as we may be with massive caches of fresh water, we will have to bend our protective attitudes for the thirsty south of the border.

Currently water is not a “good” outlined in the North American Free Trade Agreement. There is a general anxiety that if we start to sell it, it will become a “good” and in essence no longer in our control.

“There are increasing number of conflicts about how much water a person should have and what it should be used for. Which is a better way to handle those: through market or through authority?” – Jim Mattison, B.C.’s comptroller of water rights

This documentary seeks to bring three broad water concerns to the forefront of our imaginations.

RISING

The affects that a warming climate has and will have on the world’s seas will force cities such as New Orleans and London to seriously consider storm surges. Countries in south-east Asia must plan to relocate thousands of people annually. The Netherlands has already become adept at building home on the sea. Storms will become wetter. Rivers that are prone to flooding and mountainsides that are subject to slides will have to be dammed and diverted. Protecting cities, villages and homes will involve inordinate amounts of politicking, planning and engineering.


DRINKING

Despite the world’s amount of sea water, desalination is an extremely expensive and environmentally destructive procedure. We await a more efficient solution to this dilemma. In the meantime, we must make drinkable the water at hand in order to prevent the spread of more water-borne disease. Various scientific methods are currently being developed to address this issue. For instance, the journal Science recently reported a nanotechnology technique for removing arsenic using electromagnets. To develop these types of methods will cost money. To bring them to those who need it most, and teach them how to utilize them, will cost even more.


OWNING

Even more valuable than gold to humans is water. We need to drink it, we need it to make food and we need it to manufacture all of our creature comforts. Already the world has seen the commodification of water. The World Bank saw water privatization as the most practical way to purify water for poor countries. But in 2006 Suez (one of the world’s largest water companies) pulled out of Latin America. One of its chief executives lamented: “Private funding runs into ideological problems. We need to be more humble. We have to adapt to local realities.”



“We need to do for water what we did for climate change. How do we recharge aquifers? There’s no policy anywhere in place at the moment.” - Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the UN’s Millennium Project