World Water Day-March 22nd

World Water Day

What will your contribution be?

Excerpt from link:

Water affects every aspect of our lives, yet nearly one billion people around the world don't have clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation. World Water Day, celebrated annually on March 22, was established by the United Nations in 1992 and focuses attention on the world's water crisis, as well as the solutions to address it.

This year, a collaborative of US-based organizations have joined to raise awareness and call for stronger commitments from governments, the private sector, and US citizens for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives in low-income countries.

By deploying the solutions that already exist, we can save the lives of thousands of children each day, advance education and employment - especially among women and girls - and fuel economic growth around the world.

Learn more about the events planned in Washington DC and around the country for World Water Day 2010 and find out how you can take action to help make clean water and sanitation a reality for people around the globe.
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Here is a short listing of water organizations I know of. Of course, as with any charity organization do your own research before donating or getting involved. However, from my knowldege all of these sites are reputable.

Water Partners International
http://water.org

Charity Water
http://www.charitywater.org

Amman Imman
http://www.ammanimman.org

Water Aid
http://www.wateraid.org

One Drop Foundation
http://www.onedrop.org

Food And Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Navdanya
http://www.navdanya.org

Blue Planet Run
http://blueplanetrun.org


What would you do to get clean water?





The Water Is Life Group on Current

http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

I will be joining the world on this day to write Congress regarding this important issue. Instead of spending billions on wars for resources, we should be spending it on what is most important in truly bringing health: our infrastructure and our waterways!

I personally am also doing away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one full month, and placing the money I save in a jar. At the end of the month I will send my savings to a water organization to help them dig wells and give basic sanitation to people in countries that need it. It is reprehensible and immoral to the core to see so many people in our world in this century without the basic necessities of life.

Anyone else interested in taking the same challenge to do away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one month and send the savings on feel free to join in . I will also be posting a listing of different water organizations that are doing good work around the world to provide running water and sanitation to those most in need. Sanitation and clean water for all is the key to an environmentally, economically, and socially healthy world.

Each year we set aside only one day to acknowledge a part of our lives that we cannot live without. One day to bring awareness of our failure to preserve it and provide it. One day to show that we still would rather support money going to wars than going to clean water for all. The year we don't need a World Water Day will be a year of triumph indeed.

Taking The Pulse Of Global Freshwater Issues

http://www.circleofblue.org

By 2030 people worldwide will withdraw more water than the planet can replenish.

March 22, 2010 marks World Water Day, a 24-hour observance held annually since 1993 to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in the world. In recent years it has focused global concern on the dwindling supply of clean water.

With governments from Australia to India feeling the heat of dryness like never before, multinational corporations pledging to become better global water citizens, and a multitude of nonprofit organizations gaining position in the councils of influence worldwide, the global freshwater crisis is steadily becoming a top public priority.

In January, global business and elected leaders assembled in Davos at the World Economic Forum learned one more striking fact that underlies international concern. By 2030, WEF experts said, people will withdraw 30 percent more water than nature can replenish. Unless practices for using and conserving water shift dramatically, shortages will hit communities and businesses, especially agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.

Here is some of what we expect in what promises to be a busy year in the world of water:

Contents

■Awareness and action
■Business of water
■Bottled Battles
■GE: One company’s approach, inside and out
■Water Disclosure Project
■United Nations CEO Water Mandate
■Water and Global Health

Awareness and Action
A team of researchers and advocates that includes the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute and the Stakeholder Forum, have been working with hundreds of smaller groups to rally support for water’s role in international climate change negotiations this year.

The work was prompted by the disappointing outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, when water was left out of the Copenhagen Accord. The non-binding agreement calls for modest action on global warming.

If the international climate treaty doesn’t better emphasize the water-climate intersection, people living in vulnerable coastal nations, such as the island of Maldives, and farmers facing volatile rainfall, such as those in Australia, will be unprepared to face major catastrophes, Stakeholder Forum Policy Coordinator Hannah Stoddart told Circle of Blue.

At the international level, Stoddart and her team work directly with UN officials, and also are coordinating an unofficial international water day in Bonn, Germany in June. They are arranging high-level round table discussions that will rally more support for water issues in the months leading up to the next climate change summit in December, in Mexico.

“The eventual goal is for a recognition on an international level that there are currently no operational international treaties addressing water issues specifically,” Stoddart said. “We’re at the beginning of quite a long journey.”

Garnering local support is an important component of making sure the issue gains global prominence, according to marketing experts who work on environmental issues.

“It’s so hard to make people realize that they have a connection to the issue, to the sources of the problem,” said Joel Finkelstein a senior vice president and head of the environment team for Fenton Communications, a U.S.-based firm.

Water offers an even bigger challenge in some ways, he added. It’s still extremely difficult to illustrate the consequences of our current water consumption in countries like the U.S., where citizens can turn on the tap without thinking twice.

But the consequences of water scarcity are more powerfully conveyed through emotional stories than statistical reports. And Finkelstein believes that social media promises new ways to humanize water and environmental issues.

continued.

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This is the test of our generation. As predictions state, by 2030 we will be drawing out more water than the Earth is able to replenish. Rivers worldwide are drying up and many no longer flow to their source. Glaciers are melting worldwide threatening water sources for millions of people which will in turn affect agricultural output. Privitization continues at a rapacious pace thus perpetuating disease, water scarcity, and an erosion of our freedom. We as humans have affected the hydrologic cycle through contributing to global warming and in also causing scarcity mainly due to mismanagement, wasteful agricultural irrigation practices, water pollution and toxification rendering water unusable and threatening marinelife, and privitization which keeps it in the hands of greedy water barons who refuse to acknowledge that water is a human right.

