Over the past few weeks, we've been looking at the issue of water as it relates to the world's poor, particularly women, and have recognized the inequality of water distribtuion. Some governments have experimented with handing over their water resources to private water companies and some have been charging fees to those who can least afford it. Lakes are drying up and water tables are diminishing and there is very little clean water for many people throughout the world. According to Maude Barlow of the council of Canadians, water might well be the new "oil." Look at the following 5 questions and choose one to comment on. Try to incorporate quotations or paraphrases from your class readings or lectures to support your statements.You will be given a mark for this blog post. Please submit it by Tuesday May 31st
1. Do you think that water should be a commodity to be bought and sold, or a shared natural resource.
2. Do you think that water is the new oil?
3. Nestle takes 5 million litres of water a day from Ontario lakes, bottles it and sells it back to us. Should private companies be able to do this?
4. 1/6 of all of the people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water.Who is to blame? How can this problem be solved?
5. Do you think that Canada needs a national water policy? What about your country?
Do you think that water is the next oil?
ReplyDeleteYes, I think so! Why?
We already know that water is life and if we as citizens of the world do not take serious efforts, we will have the most war- The World Water War!!!
People can live without food 30 days but without water- only seven days.How long can a person live without oil? I wont to be a bad predictor but this is the reallity: in the future wars will be for control of water.We know that the wars in this century are for oil bit the wars of the next century will be for water! Poor our children!Let's think about this and safe water!
Water never should be a commodity to be bought and sold because being commodity, there are uncontrollable issues are emerging day by day in this world. In one hand, private companies are misleading public and selling the water in prohibitive price, in another hand, government is not taking any action against this misleading promotion of bottled water. As a result, people are paying extra high price for water which can be easily accessible at home. Being commodity, water is not only a concern of basic needs but also affecting the environment. Private companies should not be able to trade water because Air and water are the natural basic needs for human and first human rights. Government must take immediate action against the water trader and should provide to the public as natural supply not a merchandise thing. In the chapter 13, page no: 105 of book focus on vocabulary the lines says “The fact that the price of bottled water can be between 240 and 10,000 times higher per gallon that tap water”. This fact is enough to stop to make water commodity. Obliviously, water should be shared natural resource as air as energy/fuel for human. How the air is free and shared natural resource into the entire world water is also a natural resource. Water flows from one part of country across many countries so it must be shared as natural resource not as personal property. In the chapter 15, pg.124 of same book focus on vocabulary it has been stated that “conversely, over 90% of the water in the middle East and north Africa crosses international borders as surface flows such as rivers”. This is just an example of natural resources to be shared; moreover, nationally and internationally water is the natural resource, not a private property, and all people in the world have right to use it.
ReplyDeletebidhyaacharyarijal= Bishal
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ReplyDeleteWhen reading through many lectures we had in class, we can clearly indicate that water privatization is one of the fundamental factors in resulting the water crisis around the world. By letting Nestle to bottle our lakes water and sell it to us, we are not only helping them to control what it belongs to us, but also privatizing and depleting our national natural resources which exists to be collectively used without any cost. By producing a huge number of plastic bottles annually, Nestle and other companies will be resposible for trashing our majestic enviroment and other countries' backyards. As we see in "The looming global water crisis" lecture, Maude Barlow constantly emphasizes on the big issue of water privatization and its connections to the massive bottled water industy. However, since we are living in Canada which was the only country to vote against the right of water for these companies, we should never facilitate the way to a bunch of millionaires, who already dominates on many lakes in the United States and other countries, to buy our water sources for their personal profits. Furthermore, as Canadians, we will not pay three or four times the cost of gasoline for a product, we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes.
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ReplyDelete2. Do you think that water is the new oil?
ReplyDeleteI think that water has been an essential substance for human as new oil for a long time. When we think about our water consumption, we can guess sufficiently that the water and what it means to us. In the web site Go Blue mention that in Canada, the per capita consumption of water is about 125,467 liters per year. Moreover, all manufacturers need a large quantity of water, when they make their products. In the article The global water crisis: Managing a dwindling resource, “To produce 1kg of coffee, a staggering 20,000 liters of water are needed. The virtual water content of a single, 250g hamburger is 11,000 liters, while 1kg of cheese and sugar require 5,000 and 3,000 liters respectively. Even 1kg of milk sucks up 2,000 liters of water, while a normal cotton T-shirt hijacks as much as 7,000 liters, according to Fred Pearce’s grim calculations”. Also, we think high-tech industries do not use water. However, especially large amounts of water are used in high-tech industries. For example, 400,000 liter water is necessary to make one car and computer manufacturers consume 1.5 trillion liter in one year. These show us water is the new oil and we can’t live without it. Nevertheless, people worry about the coming shortage of oil, but we must realize that water is different name of the oil. Today, water experts are estimated that the number of people will increase by 30 million people over the next 14 years, so in 2025 two-thirds of the people will suffering from serious water shortages. Also, the present about two billion people are suffering from water shortages in the world because of increase in water consumption per person, and increasing use of water for industry. These things indicate that water is unsustainable resource. In conclusion, did you know that people can’t survive for more than a few days without water? I would like to say no because we cannot live without water and it is basic substance for human activities. Therefore, water is the new oil thus, we should try to save water. before coming end of water.
