An Inconvenient Truth About Water*
While brushing my teeth in a hotel room in Vietnam last spring, I absent-mindedly soaked my toothbrush under a flowing tap and lifted it to my mouth. As the water spread across my tongue, I knew instantly I was in trouble. My instincts proved to be correct – I was ill the next day. From then on, I purchased bottles of water in order to brush my teeth.
When I came back to the United States, I was amazed by the amount of fresh water that flowed freely from our taps and garden hoses. Seeing how much fresh water was available here, compared to a developing nation like Vietnam, made me realize that something was amiss.
After this experience, I was very interested to hear about a documentary now touring the United States. It’s called FLOW. The documentary explores the issue of the world water crisis and the privatization of the world’s diminishing fresh water supply. Here is the trailer:
Below are two more clips from Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! In these clips, she interviews Maude Barlow, a Canadian author and environmental activist, about the world’s water crisis.
As we see more and more plastic bottles of water filling our deli coolers and vending machines, a modern day question begins to emerge. Is water a human right or a commodity to be bought and sold in the global marketplace?
* “The inconvenient truth of water” is a term coined by Maude Barlow in the above video clip.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
-”Used to be free/now of course there’s a fee/’cause it’s all about makin’ that cash money.”
-Mos Def, “New World Water” from BLACK ON BOTH SIDES, 1999.
I’d go with human right, but then again I listen to music by angry black men and am a native of San Francisco.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Jackie – your thoughts on this are very timely as 2008 is the international year of sanitation (http://esa.un.org/iys/) – an effort to call attention to the 2.6 billion people that do not have access to basic sanitation (and the over 1 billion people who drink from unsafe water sources).