This is why on this World Water Day this coming Monday we must be resolved as every day to speaking out regarding declaring water a global human right. This action will go far in holding corporations accountable for their pollution and manipulations in commoditizing a resource that is a public trust and is essential to human life. And we must also reach people to make them understand the importance of water in their lives. It is true that especially in the US and other developed countries that people simply turn on a tap and the water comes out, so they don't think about what is going on a world away or how what they do affects that very hydrologic cycle.

We are entering a time in our history as a species where we are being tested as to the limits of our moral courage. We can explore and find new planets, send men to the moon, and yet we still cannot provide adequately for life on Earth. This speaks volumes about our true humanity and if we are to survive we must make the connection of how crucial it is to preserve the life we have here on Earth.

This will be the defining issue and crisis of this century. And people will be fighting over this precious resource as they have been for years as governments position themselves to control the one resource that gives them control of our lives. Are you willing to just allow them to take it? I'm not.

Water Is Life: Women-waterbearers of life

Women all over the world are living in slavery. They are slaves to the backbreaking often dangerous job of providing water for their families daily. In countries whose governments are corrupt, the environment is devastated, and the water is not fresh and in many instances in scarce supply. In households where traditions preclude them from education, economic opportunity, and equality in any form. And they are the missing link in regards to the economic success they and many of these countries could have if only this tragedy were given the attention it deserves.

The typical day of a woman living in one of these countries begins at about 2AM every morning. She awakens to make a trek to a water source with her five gallon Gerry can in order to collect water for the family for the day. It won’t go far depending on the number of children she has, and she may even have to forfeit using any of it in order to provide for their needs first. She treks along rocky terrain with her can sometimes with others, sometimes alone, or with her daughter who doesn’t attend school in order to help with this task. The trek can be dangerous, with them taking a chance on being raped, robbed or worse. Once she reaches the water source she must stand in line waiting for her turn to fill her can of what is many times polluted water that may well give her children dysentery. But it is all they have.

Once she fills her can she must then make the backbreaking trek back to her village once again. Her trip can take her anywhere from six to nine hours a day not including her other chores in bringing up her children, providing for them, many times harvesting any crops grown, feeding them whatever they have, and providing spiritual guidance. This then takes time away from her and her daughter having opportunity in education or in pursuing any sort of life where they can contribute to advancing their own lot in life.

And this is their life, every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, every year.

It is hard for many in this world of plenty to relate to the lives of women who must struggle for all they have and who are denied their identity and their dreams. For us, getting up in the morning and turning on our showers or our taps is something we don’t even think about because the water is always there. We don’t think of the water used for cooking or bathing, or washing, or doing other tasks that people in these countries wouldn’t ever have a chance to do. While we waste water on golf courses, in pools, and to build desert resorts, water is gold to those who live in countries where there isn’t even enough for the basic necessities of life.

Which is why in this age of climate change, global warming, population increases, and agricultural challenges, the plight of women in regards to water and how it relates to global poverty and injustice must be addressed in order for us to begin to see the solutions to the social ills that have plagued all of us for so long to bring us true freedom. It may be hard to think that a toilet or a water pipe could be the key to such freedom. Perhaps that is because it is so simple, so easy, so logical, and so morally right.

No one should go without the basic human right of water, and particularly no one should have to work so hard every day risking death to obtain it. My hope is that in this century, we can finally realize our true potential as humans, and finally recognize why we are here and see the day when no woman has to risk her life to have the basic necessities to live and not just survive.

This is why I am starting this weekly series on Current for the month of February in the Water Is Life Group. To give attention to those in our world who are too often forgotten.

To my sisters around the world who do so much for so many with so little.

This entry has been an introduction with an explanation of what women face in regards to the time spent collecting water. Next week I hope to present some stories of women who live this life, and to end it with showing what some groups are doing through sanitation and access to clean water that then gives them the chance to get the education and opportunity they need to lift themselves out of poverty and into hope.

Edit: This is still a work in progress, not forgotten.

Water is the lifeblood of Haiti now: how you can help

Water in Haiti

On 12 January, Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In September 2009, Water.org announced its commitment to bring safe water and sanitation to 50,000 Haitians over the coming 36 months. We will implement a staged plan to respond to this natural disaster, building on this existing effort.

As part of that plan, our most immediate concern is helping to restore the ability of our local NGO partner and potential partners to respond to the crisis by repairing and expanding water and sanitation facilities for people in need.

Water.org’s strength is long-term water and sanitation projects. Sustainable access to such basic necessities will be the area of greatest need as Haiti recovers from the earthquake.

If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find a list of potential organizations to support at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting Water.org’s efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, we would gladly accept your donation: http://donate.water.org/haiti.

Our heart goes out to all of those affected by yesterday’s earthquake and we thank you for keeping the people of Haiti in your thoughts at this difficult time.

Q&A on Response to Haiti Earthquake
How is water affected during a disaster like this?
Underground water and sanitation pipelines and concrete water storage tanks are highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and will likely need to be repaired or replaced.

What is the response plan to get people safe water?
The short term response typically includes bottled water and the use of high volume purification equipment. While this is expensive, it can be quickly deployed as a short-term solution. There are many relief agencies involved in these types of efforts. The response of organizations like Water.org involves the rehabilitation and expansion of sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure.

What is Water.org doing to help?
We will provide assistance to our local partners so that they can restore and expand water and sanitation infrastructure.

How is Water.org coordinating with other agencies?
Before the earthquake, Water.org was already coordinating with the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, and other agencies. On the ground, Water.org will work with local NGO partner organizations, consistent with our approach over the past two decades.

How has this affected Water.org’s work in Haiti?
It had made the need for safe water and sanitation even more urgent and will likely mean our focus will initially be rehabilitation, and then expansion of water services.

Is Water.org’s staff safe?
Four of our staff members returned from Haiti on Saturday. We’re in touch with our local partner but do not currently know the status of its staff members.