1. Do you think that water should be a commodity to be bought and sold, or a shared natural resource.
ReplyDeleteOf course, my answer is a big NO! Water should not be considered a commodity because first, water, as air, is essential or, should I say, vital for human life and any kind of earth life. Can you imagine animals or any other kind of life paying for water? So, why do humans should pay for water? Of course, we have to pay a fair fare for the transportation of water in sites where there is no water like deserts, for example. And second, because these type of merchandise is subjected to fluctuations that very often obey to human markets speculation which, of course, could be very disadvantageous. In my opinion, access to clean water should be an essential human right. I strongly think that every country and, even, every international organization should consider this issue as a top priority one and, therefore, promote every possible action tending to favor this measure. However, water is already a commodity in an implicit way. As stated in Focus on vocabulary book, page 125: “ When an economy imports a ton of wheat, it is in effect importing 1,000 tons of 'virtual' water.” Wheat is, indeed, a commodity. And it is only one example because as you can imagine, water is present in almost every food and in every manufacture process. So, we do not need to make it more explicit by trading water as a raw material or as commodity by itself.
i choose the second question: Do you think that water is next oil?
ReplyDeleteMy answer is absolutly yes. Water is essential to human, and we can't survive without it. A week ago, the lake of Poland Spring water was still undergorund, and it across 6 acres, 8 feet high. However, just in five days, the lake was empty. One year has 73 times of five days, is there still have 73 lakes for us to extract water from them? In Mexico city, everyone repeats one word "water" at a fever pitch. Mexican people can't cook, can't take a shower. and they don't even have enough water to wash the sewage away. Everywhere is facing the water crisis, the water for California only have 20 years left, and Mexico have 10 years left. so whats the ending? every country will fight for water. Last ESL class, i thought i read a artcile, and if i did remember right, American said the army is ready for the war of natrual resources. Lack of water causes many problems, before scientics find a way to solve it, we have to save the water.
3. Nestle takes 5 million liters of water a day from Ontario lakes, bottles it and sells it back to us. Should private companies be able to do this?
ReplyDeleteMy answer to this question is yes, but those private companies should be charged for the water they had taken. There are two reasons for this.
First, they took the water from the lakes, rivers or fountains for sell, making their own profit while a lot of people who live near those water resources don’t have fresh water to drink. In the article” Message in a bottle” of Fast Company Magazine by Charles Fishman published in the Dec 19, 2007, Fiji which is one of the famous place that produced a huge amount of bottled water has been mentioned. We can see this when Charles says” In Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji.” (page2) .This clearly shows us that people don’t have the fresh drinking water while others take it for free. If those companies pay for the water they have taken, the government can use that money for fixing, improving the water treatment plant or building some new desalination plant. It’s a good way to provide fresh water for people.
Secondly, the money we take from those companies can make changes to some of the environment problems. We can use it for creating some new plastic recycling plants because according to “The story of bottled water” video, “80% of bottled water end up in landfills where they existed for thousands of year…they are brunt releasing toxic pollution”, this clearly indicates that bottled water cause great harm to our environment.
If people don’t have enough fresh water to drink or the environment is in danger, who is going to fix that problem? Of course, the government has to do. So in my opinion, the government should charge those companies that take water for selling.
Due to sovereign reality of nations, sharing water is only a idealistic theory. Having water transferred from one place to another involves a massive amount of construction projects and an extremely high price tag. If water were to be shared as a natural resource, then who is willing to pay for all the expenses to share water? For example, according to Maude Barlow's lecture of the water crisis, China has an unparallel economics development which leads China into a significant water pollution crisis. She mentioned that 90% of China's underground water is polluted. After listening to her speech, she made me wonder: where she got her information about the Chinese water problem. As I understand, most of China's polluted water is considered surface water, instead of underground water. The second point that she mentioned that China has to draw water from the north to support the growing industry in the southern part of China. In reality, for the past few thousands of years in Chinese history, northern Chinese always has drought every now and then during the year, while the south of the Yangtze River would have some major flooding from time to time. Chinese government had always been trying to find ways to transfer the water from the south to the north. It spent the equivalence of about 86 billion Canadian dollars from 2002 to 2050 in building 3 massive channels to transfer the water from the south to north China. The price tag was huge for any party to absorb, and this sharing water can become a reality because it happens in a country's order. For instance, if China would try to share its southern China's water with the country locates north of China which is Mongolia, who would want to pay for all the constructions so that people can share the water?
