Maude Barlow - Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever

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Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water

Copyright 2013 Maude Barlow

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This edition published in 2013 by
House of Anansi Press Inc.
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801
Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4
Tel. 416-363-4343
Fax 416-363-1017
www.houseofanansi.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Barlow, Maude, author
Blue future : protecting water for people and the planet forever / Maude
Barlow.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77089-406-8 (bound). ISBN 978-1-77089-407-5 (html)

1. Water-supply. 2. Right to water. 3. Water security. 4. Droughts.
I. Title.

HD 1691.B368 2013 363.61 C2013-903729-2
C2013-903730-6

Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

To Miguel dEscoto Brockmann and Pablo Soln,
who never lost the belief that we could make
the right to water real

CONTENTS

Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages

W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939

INTRODUCTION

ON JULY 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an historic resolution recognizing the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life. For those of us in the balcony of the General Assembly that day, the air was tense. A number of powerful countries had lined up to oppose it, so it had to be put to a vote. The Bolivian ambassador to the UN , Pablo Soln, introduced the resolution by reminding the assembly that humans are composed of about two-thirds water and that our blood flows like a network of rivers to transport nutrients and energy through our bodies. Water is life, he said.

Then he laid out the story of the number of people around the world who were dying from lack of access to clean water and quoted a new World Health Organization study on diarrhea showing that, every three and a half seconds in the developing world, a child dies of waterborne disease. Ambassador Soln then quietly snapped his fingers three times and held his small finger up for a half-second. The General Assembly of the United Nations fell silent. Moments later, it voted overwhelmingly to recognize the human rights to water and sanitation. The floor erupted in cheers.

The recognition by the General Assembly of these rights represented a breakthrough in the struggle for water justice in the world. It followed years of hard work and was a key platform of our global water justice movement for at least two decades. For me personally, it was the culmination of many years of work, and I was proud and grateful to all who had helped make it happen.

But our work is far from over. Recognizing a right is simply the first step in making it a reality for the millions who are living in the shadow of the greatest crisis of our era. With our insatiable demand for water, we are creating the perfect storm for an unprecedented world water crisis: a rising population and an unrelenting demand for water by industry, agriculture, and the developed world; over-extraction of water from the worlds finite water stock; climate change, spreading drought; and income disparity between and within countries, with the greatest burden of the race for water falling on the poor.

Suddenly it is so clear: the world is running out of fresh water. These were the opening words of my 2002 book, Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the Worlds Water (co-written with Tony Clarke), which warned of a mighty contest brewing over the worlds dwindling freshwater supplies. As water became the oil of the twenty-first century, we predicted, a water cartel would emerge to lay claim to the planets freshwater resources. This has come true. But so has our prediction that a global water justice movement would emerge to challenge the lords of water.

In my 2007 book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water , I described the growing water cartel and its relentless drive to find ways to take control of the worlds water supplies. I also reported on the amazing work of the environmentalists, human rights activists, indigenous and womens groups, small farmers, peasants, and thousands of grassroots communities that make up the global water justice movement fighting for the right to water and to keep water under public and democratic control.

In the six years since Blue Covenant was published, much has been accomplished. Reports on the crisis are commonplace in mainstream media and the classroom. Books, films, and music move millions to action. The United Nations, other global institutions, and many universities are also sounding the alarm. A movement has coalesced to provide water and sanitation to the urban and rural poor, with mixed, but hopeful, results.

Yet in those same years the water crisis dramatically deepened. It is now accepted that, with the unexpected growth in both population and new consumer classes in almost every country, global demand for water in 2030 will outstrip supply by 40 percent. A report from the U.S. global intelligence agencies warns that one-third of the worlds people will live in basins where the deficit is more than 50 percent. Five hundred scientists from around the world met in Bonn in May 2013 at the invitation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and sent out a warning that our abuse of water has caused the planet to enter a new geologic age. They likened this planetary transformation to the retreat of the glaciers more than 11,000 years ago. Within the space of two generations, the majority of people on the planet will face serious water shortages and the worlds water systems will reach a tipping point that could trigger irreversible change, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Already, the world-renowned scientists said, a majority of the worlds people live within 50 kilometres of an impaired water source one that is running dry or polluted.