Where can I get additional information and what can I do to help?
A. If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find more information at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, you can donate at: http://donate.water.org/haiti.
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And for those who are rightfully skeptical, water.org is a reputable organziation that has been around for years and proven their dedication and passion for water issues. Water is now critical to the survival of the people of Haiti as well as many other developing countries. Without it there is no food or medical care.

Water is the lifeblood of humanity.

Please do all you can to help no matter how small.

Also, please be careful what organizations you send money to. My rule of thumb is to stick with organzations that are already trusted. Doctors Without Borders is without a doubt the most trusted organization I can think of to get your donations to where they are needed fast. I donated to them in this case as well.

Doctors Without Borders

Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

By Dr. Paul J. Sullivan
Special to Circle of Blue

As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.

About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.

Water is not just income and jobs in Sudan. It is life, most particularly in the dry areas of the country: in Darfur and in the north while most of the wetlands are found in the south. This huge country has many climate and water zones. It has massive underground water reserves that are part of the largest source of freshwater in the world, the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer. It also has the large Umm Rawaba and other aquifers. Sudan has the Nile, the Atbara and many other rivers coursing through it. The country is also blessed with the Nile River Basin, which is a watered, mostly underground area that can stretch to 80 percent of the country. As much as 80 to 85 percent of Sudan’s population used the Nile Basin waters. Most of the rains happen in the south. Much of the Nile water comes from other places, like Ethiopia, Uganda and more. The waters from the White Nile and The Atbara in the south and west rise and flood at different times from the Blue Nile and other sources in the east and central parts of the country — no real efforts have been developed to coordinate and better manage these flows and stocks.

Sudan not only faces down the threats from a potential new civil war, it also faces external tensions that could build over the sharing, use and abuse of the Nile across countries in the region. There is only one agreement between the many nations who share the Nile and that was established in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt. As the other countries along the Nile, including the most likely new Sudan in the south, want to develop, demand on the water of the Nile for electricity production, irrigation, industry and more will grow greater. Sudan also shares groundwater resources and sources with other countries. Though the ground water flows, the data on this is as scarce as good management of it.

Astonishingly little of its recharged groundwater and its surface water are used in this often water stressed country. What is used is often wasted with inefficient irrigation methods and even quite destructive rain fed farming methods, and livestock overgrazing. Meanwhile the extraordinarily destructive mechanized agricultural system that is causing huge deforestation, land and river bank erosion, salinization, and more negative effects. Water treatment is almost unheard of in the country, especially in the south. Water-borne diseases are rampant and pesticide poisoning via the water-food chains are likely quite common in some areas. The growth of the mesquite tree and water hyacinth has also wreaked havoc on the country’s water systems.

The precious water of Sudan is being degraded in many areas and wasted in others. Basin and catchment degradation are the norm in many parts of the country. The country is, on average, water rich, but it is management and maintenance poor.

Siltation near small and large dams is common. Suspended solids and stagnant water are common near the dams. Sudan needs the hydroelectricity — it is constantly in a severe energy crisis, but the dams could be more costly to the water and the environment than many may think.

Then there are the very difficult problems of what to do with the huge numbers of returning IDPs and the possible movement of southerners from the north to the south. Also, how are the north and the south to coordinate their water management and water uses? These are very big issues that need to be resolved, or at least managed better.
end of excerpt.

Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace
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An excellent article on the challenges awaiting Southern Sudan in its referendum. It will be interesting to see if this referendum goes off without fraud and what will then become of the water resources of the Nile. You can find more information on this story at the link for Current.com:


Current: Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

Freshwater Crisis Not Included in Final Copenhagen Accord Despite Calls For Action

By Andrew Maddocks
Circle of Blue

The current climate accord negotiated at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen is dangerously inadequate, asserted a team of international environmental organizations.

During a talk at the Bella Center, where the climate conference was held, the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute, and the Stakeholder Forum teamed up to warn that stakeholders were about to make a dangerous mistake – not mentioning the freshwater crisis at all in the historic negotiating text.

As parties embraced a final climate change accord, water was included in one sentence within the latest draft of the treaty and then dropped entirely in the final text. Over the past few months, water-specific language has appeared and disappeared from drafts of the UN climate change adaptation text. In the last preliminary climate talks in Barcelona, water was eliminated from the negotiating texts.

Vulnerable People

Generations of people living in vulnerable coastal nations or farmers face volatile rainfall and could be left unprepared for decades if the treaty’s language isn’t carefully crafted into the next international climate treaty, said GPPN Secretariat Hannah Stoddart, one of the speakers at the “Bridging the Water and Climate Change Agendas” event. Presenters on the panel explored the disconnect between climate and water contingents in the build-up to COP15, and hoped to apply more pressure to integrate water into the treaty.

In Copenhagen, the GPPN and its allies tried to step up the pressure on leaders by putting water in powerful introductory videos and speeches about climate and water-related damage happening around the world.

Though representatives from the GPPN network — which includes partners from SIWI, the GWP and the World Wildlife Fund —had modest expectations for changes to the UN text, they were determined to stress the connections between water and climate change to the 33,000 accredited attendees at the conference, including more than 120 heads of state that attended the 13-day United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which ended on December 19.

Ainun Nishat, a senior climate change adviser for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, opened the panel discussion with a quick summary of the challenges facing Bangladesh — severe weather events, rising sea levels, shifting rainfall patterns and a fragile food supply.

“I feel very ashamed the international community has not done anything about that,” Nishat said.

Demands For Recognition
Nishat gave first-hand examples that supported the GPPN’s central agenda — urgent demand for action, regional and international guidance on water-related issues and a long-term strategy for adaptation by the United Nations.

The subsequent speakers moved through a series of warnings and guidance measures for climate leaders.

