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TechnoratiWell known in Canada for a variety of causes, Maude Barlow has become the Al Gore of the water world
Maude Barlow is a surprisingly soft-spoken, humble presence.
After reading her book Blue Covenant -- 218 pages of water scarcity stats that will scare the beejeezus out of you -- I'm half expecting to meet a Joan of Arc-hetype crusader, riding high atop a ridge on horseback, eyes darting wildly below for aquatic injustices.
Instead, I meet a woman whose written words speak louder than their author and whose maternal warmth comes from a wellspring of sincerity that can't be feigned.
Barlow is described as the Al Gore of water, an internationally renowned water champion who, this month, was invited by the driest continent on earth, Australia, to address their water crisis. Last year, a man was killed in an incident of water rage in that country -- the first known water murder in the developed world -- after a passerby rebuked him for watering his lawn.
Like Gore, Barlow is welcomed both as a Canadian hero -- gracing the pages of Australia's foremost daily newspaper The Age in a lengthy, flattering profile piece -- and a left-wing idealogue, dismissed as an anti-business dissenter.
For five days last week, Sun Media dispelled some commonly held liquid myths in the Canadian psyche, namely the myth of water abundance in Canada. It's a crusade that has besotted the leader of the country's biggest advocacy group, the Council of Canadians, since stumbling upon it "by accident" while trying to take Canada's water off the table in U.S.-Canada free trade negotiations.
"It started to become an obsession," she tells me in an interview.
It's an obsession that has filled hundreds of pages of some of her 16 books, written to rouse readers out of their complacency. The world is running out of clean water.
Every eight seconds, for example, a child dies from drinking dirty water. Every year, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China because of drought. In the developing world, 90% of wastewater is discharged untreated into local rivers. By 2050, 1.7 billion people will live in "dire water poverty" and be forced to relocate.
Water conflicts are already taking shape: Indonesian farmers armed with axes and hammers are fighting for dwindling water supplies. Russia is livid at China for its plans to build an irrigation canal that would siphon off 450 million cubic metres of water from the Irtysh River which they share.
And while she's been sounding the alarm for almost 20 years, her work is now starting to make timely waves.
"We are building a great water movement," she says after a screening of the documentary FLOW, For Love of Water, in which her commentary threads the film together. Much like Barlow's book, FLOW, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, has been described alternately as "the scariest film in the festival," and "a passionate call to arms." Both outline the dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable water access and corporate control of water, three water crises Barlow has identified as the future of water.
Filmmaker Irena Salina credits Barlow's work for inspiring her to make the documentary that was four years in the making and spanned Africa, South America, India and France. Both film and book rail against the privatization of water in developing countries and corporate giants.
"The ultimate goal of private companies is to make a profit, not to fulfil socially responsible objectives such as universal access to water," Barlow writes. This must remain the role of governments, she says.
Barlow is the recipient of the Citation of Lifetime Achievement at the Canadian Environment Awards, six honorary degrees and Sweden's Rigent Livelihood Award, known as the "alternate Nobel Prize."
Below are some points from Maude Barlow's book, compelling evidence the world is heading into a dry storm.
- The European Water Network wants to build a pipeline that would divert water from the Austrian Alps to thirsty areas of south Europe.
- Libya's Great Man-Made River Project is currently the biggest in the world at 5,000-km but draws water from the same aquifer source as Chad, Egypt, Sudan and could lead to conflict.
- Half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by people with waterborne diseases; the World Health Organization says contaminated water is implicated in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide.
- Newborns in the global north consume 40 to 70 times more water than in the global south.
- In China, 80% of its major rivers are so degraded they don't support aquatic life; it's also home to seven of the 10 most polluted cities in the world.
- Women of South Africa collectively walk the equivalent distance to the moon and back, 16 times a day for water.
© 2008, Canoe Inc
22 Comments so far
Show All"OK, so build desalination plants on the coasts, since the sea level will be rising due to thawing ice caps."
Unfortunately it's not quite that easy. According to Barlow in "Blue Gold":
-desalination is extremely expensive, so available only to wealthy countries
-desalination is highly energy intensive, requiring massive amounts of fossil fuels
-for every gallon of water processed through desalination, 2/3 of that water is a lethal saline brine that creates marine pollution
we need to stop depending on intrusive technologies to solve our environmental problems while ignoring the root causes!
I much admire and agree with the work of C of C regarding water. However, one issue they refuse to address is that of the addition of hydrofluosilicic acid (often called fluoride) to our otherwise usually very good water supplies.
This toxic substance, scrubbed out of the waste stacks of fertilizer and aluminum plants, is not effective, ethical or safe. A quick look at www.fluoridealert.org will reveal that this antiquated practice should be banned forever. Then the C of C could rightfully say that we have the best drinking water in the world and that we should all be drinking out of the tap and not from platic bottles. drbobdickson
In the Hartford Ct area, a group of eyetalian
politicians have taken over the Sewer and Water
Commission. The rates will skyrocket when they
build a new sewer system, $1.5 billion dollars
and the Chairman of the board, has been found
guilty of some large finance deal with the
state pension system. {Findes Fees}
The Clean Water Act says you can't use rain barrels to collect rain water. Here in Colorado, apparently, as soon as the rain hits the ground, or roof, it belongs to Nebraska. Nebraska!?? Yeah, Colorado has sold much of it's water rights to other states that don't have their own water. Brilliant!
