3 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. Forebulge Denial – It Isn't What You Think It Is…

   Washington, DC is slowly sinking, because of ancient geologic processes. But the ocean is creeping up on it because of climate change.

   

   Log in to Reply

2. They've now got us buying food, air, and water – it's the Corporate Titan's dream come true:

   Talk about heartless — "An employee of the water utility Veolia Eau ["Veolia Water"] was fired for refusing to cut supplies to 1,000 families in Avignon, France." Veolia is the largest privatized water company in the world according to this list.

   

   World's ten largest privatized-water companies (source; referenced here; click to enlarge)

   Veolia had $50 billion in revenue in 2009. No doubt they've grown since then. The writer clearly notices that this is predatory behavior. (In fact, it's behavior that kills for profit, so we're in psychological territory here. If Veolia were human, they'd be diagnosed as psychopathic and put away forever.)

   The story of over-stressed water resources is the same everywhere in the world. Barlow discusses China ("more than half the rivers in China have disappeared since 1990"), Africa, Brazil and ends in the U.S.:

   The story repeats itself in the North. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the Ogallala Aquifer is so overburdened that it “is going to run out…beyond reasonable argument.” The use of bore-well technology to draw precious groundwater for the production of water-intensive corn ethanol is a large part of this story. For decades, California has massively engineered its water systems through pipelines, canals, and aqueducts so that a small number of powerful farmers in places like the Central Valley can produce water-intensive crops for export. Over-extraction is also putting huge pressure on the Great Lakes, whose receding shorelines tell the story.

   I'll say now there will be no "Chinese Century" or "American Century" or "Basque Century," for that matter. A century of chaos is coming if we don't get a grip and end carbon emissions fast. (I've been told by renewable-energy industry professionals that the only barrier to fully transforming the U.S. to renewables in ten years is political — we have the money and the physical and technical ability. We just have to want to use them.)

   A critical-mass cry to do that — end emissions fast — could be coming, by the way, as the climate screws turn tighter and tighter. What governments do when that cry comes will determine how we fare as a species. Will governments remain wealth-captured, or will they take up the cause of the people they claim to represent?

   The Growing Water Justice Movement

   In that vein, Barlow writes the following:

   There is some good news along with these distressing reports. An organized international movement has come together to fight for water justice, both globally and at the grassroots level. It has fought fiercely against privatization, with extraordinary results: Europe’s Transnational Institute reports that in the last 15 years, 235 municipalities in 37 countries have brought their water services back under public control after having tried various forms of privatization. In the United States alone, activists have reversed 58 water-privatization schemes. 

   This movement has also successfully fought forUN recognition that water and sanitation are human rights. The General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing these rights on July 28, 2010, and the Human Rights Council adopted a further resolution outlining the obligations of governments two months later. 

   And related: Germany just got 78% of its energy from renewables: 

   On Saturday, July 25, Germany set a new national record for renewable energy by meeting 78 percent of the day’s electricity demand with renewables sources, exceeding the previous record of 74 percent set in May of 2014.

   According to an analysis by German energy expert Craig Morris at the Energiewende blog, a stormy day across northern Europe combined with sunny conditions in southern Germany led to the new record, the exact figures of which are still preliminary. Morris writes that most of Germany’s wind turbines are installed in the north and most of its solar panels are in the south.

   And why won't/can't the United States of America, the "Greatest Country on Earth" do the same or better? Because of a corrupted political system that allows energy billionaires to buy an entire political party, because we are more worried about gay marriage and abortion than the survival or our species and habitat, and because one political party would rather let the discussion be contaminated by minor issues, and would rather cater to those corrupting corporate influences than explain and propose those things that are truly critical to life itself. 

   Log in to Reply

3. President George HW Bush on his recent injury: "Who knew jumping out of planes was safer than getting out of bed?"

   (The former President has celebrated a number of his birthdays by skydiving, including his 90th just last year…)

   Log in to Reply