Managing water resources will be critical, Stoddart said. She added that effective management requires broad-based cooperation, which starts at the international treaty level. Identifying a disconnect between climate and water advocates, speakers at the event encouraged everyone at the climate conference to break out of their specialities and engage in interdisciplinary discussions and solutions.

Other organizations like the World Water Council suggested that the Copenhagen Accord and its successor climate pacts include an international fund for water.

Many of the panel members’ goals looked beyond Copenhagen.

John Matthews of the World Wildlife Fund supervises freshwater and climate adaptation issues, and has worked with water across cities, energy sectors and fisheries. The scale of potential problems, Matthews said, will require additional resources that are better integrated amongst regions to local institutions. He highlighted transboundary rivers, such as the Rio Grande, which crosses from the U.S. into Mexico, as a key area to bridge both organizations as well as water issues such as mitigation and adaptation to find comprehensive, exemplary solutions.

Treaty Language Neglected
After the prepared speeches, moderator Mike Muller, Special Advisor to the Global Water Partnership opened the floor for questions, which revealed urgent calls for amended treaty language, all of which were subsequently ignored in the final accord. Negotiators in the room anticipated that water might be left out because environmental ministers, rather than water administrators, usually handle these agreements.

But the sense of urgency and pressure for ongoing planning are strong. Environmental ministers from both South Africa and Uganda who attended the event said they would take these messages back to their private delegation meetings.

“We really have to understand water is a key element for the poor and vulnerable,” said Karin Lexen, a project director with the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). “If you talk to a woman in Mali, the first thing she will probably ask for is water. That’s why we have a commitment to trying to do our best.”
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To say that I am disappointed with the outcome of Copenhagen would be a gross understatement. No real movement forward on GHG emission targets, and no movement forward whatsoever regarding global water scarcity and stress. And to be totally honest, while I believe water is central to any such treaty regarding climate change, I am skeptical as to the reasoning and motives behind certain entities (the WWF for one that also thinks GM soy in Argentina is "responsible") pushing for it, as water needs to be declared a global human right first. Without that action, any such treaty opens the door to more privitization which will only exacerbate the crisis.

It should only be included for the right reasons, and they do not include commoditizing water on the market or allowing water systems of developing countries to be taken over by the World Bank or multinationals with the intent of taking advantage of the crisis for profit. Without this declaration and absolute transparency, it should be looked at with great caution.

The COP 16 is supposedly set for Cancun, Mexico next summer. Let's see if it really is a Cop 16 and not another COP OUT. We can't afford to waste anymore time with political posturing.

Glacier Melt Across The World

Remember, it is the rapidity of the melting that indicates other forcings besides just natural processes. Forcings those responsible for want you to discount so they can keep their profits. And while they divert you with emails, distractionary "debates," and fake You Tube "lawsuits," glacier melt continues to threaten over 2 billion people globally with water scarcity. We must keep our focus on what is really important.

The President's Dilemma- Feature Documentary on Kirabatu

As the COP 15 Copenhagen climate summit is now under way I will try to bring information about the proceedings especially regarding water. Since language regarding water was taken out of the Barcelona talks write up it would appear that water issues are not being seriously considered in correlation to climate change as of yet. That is a huge mistake. I fear that this conference as others will be hijacked by corporate interests and politicians working in collusion to ignore the true urgency of the climate crisis in order to profit from it. However, as we see with this documentary to ignore the urgency of the effects of climate change is not only irresponsible but immoral.

More soon.

Time Warp: Water

You've never seen water drops like this. Amazing

Water Experts React To Barcelona Negotiations

Water Experts React To Barcelona Negotiations

Excerpt:

Water advocates and experts are convening in Barcelona to lobby climate negotiators to recognize intersections of water and climate, and for the inclusion of key water language in the working documents that will form the backbone for high-level meetings in Copenhagen in December. So far, they feel, their efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

The Global Public Policy Network, a group that includes the United Nations’ own water group and other water-related organizations, hosted a “water day” on Monday to coincide with the final build-up conference before the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference next month. Water experts say they are are deeply dismayed that all references to water have been stricken from the Non Paper 31—the draft text for Copenhagen. The organizations hope they can convince negotiators to re-instate mention of climate change impacts on water.

“Negotiators’ failure to recognize the role that water has in adapting to climate change could have severe implications for future levels of water security and ensuring more resilient systems for the future—in fact it risks undermining many of the objectives of the adaptation climate change discussions,” said Emily Benson, project manager for the Stakeholder Forum, in an email interview with Circle of Blue.

The forum, an international multi-stakeholder organization working on sustainable development, released a statement Tuesday about water “evaporating” from the climate change talks.

“The way that water is managed in and between countries will be a critical component for the success of any efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It will also be a vital consideration for many mitigation activities, including hydropower, agriculture and forestry projects,” the statement said.


“Even with the best mitigation strategies, water-related effects of climate change will come,” said Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute. “The challenge for many nations is, how to adapt. Climate change is in effect water change, since it will be through water that the changes will be realized first and foremost.”

Other experts not at the forum were also worried about the exclusion of water.

“What’s the agenda if they’re not going to mention water?” asked James Workman, author of “Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought.”

“I think that’s short-sighted of negotiators, especially when you look at all the links between water and energy. I can’t quite understand where it’s coming from to just pull water out of the negotiating text,” Workman said.

One climate expert, also not at the conference, was surprised that negotiators were failing to mention something as fundamental as water in the treaty, and speculated that the text may have impinged on some ulterior interest.

“That water and climate are connected is not controversial—it’s one of the conclusions of the IPCC. However, the IPCC is strictly prohibited from being policy prescriptive. Contributors can discuss but not endorse specific policy measures,” said Dr. Stephen Schneider, a biological science professor at Standford University.