ReplyDeleteMy conclusion is now no matter how much we would like to share this natural resource with everybody on the earth, it is impossible to turn it into reality without any funding. And funding usually comes from buying and selling the products amongst of which are water.
Water should never be charged as a commodity. However, nowadays it is impossible to segregate water and related services including filtration,pipeline construction, delivery and waste management etc.. It is reasonable for us beneficiaries to pay for the services. Otherwise, we might have to carry two barrels of water back from Bow River everyday. Also, in some degree, by regulating the price of water The City could subdue our usage of this scarce resource. But, even though I agree to pay, it doesn't mean that water should not be deemed as a shared natural resource rather than a commodity with its potential to insert disputes. As an essential element in life, water is required for most of the creatures on earth to survive. If we exploit water from other countries, creatures in those countries will inevitably be affected or even demise. The well being of the earth is depended on balance. We all are familiar with the pain when we lost balance and fell, so we can try to envisage the pain the earth might have. In order to maintain the balance, water is definitely the natural resource that should be shared.
ReplyDelete1. Do you think that water should be a commodity to be bought and sold, or a shared natural resource?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think, water should be shared natural resource everybody because it is our gift though water is becoming commoditized by companies that have emerged to seize control of every aspect of water for its own profit. As we learned lecture of bottled water, corporations put massive amounts of water in plastic bottles and sell it to us as at exorbitant prices deliver drinking water. According to the lecture,” bottled water”, people in the USA by more than half billion gallons of water every week”. We have known that bottled water takes lots of energy resources which were polluted by consumption. Why do we pay for nature resource and companies make profit from them. We must know that bottled waters are taps water.
Second, there are abundant reasons for why natural resource should be public of water to everybody. Millions of poor people have access only to contaminated water from local rivers and more children are killed by dirty water than by war, malaria and traffic accidents. Therefore, the global population tripled in the twentieth century, but water consumption went up sevenfold. By 2050, after we add another three billion to the population, humans will need an 80 percent increase in water supplies just to feed ourselves. If we would not redress now day’s a vicious circle in our environment we would not have water within few years.
To sum up, we need to do something to share of water in the world lacks water. Also water Corporation should be under controlled by the government.
Do you think that water should be a commodity to be bought and sold, or a shared natural resource?
ReplyDeleteFirst, water resource belongs to every one of us and should be shared as a kind of natural resource. Just like in the video which we watched this afternoon; a senior says “the water resource is like the sun and the sky, it is the gift for everyone on the planet. How can you buy the sky and sell it?’’ But the reality shows us that more and more water companies are taking the water resource legally; they package it and sale it to people who originally have rights to drink it or use it in the open with fat profit. Look at people whose water using rights were taken away, struggling from water shortage or poor quality of water; it is really such a serious foul play.
On the other hand, everyone knows that the investing is for gaining benefit. After the water resource is controlled by the private companies, the service will take on the tendency of differentiation. Rich people can get very good service, but not poor guys. The society of human beings becomes unbalanced and this phenomenon drives the society to a more complicated fighting situation and then coming to be destroyed.
Water and oil are natural resourses which are very important for human's life. We can’t live without water, and we can’t imagine our life without oil. First, we are already withnesses that oil causes wars because everybody thinks only how to benefit their country financially and nobody cares of the fact that we view it as “necessity” of life and should be shared. The same will occur and with water. From the article "Exploding sales for bottled water" we learn that "Bottled water sales in the United States rose to 1.7 billion gallons (6.4 billion litres) in 2000 for plastic bottles alone, compered to total sales of only 700 million gallons (2.6 billion liters) in 1980." (page 105) which is obvious as oil, water is already a commodity and its price goes up and up. Second, both oil and fresh water are diminishing and this causes problems between different countries. In the article "Water politics in the Middle East and North Africa" we can see that water is "obvious importance to the individual economies of that region." (page 124). and there is only "hope that nations can continue to avoid conflicts over water in the future." (page 125). It is clear, water can soon become new oil.
ReplyDelete4. 1/6 of all of the people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water.Who is to blame? How can this problem be solved?
ReplyDeleteWater is a component in our complicated ecosystem. Therefore, any alteration in that system caused by human behaviour would be blamed to all people that take part of that system. Either the government and its people share responsabilities in the ineficient water management that has been applied for years. Now that a considerable number of people without access to decent quality of water, people and government are thinking about possible solutions. However, any plan aimed to protect our environment simply would not be effective unless we all are conscious about the importance of our participation. In fact, it's worthless to spend time and effort discusing responsibilities. To solve this issue we have to start by not allowing companies to make profits from a natural resource that Maude Barlow called the new oil. Another important action to take is to educate people in developing countries. As we could see in the video "For the Love of Water" people in La Paz, Bolivia don't look after the waters of the rivers. That happens because they ignore that the water that they contaminate is the one that they will use in the future. To sum up, there are so many things to do but we have to start by setting the foundation of a new era. the era of the new oil.