It comes down to this....if you live in an area that doesn't have enough water, YOU don't have enough water and won't in the future. If I live in an area that has enough rainfall so that I can get by, then I get by. I hate to put it so bluntly, but if you're living in Arizona or Southern California....or anywhere else that is in the desert where population and development are exploding, then you're up shit creek....and you put yourself there. Do not come to the rest of us when things get bleak and bitch about not having enough water to survive.
....and for the love of God or whoever, stop having so many kids! There are plenty of children out there who have no parents. Adapt and Adopt.
" "The ultimate goal of private companies is to make a profit, not to fulfill socially responsible objectives such as universal access to water," Barlow writes. This must remain the role of governments, she says."
Makes me feel 'wealthy' to be living on a pristine private-lake here in MI (home to about 90% of the lower-48's fresh-water).
The Problem re: the above-statement (True, as far as it goes...) is that in all Governments that-matter, those private-companies bottom-lines are "Job #1" of the 'leaders' they foist upon the citizens...
The IMF/WorldBank/UN's biggest-priorities are to "privatize" formerly Public Resources -- like and beginning-with Water. So, '3rd-world' governments were left little-choice...just as their sustenance-farmers were under-attack by Western Big-Ag/Bio-gen Concerns. Peasants of the world have been 'Economically' driven off of their Land, then forced into starving/thirsting-Slums, everywhere -- while Energy/Food/Water-Costs have fallen prey to Colonialism's "Speculative-Profitability", further-enriching the "Top 1-percentile".
On an individual basis, everyone should rely on rainwater harvesting for their water. All it takes is a roof or other nonpermeable surface off of which to catch rain, cisterns and filtration. The drier the area you live in the larger the roof and cistern capacity you need. This is getting to be very common. My wife and I have done this for years and we know a home builder in our rural Texas area who never drills a well; all his new houses rely exclusively on rainwater harvesting.
- In China, 80% of its major rivers are so degraded they don't support aquatic life; it's also home to seven of the 10 most polluted cities in the world.
**this is why China's reign as the next super power is likely to be short.
The same gang that controls the oil is trying to control the water . We had better wake up .
So, what will we do to persuade our lawn-lovers to knock it off and grow something else?
What about all those golf courses?
- - -
Oh, one thing the Bushes weren't counting on: Paraguay's government may be in for some real changes. The Colorado Party has lost control of the presidency and much of the federal government.
Who knows? We may see a change in the no-extradition stance.
New military bases? I don't know whether the new government of Paraguay would allow any.
Who would have imagined it, Paraguay progressing while the US continues to regress?
joancrtt sez:
The Bush family has bought about 100,000 acres of land in Paraguay. This land just happens to be on top of one of the world's largest fresh water aquifers (the Guarani Aquifer)
I was aware of the Paraguay deal, but not about the aquifer angle. This is very distressing.
check out this bit of official disinformation:
United States Has No Plans for Military Base in Paraguay
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2006/Jan/12-623470.html
"By 2050, 1.7 billion people will live in "dire water poverty" and be forced to relocate."
Wow... wow.
It took 1 1/2 million years for humanity to reach its first billion population in the early 1800s. When I was born in 1940 there were 2.24 billion pple on the planet. In my lifetime the population has tripled [nearly] to 6.65 billion presently. In my lifetime the available fresh water supply has decreased, due to pollution and overuse of our aquifers. Barlow is right, has been right all along. And people still use 3 gallons of fresh water to flush one piss down the toilet in the developed world [okay, so in many places it is now 1.5 gals - but that will still keep one person alive and happy for one day]. If we had all listened to Carson, we would not be in this fix. If the stupid Christians would stop spawning like rabbits, we'd be better off. If, if, if. Sorry, but it is probably too late for most of the world [except for the Bushes, who will use Blackwater to protect their Guarani aquifer ....].
Another area that will be impacted negatively by the coming water crisis is Southern California.
Sit up and take notice!!!!!
The Bush family has bought about 100,000 acres of land in Paraguay. This land just happens to be on top of one of the world's largest fresh water aquifers (the Guarani Aquifer). If we don't do a better job and conserve now, they will be making billions off this precious natural resource too! Water and Oil = WAR! That's a win - win situation for the military industrial complex and the Bush family. The water war has nearly started in the southeast US! Look what is happening in Gerogia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida! And to think they lifted the yard watering ban here! What utter craziness!
There's another "savior" who's been mostly forgotten - Rachel Carson - her crusade, and book, Silent Spring, about how man's chemical knowledge threatens life on earth.
With the disappearing bees, birds, bats, and many human illnesses, we're starting to see what she was trying to tell us back in 1962.
Canadians have better National media than America and the CBC has interviewed her many times. Canada is aware of who she is and what she does and what needs to change (everything basically).
"Wake Up, Canada!!!"???
Ummm she's from Canada and she sat on the council of Canadians. Wake up America - the nation that does the most polluting of the great lakes. Wow.
Yeah!
Gore is the Maude Barlow of global warming.
"Barlow is described as the Al Gore of water"
Correction: Maude Barlow is the Maud Barlow of water.
It only the resources wasted by drinking bottled water in lieu of safe water from the faucets were spent for those without suitable water.
OK, so build desalination plants on the coasts, since the sea level will be rising due to thawing ice caps. Then return the minerals extracted from the sea water as those levels will be diluted due to the melting ice caps. Get to it! Time's a wasting....
Maude Barlow is totally awesome. You go girl!
Wake Up, Canada!!!