The IPCC did, however, release a technical report last year on water and climate change. According to the report, “water resource issues have not been adequately addressed in climate change analyses and climate policy formulations.”

As an issue, climate is not faring well in the United States where a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed a decline in concern about climate change. According to the poll, 35 percent of Americans “see global warming as a serious problem,” down from 45 percent in April 2008.

Yet data from a Circle of Blue GlobeScan international public opinion survey found that water problems—scarcity and pollution—are the most troubling issue for people world-wide. Climate change has always ranked below water, according to GlobeScan data.

The poll surveyed 1,000 people in each of 25 countries, and probed 500 in each of the following countries on specific questions: Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Ninety-one percent of respondents indicated they think water shortages are a serious or somewhat serious problem. Eighty-seven percent indicated they are worried about increasing global freshwater shortages.

The amount of people concerned about freshwater shortages has increased five percentage points since 2003, when the opinion polling was first done.

end of excerpt
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To not include water as part of these negotiations will prove the parties involved are not serious about addressing the climate crisis. Water policy is central to an effective treaty as sea level rise, drought, glacier melt, and wetlands loss are all key to protection from storms, agricultural diversity, and life itself.

Just what are they thinking?

Melting Glaciers Jolt Smokestack China

Melting Glaciers Jolt Smokestack China

AS an expedition from Chinese state television worked its way across the remote Tibetan plateau earlier this year, the explorers were amazed by what they found.

The plateau has been called the world’s third largest ice store after the North and South Poles. Yet according to Chinese scientists, the “third pole” is warming up faster than anywhere else on earth.

The TV team found bare rock where glaciers had retreated. Lakes had dried up. Lush grassland had turned to desert. The livestock was dead, the farmers impoverished.

They brought back a visual lesson in global warming so stark that censors allowed the programme makers to broadcast a frank exposé. Their film attracted the attention of the Communist party’s leaders and has put climate change at the centre of a remarkably open debate in China ahead of a summit on the issue in Copenhagen next month.

It means that when President Barack Obama arrives in China next weekend he will find his hosts ready to talk about dozens of measures to slow the rate of global warming. He will not find them willing to agree to calls by rich countries for Beijing to accept a binding cap on carbon emissions — a condition that commentaries in the Chinese media have defined as politically unacceptable.

Any compromise might break an international deadlock and allow a treaty to be signed. However, even if that now looks unlikely to happen — and the United Nations official leading the talks accepts this — the fact is that China has woken up to the damage in an unprecedented way.

The speed and scale of change on the Tibetan plateau have made Chinese leaders react to something they understand — a potential threat to the future of China itself.

They are clearly seeking to mould opinion in favour of “greener” policies after decades of a highly polluting dash for economic growth that has poisoned China’s rivers and darkened its skies.

Last month, for example, researchers discovered that levels of black carbon in the ice core of the Tibetan plateau had soared since the 1990s because of smokestack industries and coal fires in millions of homes.

The plateau’s 36,000 glaciers, which once extended for 18,000 square miles, could vanish before mid-century if present rates of warming persist. More than 80% of them are in retreat. The overall area has shrunk by 4.5% in the past 20 years.

Most ominous of all, in the area that Chinese know as Sanjiangyuan, where three mighty rivers rise — the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Mekong — the headwaters run shallow and weak, threatening the water supplies for hundreds of millions of people.

“In the 1970s and 1980s, here was rich grassland and sheep grazed everywhere, but the weather has become hotter and drier,” a Tibetan herder, Sonarenqin, 39, told the TV crew.

“Five years ago my family had 300 sheep and 30 yaks. Now I have no sheep at all and merely a few yaks,” an 80-year-old Tibetan named Seluo added. “Our life has become so hard that we live on handouts.”

In the past 30 years the thawing of permafrost, a layer of soil that is usually frozen all the year round, has changed the landscape profoundly.

“There were 4,077 lakes and now 3,000 of them have disappeared,” said Xin Hongyuan, a geologist in Qinghai, which shares the huge expanse of plateau with the Tibet autonomous region and the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu.

“The snow is thawing and the snowline has risen from 4,600 metres to 5,300 metres. The Jianggendiru glacier, which is the main water supply of the Yangtze, has been degenerating fast since 1970, and when the glaciers shrink there will be a water crisis in the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.”

The Yellow river, for example, supplies water to a fifth of China’s 1.3 billion population and serves 50 big cities along its 3,395 miles.

In recent years it has sometimes slowed to a trickle. Once it virtually stopped flowing for 226 days, causing urban waterpipes to run dry and confronting downstream provinces with huge financial losses.

Qin Dahe, an eminent scientist and explorer, has been permitted to disclose alarming official assessments of the causes to Xinhua, the state news agency. “Owing to global warming, glaciers on the QinghaiTibet plateau are retreating extensively at a speed faster than in any other part of the world,” he said.

Temperatures on the plateau have risen by an average of 0.32C every 10 years since 1961, about six times as fast as in the rest of China. In Tibet, it is hotter than at any time in the past half century, while in the south and west of Tibet there is between 30% and 80% less rainfall.
end of excerpt.
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Just as a disclaimer: This is not a defense of China as their coal burning continues to contribute to the climate change we see... However, what will Obama say in China? He will tell them that they must agree to binding carbon emission caps even as they now work to do more to counter their emissions than the US is doing. While the U.S spends billions to build an Alberta Clipper pipeline to truck in dirty carbon laden tarsands crude from Canada, China is taking over the solar market. It is one thing to see the damage you have done and sincerely work to decrease what is contributing to it. Quite another to see it, know it, and yet continue to stall progress all while you are wagging fingers at others. Don't wonder now why the US cannot get global cooperation on necessary carbon emissions cuts. It's called walking the walk.

