The Planet Running Dry
sf-frontlines.com
In 1995, World Bank vice president Ismail Seragaldin made a much quoted prediction for the new millenium: "If the wars of this century were fought
over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water."
Two years into the 21st century, the global water wars are upon us.4 The National Intelligence Council, an advisory group to the CIA stated in a 2001 report
that, "As countries press against the limits of available water between now
and 2015, the possibility of conflict will increase."5
In the year 2000, at a World Water Forum in the Hague, a triumvirate of
international water companies backed by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
successfully strong-armed the United Nations into defining water as a human
need (which can be sold for profit by private companies) instead of a human
right (which means people are ensured equal access on a nonprofit basis).6
In a matter of a few years, the revenue projections for water companies rose
from an estimated 800 billion to trillions per year. Over 70% of the water
resources in big cities in 100 countries are now controlled mainly by two
French firms, Vivendi and Suez, with strong competition from San
Francisco-based Bechtel-United Utilities Corp., the German RWE-Thames and a
dozen other smaller companies. These multinationals, who now only share 7%
of the international market, are projected to control 60% by 2025.
The planet now has essentially the same water that it had when it was
geologically formed millions of years ago. In fact it is the same water that
has been recycled over and over again through rains, ice melting, rivers
flowing from land to the oceans, evaporating once again... With population
growth, however, those finite water sources are now used by over 6,000 times
more people. Civilization not only has not created new sources of fresh
water to drink and use for agricultural and industrial purposes, it has
diminished the reserves by poisoning rivers and lakes with industrial waste,
war and super-exploitation of underground and surface water sources.
According to the latest official calculations, there are only 8.6 million
cubic miles of fresh water left on earth, a mere 2.6 percent of the 330
million cubic miles of total water. At its recent forum in Johannesburg, the
United Nations asserted that half of the population on earth is now living
in regions of water scarcity and that in a couple of decades this proportion
will climb to 2/3 of the world population, including people living in
regions considered water-rich , like the US.
Four of the worlds greatest river basins (the Ganges, Yellow River, Nile and
Colorado) routinely dry up before reaching the ocean, and water that
normally would penetrate the earth and feed aquifers runs off pavements and
rooftops into sewers, eventually ending up (usually carrying pesticides and
toxins) in the ocean, but without moisturizing forests and marshlands on the
way.7 Global warming, overuse, massive dam construction, extensive
industrial farming and relentless human consumption produces what is now
called, ominously, the Ogallala factor.
The Ogallala aquifer, which comprises vast regions of the US from the Texas
Panhandle to South Dakota, once contained 4 trillion tons of pristine water.
Its now mined continuously by over 200,000 groundwater wells, pulling 13
million gallons per minute, 14 times faster than natures replenishing rate.
Since 1991 the year that the studies started the water level has dropped
three feet. It is estimated that half of the total water is now gone. A
similar process is developing in California8 and other regions of the
country. If no new sources of water are found, the Golden State will have,
within two decades, a water deficit equivalent to the present-day
consumption of all its cities and towns.
A recent study from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dismissed by
the Bush administration indicated that over 500 wetlands and marshlands, as
well as other humid areas of the country, will completely dry up in a
relatively short time, many transforming themselves into desert or
semi-desert arid regions.
All studies confirm that big malls, mega-cities, urban sprawl, industrial
pollution and poisoning, the geometric increase in big dams (5,000 worldwide
in the 1950s to more than 45,000 at present), massive industrial farming and
replacement of native farming products and seeds with water-demanding
varieties, as well as global warming, fossil burning and industrial and
military waste account for the fast diminishing water reserves in the world.
The World Water Wars
Half of the worlds wetlands have disappeared during the last century, while
estimates suggest that water use will rise by 50% in the next 30 years. In
the Middle East and North Africa, only Morocco has unexploited water
resources. The rest have exceeded environmental limits and many are mining
aquifers bodies of water-bearing rock.9 Tens of millions of people in Africa
are now threatened once again with famine because of the ever longer periods
of seasonal drought and the critical scarcity of water.
According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP)10 millions would
not survive in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Rwanda,
Burundi, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia,
Zimbabwe... the reasons: drought, water scarcity and poisoning and war and
civil strife.
Irrigation is crucial for the worlds food supplies. Libya and Saudi Arabia
are already using more water for irrigation than their annual renewable
resources. In large areas of India and China, ground water levels are
falling by 1 to 3 meters per year.11 Northern China is already drying up and
this area of China produces more than half of its wheat and a third of its
corn - while South and Central China are threatened by rising waters and
floods, both of which destroy vast areas of rural farming.
This Chinese region has experienced growing peasant and working class unrest
in recent years, with some peasant rebellions and union organizing reported
as a result of the water crisis and food production decline. Little known
reports tell the story of the Chinese army attempting to quell a these
uprisings.
The Punjab region, that plays a vital agricultural role for India, is in the
same quagmire. This is at the root of the increasingly unstable political
situation in the area, with frequent clashes between farmers and others with
Indian troops and police.
Water sources and minerals are the main issues behind the nuclear stalemate
between India and Pakistan over occupied Kashmir.
A similar situation exists in parts of Latin America and other continents,
including areas of the US mentioned above. It is estimated that over 50
million people are at risk of dying from hunger in the immediate future and
that the number will rise geometrically in the next few decades. We can
expect old water conflicts to continue and new water wars to arise.
Water is one of the flashpoints for conflict in the Middle East. Israel's
control of the water resources in the Golan Heights and the West Bank is at
the heart of Sharons sustained policies against Palestinian
self-determination. Egypt warned Sudanese factions involved in peace
negotiations that it would protect its monopoly of the Nile waters "at all
costs" including military intervention. "Any Egyptian government, regardless
of its ideological inclinations, has to safeguard two things: national unity
and the unhindered supply of the Nile water."12
Egypt is also heading toward a conflict with Ethiopia because of the
decision of the latter to take morewater from the Nile.
Turkey, Syria and Iraq are engulfed in a bitter dispute that could erupt in
open conflict over the utilization of the dwindling waters of the Euphrates.
Two separate plans drawn up by the three countries, taken together, would
consume one and a half time more water than the river holds. All three
countries have said that combining their national irrigation projects is
impossible.
Bangladesh, which depends heavily on rivers that originate in India, is
adamantly protesting the diversion of water sources by the construction of
giant dams. The relations between Namibia and Botswana are strained to the
point of open conflict by the Namibian decision to construct a pipeline to
divert water from the shared Okavango River.
The US, or rather Texas, is now blackmailing and strong-arming Mexico, to
make up for the water deficit in the Ogallala aquafier, by demanding that
Mexico deliver a minimum of 432 million cubic meters of water a year from
Mexican watersheds in accordance with the "1944 Treaty of Waters," which
regulated the occupation and annexation of Mexican lands in the previous
century. This may create extraordinary problems for Northern Mexic's
agricultural and urban consumption of water, already stressed by a
progressive drying up of the region.
This is at the heart of the worsening of relations between Bush and right
wing President Fox, close allies a couple of years back.
The water crisis is growing so fast that even developed countries are
swigging from each other. There have been talks from the Bush administration
about using the existing oil-pipeline infrastructure in the Northern
Provinces to run Canadian water to the American Midwest, forcing Canada to
accept such a deal based on obscure clauses of NAFTA. |
