Water, the Commons and NAFTA...
This blogpost was inspired by Give A Shit About Fresh Water, a wonderful FB page everyone will instantly LOVE (and should now go to and LIKE!) For each graphic, I have taken the image from Give A Shit About Fresh Water, added my own comment and repeated the original post...
Thank you Jesse for hosting Give A Shit About Fresh Water http://www.facebook.com/GiveAShitAboutFreshWater
We need to grow this issue...
For a deep background on the water/trade issue, go to http://www.wendyholm.com and click on the WATER tab. Be sure to look carefully at the shelf-ready Farmers Resolution to Exempt Water from the NAFTA signed by hundreds of farm organizations (click here to see who: http://theholmteam.ca/farmers.signatories.FREWN)
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The Water Cycle:
How its SUPPOSED to work. Absent inter-basin diversions, fracking, water flooding, pollution of ground water (did you know, in Alberta, toxic fluids from the oil patch are being pumped into old mine tunnels to GET RID of them?)
This
would be wonderful ...and logical, and true....if mankind did not ruin
or was in the process of ruining almost all, if not every factor in
this picture.......
-Jesse
_______________________________________________________-Jesse
Treating our farmers like dirt is as criminal as deforestation because it drives farmland out of production. Increasingly, these lands are being snapped up by global investment funds targeting Canada's foodlands for factory farms or non-farm development.
Deforestation. You may not think of this as
an issue related to freshwater, but it is. Deforestation can alter the
hydrology of a region, causing it to dry up.
As you can see in
this diagram, the majority of land precipitation comes from water that
has evaporated or transpired from plants (73/113), not from the ocean
(40/113). When plant biomass is removed from a region, the water that
those plants store within their tissues is also removed. When done on a
large scale, this can alter the climate of the region.
The bottom line is that deforestation can cause wet places to become dry.
_______________________________________________________Unsustainable use of water by Canada's oil and gas sector also threatens Canada's food future. In Alberta, we are using water at an unsustainable rate to extract oil and gas. If the companies holding the rights are American or American investors, NAFTA rights attach. Farmers on whose land they are drilling hold inferior rights.
On Give A Shit About Fresh Water Jesse says:
This
is a map depicting the areas around the world where ground water is
being pumped for irrigation at an unsustainable rate. Over-pumping
creates an artificially inflated food bubble, as it allows people to
produce more food in the short term than they will be able to continue
producing in the long term. Once these aquifers have been depleted,
global food production will decrease.
Currently, with our artificially high food production, we fail to feed about 1 billion of the Earth's inhabitants. Oh, and we'll have another 2 billion people to feed by 2050. Shit...
_______________________________________________________Currently, with our artificially high food production, we fail to feed about 1 billion of the Earth's inhabitants. Oh, and we'll have another 2 billion people to feed by 2050. Shit...
Water need for food...
What a concept. Without water, we have no food... So why exactly are we granting oil and gas companies licenses for water use in perpetuity? To pump into the ground? For millenia?
Getting up-to-speed and active on the water/trade file will be far more effective than cutting back on beef production. NAFTA rights attach yet government continues to issue water licenses to American firms. Why? Because a) the public is uninformed, and b) having purged all policy capacity, Harper sees raw resource extraction as the only option.
Ottawa is so scared of the water/trade issue they "dare not speak its name" because too many hands are dirty.
Imagine this: If Canada were truly a democracy, the public interest in this matter would dictate that we immediately extinguish all privately held water rights and start from scratch. With communities shepherding allocations. A national water cooperative... NAFTA challenges? Well, Canadians never gave permission to include water in the trade deal (in fact we loudly said no)... Push comes to shove? Either Americans agree to exclude water from the NAFTA or we threaten to pick up our considerable marbles and walk... Radical? I think not. Water is the commons. We collectively own it and must collectively manage it. In all our interests.
The other inconvenient truth. Meat production is extremely wasteful in
terms of water use. This is particularly true for beef. I am not a
vegetarian, and I don't expect you to become one after seeing this
infographic, but if we all cut back our beef consumption just a little
bit it could go a long way to preserve our planet's freshwater
resources.
-Chris
-Chris
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Climate change and population growth means demands on Canada's water resources will only increase. It is time to recognize how NAFTA rights to Canadian water ties the hands of policymakers and do something about it.
On Give A Shit About Fresh Water Jesse says:
Here are some interesting facts I found online....
-Jesse
According to the United Nations, by 2020 water use is expected to increase by 40% to support the food requirements of a worldwide population that will grow from 6.7 billion people to 7.5 billion people. The U.N. estimate is that 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with extreme water scarcity. Even though 70% of the globe is covered by water, most of it is not useable because it is saltwater. Only 2% of the earth’s water is considered freshwater. Most of the freshwater is locked up in glaciers, permanent snow cover and in deep groundwater.
-Jesse
According to the United Nations, by 2020 water use is expected to increase by 40% to support the food requirements of a worldwide population that will grow from 6.7 billion people to 7.5 billion people. The U.N. estimate is that 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with extreme water scarcity. Even though 70% of the globe is covered by water, most of it is not useable because it is saltwater. Only 2% of the earth’s water is considered freshwater. Most of the freshwater is locked up in glaciers, permanent snow cover and in deep groundwater.
Desalinization is a process that can convert saltwater into freshwater,
but it is only practically useful on the coastlines and it is 15 times
more expensive. The middle of the United States is considered their
breadbasket, where the majority of their food is grown. Drought and/or
over-consumption of existing sources of water in this sensitive area
would have worldwide implications, as the U.S. is a huge exporter of
wheat, soybeans, rice and corn. The United States exported $115 billion
of agricultural products in 2008 while importing $80 billion, according
to the USDA. This is one of the few remaining businesses where the U.S.
is a net exporter. Population growth and water shortages could change
that equation...
Yuck ... :( Bottled... :( As my students and farm groups well know, I have a "no Nestle on the bus" rule in Cuba....
Ironically, the 40% of bottled water that is really just tap water is
likely the safest bottled water for you to drink. This is because
municipal water sources are subject to much stricter regulation.
click here for a pdf of the July 2012 OECD report on Environment: The Water Challenge: Sharing a precious commodity.