You Are Life; A Poem/ Blog Action day

My life sprang from you

your essence giving me breath

drops falling on my head

promising grace and spiritual oneness



Your loving arms embracing me

as I swam in your energy

my body an instrument of your light

my soul an emulation of your love



From birth to death

your lifeblood was mine

I drank you in

I lived through you

My respect undying


You are life
You are hope
You are love
You are Earth
You are me...

You are water.

The Global Water Crisis: Where Is Our Moral Will?

The more I read about this crucial issue the more incensed I become about this global crisis that is totally unnecessary because we have all we need to mitigate it. I also feel disillusioned about a global community that for the most part is not treating this with the urgency it deserves. Do we have to see corpses of children who died as a result of our human behavior before we act? Do we have to actually suffer the consequences before we realize we waited too long? Even though we were warned and have what we need to fix it? If we completely waste the finite freshwater resources we have on this planet we will destroy our own species. The idea that we could actually continue to destroy ourselves by behavior we know is detrimental to our survival is to me truly illogical. We have lost touch with the importance of water, and by doing so have lost respect for it. And that is what in great part is leading us to catastrophe if we do not act boldly now to save it.

Case in point:

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore makes reference to the Aral Sea (also noted in the first chapter of his bestseller, Earth In The Balance.) The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 60's when the Soviet Union diverted the Ana Darya and Syr Darya rivers for irrigation, which was not even successful. Today the Aral Sea has shrunk 60% in surface area, and 80% in volume. It is polluted beyond recognition because of weapons testing, fertilizer runoff, and other industrial projects that have left it a bowl of toxic dust... And humans did this.

This is becoming a common tale around our world as our rapacious and wasteful behavior regarding this liquid of life is bringing us to the brink of global war over "blue gold." There is no doubt if you look across Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and other parts of Africa, Asia, South and Central America, the Middle East (particularly Jordan, Syria, Iran, and including disputes over rights between Israel and the Palestinian territories) Mexico, and even between the U.S. and Canada and in our own country, that unless we become serious about facing this crisis which doesn't have to be a crisis, we will pass the point of no return. And regarding water we cannot and must not allow that to happen.

In my many entries on this issue, statistics regarding the current crisis, diseases suffered because of lack of sanitation or proper sanitation, desalinization, corporate privatization and its effects, and the need to declare water a human right globally without allowing it to become a commodity at the expense of the poor and sick have been discussed. I believe this issue goes to the core of who we are as human beings and so far I see that while many struggle to give hope, humanity as a whole is suffering in the moral will department and that baffles and saddens me. The climate crisis is also contributing to the shortage of water in Africa as droughts are becoming more severe and prolonged with disease, famine, and war the repercussions. And this is just the beginning of something that the world has been getting warnings about for over twenty years.

Again, much like the truth Mr. Gore and others have been trying to get out all of these years regarding our rapacious consumption of fossil fuels that is bringing us to the brink of Peak Oil, and the concentration of CO2 and other gases that are exacerbating the droughts and other effects we are now seeing by own hand, so too have the warnings about what we will reap regarding a global water shortage been viritually ignored by many governments and people who never believe it will reach the point where we will have to care. Well, we are there.

One other predominant issue in regards to water is that population is projected to increase within the next fifty years whereby two-thirds of the Earth's population will be living in towns and cities. That is absolutely staggering based on current population trends. The question then is: how do we control population growth (regarding informing people in underdeveloped countries about birth control and family planning) in these areas and provide sustainable solutions to the water crisis in the future if our moral will is already gone? Are efforts like desalinization truly then the answer? Or is it a bandaid rather than a solution? Desalinization is expensive and expends much in the way of greenhouse gases. Is it then a self defeating process only to once again be abused for profit? And what happens regarding the desalinization of ocean water that has a higher acidity level due to the consumption of higher amounts of CO2 and other gases that will be brought on by the very process we believe is saving us?

The point to this then is, why can't anyone see the answer staring us all in the face? THE ANSWER IS US. It is the same answer regarding this global water crisis as it is regarding the climate crisis. It will not be solved by desalinization or any other process if we continue to waste any resource we turn to. It has to start with us getting in the face of governments that refuse to give what people need to survive and collude to profit from their misery. It has to start with us standing up to corporations that would commoditize this resource that all must have as a human right. It has to start with us in our own lives becoming more responsible for what we use and how we use it. It has to come from our moral will to do our part in preserving the finite freshwater resources we have left on this Earth so that other drastic measures can be avoided.

The cost of us continuing to think otherwise is far too great. The answer is simple. If we won't take it upon ourselves to care for our planet, we betray it. If we don't do all we can globally to face this water crisis, we will cease to exist. Drastic you say? Perhaps to some. But then wars over oil have already done enough to bring us to the point of nuclear conflagration. Wars over water will most certainly be the point in my view that tips that scale the longer we wait to allow our humanity to shine through.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 2009 for Climate Change.

Blog Action Day

Guy Laliberte's Water For All, All For Water event from the ISS

Water For All, All For Water

For those who missed the two hour global event, Water For All, All For Water, you can now watch the broadcast in its entirety at the link posted.

It is a beautiful event that makes the importance and spirituality of water so clear. Some of the featured guests are former Vice President, Nobel Laureate Al Gore, Dr. David Suzuki, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Dr. Wangari Mathaai, and Maude Barlow. Also U2 performs as well as other musical guests from around the world.

It truly puts water into perspective.

You can also pledge support to preserve water at the site as well.

Coca Cola's Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far

Coca Cola's Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far

"They've gone from greenwashing to outright lying.

In 2007, facing growing opposition to its water management practices, particularly in India, Coca-Cola's CEO, Neville Isdell came up with a brilliant idea. The Coca-Cola company, he announced, will become water neutral, replenishing every drop of water they use, and therefore, as the suggestion went, Coca-Cola would have no impact of water resources around the world.

Voila! Problem solved, a company using 300 billion liters of water annually would have no impact on water resources. Sustainability doesn't get any better than that. The only problem was that Coca-Cola knew that water neutrality was impossible to achieve.

In a concept paper on water neutrality that Coca-Cola developed with others, it clearly stated that, "In a strict sense, the term 'water neutral' is troublesome and even may be misleading. It is often possible to reduce a water footprint, but it is generally impossible to bring it down to zero."

But minor details such as "misleading," "troublesome" and "impossible" did not stop Coca-Cola from using the term liberally and widely. And in India, where they have faced the most intense opposition (two bottling plants have been shut down), Coca-Cola went on a fast track, announcing that they will become water neutral by the end of 2009. It took a challenge by the India Resource Center and our allies during in December 2008 to get Coca-Cola to change its tune and to admit two months later that water neutrality is controversial and they will not use it.

"Please note that the terminology "water offset," like "water neutrality" is controversial ... Until a better terminology is identified and accepted by the broader water community, we are using the term offset." -- From Coca-Cola's "Achieving Water Balance through Community Partnership," February 2009.

But the marketing appeal of a concept like water neutrality, however impossible it may be to achieve, is simply to great for a publicity driven Coca-Cola to pass by. Sharing the opening plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Walmart two days ago, Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola's new CEO, blurted out that Coca-Cola will become water neutral by 2020.

Wait a minute. Is there something new from the "broader water community" since February this year that has enabled water neutrality to be possible and not controversial? No, there isn't, and trust me, we would know if there was because we keep a close watch on Coca-Cola and its shenanigans. Muhtar Kent's blurt is truly indicative of how Coca-Cola has approached its "water stewardship" initiatives."

end of excerpt
________

Here we go. Now companies like Coca Cola will want to make us believe that 'water neutrality' is actually something that can be achieved. Just how gullible do they think we are? And of course, they can promise to not use as much water, but that doesn't mean they won't still pollute the water. Offsets whether in carbon or water are simply corporate mechanisms devised to shirk moral responsibility and should be taken at face value.

India Resource Center: Campaign to Hold Coca Cola Accountable

First "clown" in space to show urgency of global water crisis

Guy Laliberté presents The ONE DROP Foundation from One Drop Foundation on Vimeo.

Space's First Clown Reaches International Space Station

Billionaire Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte arrives at the International Space Station and -- true to form -- dons a clown nose. During his brief tourist trip to the ISS, Laliberte plans to coordinate from the ISS a 120-minute, 14-city show on Earth featuring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Peter Gabriel and U2.

Guy Laliberte, the billionaire founder of Cirque du Soleil, arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 1 and—to no one's surprise—slapped on a clown nose and began yukking it up with crew members of the space station. Laliberte is the seventh paying (reportedly $35 million) space tourist to travel to the station.

Laliberte blasted off into space early Sept. 30 aboard a Russian Soyuz craft along with Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and American astronaut Jeffrey Williams. While Surayev and Williams are scheduled for a six-month tour of duty at the space station, Laliberte is returning to Earth Oct. 11.

"I'm adapting pretty good. I love that thing [the space station], but I ain't staying six months," Laliberte said in a video linkup between the space station and Russian Mission Control outside Moscow.

In addition to a weightless juggling show, Laliberte also said he plans to bring some levity to the usually somber space station operations, suggesting tickling the ISS' crew in their sleep and other hijinks.

But the big show is scheduled for Oct. 9, when Laliberte plans to coordinate from space a 14-city show on Earth featuring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Peter Gabriel and U2 seeking to raise awareness through "artistic illustration of the humanitarian struggles and solutions associated with water." Laliberte is founder of the One Drop Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone across the planet has access to water.

The event will take place simultaneously in Montreal; Moscow; Santa Monica, Calif.; New York City; Johannesburg; Mumbai; Marrakesh; Sydney; Osaka; Tampa, Fla.; Mexico City; Rio de Janeiro; Paris; and London and will be broadcast globally. In addition, the 120-minute show will be Webcast through the One Drop Foundation.

"The Earth will gaze up at the stars and resonate to the rhythms of artists and world-renowned figures who will demonstrate their commitment to water and pay tribute to this vitally important natural resource," states a press release from Laliberte."
________

I truly hope this awakens people to the urgency of this crisis. Without water there is no life on Earth. Perhaps seeing it from the ISS will be a humbling act for those of us who take it for granted here. I usually look down on the rich who do this as it being an extravagance. However, in this case since it was for such a good cause I support it wholeheartedly.

Water In Crisis: Future Wars?

I see the proliferation of talk regarding the water crisis now as I did the "awakening" so to speak regarding the climate crisis. We waited until the situation was so bad to even talk about it seriously. People have been warning us since the late eighties regarding water scarcity. I myself have been writing and talking about this for the last ten years. And yet, the amount of people without fresh potable water continues to rise. Can you imagine a world where 2/3 of the population is without potable water? This is the prediction for 2030 should current behaviors continue along with the effects of climate change, primarily in the form of drought.

And while this is indeed a serious prediction that has merit, I do also have to wonder just how much governments want this to get to a true crisis situation as the climate crisis, because it seems that using the climate crisis now to warn of conflict is good business for the war machine as well. Would governments actually use water scarcity to trim down the population of the world's poor? I just cannot understand why the human race can never join together in a common purpose to do what is right instead of allowing a crisis to deteriorate to the point where war has to even be an option!

I always believed that water unlike oil, is a resource that would actually bind people together in the end because of the MAD principle, meaning, that like nuclear war, countries would not wish to start wars over water because it would only wind up hurting their own people in the process. I don't know, perhaps I have too much faith in humanity even with all of my cynicism? However, there are solutions to this and the first and foremost one is changing our agricultural practices regarding wasteful irrigation, crop rotations, what crops are grown where and when; rebuilding and fixing infrastructure; stopping the proliferation of dams that siphon water from agriculture; reforestation; wasteful industrial practices and curtailing the use of water wasteful energy sources such as coal and nuclear that use large amounts of water; conservation which so many people seem to think is a dirty word; and the big one- declaring water a human right and standing up to privitization and commoditization of it globally. Desalination (which should be a last resort) should be used in the Middle East and is needed there. However, that does not mean they should get away with building more huge dams as well and using water as a political weapon.

Future wars over water can be averted if we look beyond to seeing the big picture and how not having it will effect us all equally.

Water shortage in southern Iraq threatens two million people

Water shortage in southern Iraq threatens two million people

And what is Turkey's solution to this crisis for the Euphrates River? Why build more dams to divert even more water of course. There is no "democracy" in any place where people are deprived of the basic necessities of life. So much for our "occupation." It's bad enough we forced Monsanto seeds down their throats to ruin their agriculture, but now they don't even have enough water to water the seeds. Why is it everywhere we go we bring nothing but misery to the people who live there? The Middle East is already an arid water scarce area.

They cannot afford to have climate change along with multiple dams and wasteful practices adding to their crisis. Once again, the sun shines bright in the sky and all people can think of is using water for electricity that they need to grow food and survive because it makes contractors and politicians rich, and can also be used as a political weapon as the Ilisu Dam in Turkey is one against the Kurds.Restore the Marshlands, give the seeds back to the farmers, tear down the unncessary dams in Turkey destroying history and being used as political weapons, and invest in solar power in this area to save water. These dams have displaced thousands of people and denied water to those who need it to live. It isn't as though the solutions aren't there, but of course they are always the solutions that make someone money that only matter.It is time for the Middle East to come into the sun.


Excerpt from article:

Martin Chulov in Nasiriyah, Iraq guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 August 2009
Two million people face life without water
Link to this video

A water shortage described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilisation is threatening to leave up to 2 million people in the south of the country without electricity and almost as many without drinking water.

An already meagre supply of electricity to Iraq's fourth-largest city of Nasiriyah has fallen by 50% during the last three weeks because of the rapidly falling levels of the Euphrates river, which has only two of four power-generating turbines left working. If, as predicted, the river falls by a further 20cm during the next fortnight, engineers say the remaining two turbines will also close down, forcing a total blackout in the city.

Down river, where the Euphrates spills out into the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the north-eastern corner of the Persian Gulf, the lack of fresh water has raised salinity levels so high that two towns, of about 3,000 people, on the northern edge of Basra have this week evacuated. "We can no longer drink this water," said one local woman from the village of al-Fal. "Our animals are all dead and many people here are diseased."

Iraqi officials have been attempting to grapple with the magnitude of the crisis for months, which, like much else in this fractured society, has many causes, both man-made and natural.
Two winters of significantly lower than normal rainfalls – half the annual average last year and one-third the year before – have followed six years of crippling instability, in which industry barely functioned and agriculture struggled to meet half of subsistence needs. "For thousands of years Iraq's agricultural lands were rich with planted wheat, rice and barley," said Salah Aziz, director of planning in Iraq's agricultural ministry, adding that land was "100% in use".

"This year less than 50% of the land is in use and most of the yields are marginal. This year we cannot begin to cover even 40% of Iraq's fruit and vegetable demand." During the last five chaotic years, many new dams and reservoirs have been built in Turkey, Syria and Iran, which share the Euphrates and its small tributaries. The effect has been to starve the Euphrates of its lifeblood, which throughout the ages has guaranteed bountiful water, even during drought. At the same time, irrigators have tried tilling marginal land in an attempt for quick yields and in all cases the projects have been abandoned.

"Not even during Saddam's time did we face the prospect of something so grave," said Nasiriyah's governor, Qusey al-Ebadi. Just east of the city, the Marsh Arabs are also on the edge of a crisis – unprecedented even during the three decades of reprisals they faced under the former dictator.

"The current level of the Euphrates cannot feed the small tributaries that give water to the marshlands," he continued. "The people there have started to dig wells for their own survival. There is no water to use for washing, because it is stagnant and contaminated. Many of the animals have contracted disease and died and people with animals are leaving their areas." Nowhere is Iraq's water shortage more stark than in what used to be the marshlands. Towards the Iranian border and south to the Gulf, rigid and yellowing reeds jut from a hard-baked landscape of cracked mud.

Skiffs that once plied the lowland waters lie dry and splintering and ducks wallow in fetid green ponds that pocket the maze of feeder streams. Steel cans of drinking water bought by desperate locals line dirt roads like over-sized letter boxes. The Euphrates, once broad and endlessly green, is now narrow and drab...

end of excerpt.
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It matters not what part of the world you live in, or whether you are French, American, Israeli, Palestinian, Iraqi, Pakistani, etc. you have the right to clean water, food, health, and to be secure in the place you choose to live. War has provided NONE of those things, particularly for this region of the world, and it is now primarily the fault of the US that these people now suffer as well as the fault of other countries looking to gain from their misery.

It surely makes someone like myself not even have the motivation to continue to try to talk to people to make them see that poltiics, religion, and more than anything else, GREED (that spans all religions, non religions, and politics) has now deteriorated our world to the point where humanity is becoming obsolete.

When climate change along with all of these factors runs the Fertile Crescent, one of the most historically rich areas of the world and the cradle of agriculture dry how many who ignored these warnings due to their own apathy and prejudices will then start to care? Well, you will be too late then.

Flow-For The Love Of Water

This is part one of eight parts. Refer to the link here:

Flow-The Movie

to watch the other seven parts.

Please spread it around.

Thanks