Water is essential to life, and places that do not have a sufficient supply of fresh water are barren and abandoned. Climate change is sure to lead to future water wars.
Clear evidence of this can be seen in the vast deserts around the world, the Sahara, Mojave, and Gobi, for example, where only passersby, if anyone, brave the waterless wastelands, devoid of most living organisms. Some towns have simply been abandoned since there was no water for the population to drink. Water itself isn’t really the problem, but access to clean water presents big problems for millions of people around the world. According to one study, some 780 million people lack access to clean water, which is better than twice the population of the United States, or a little more than the population of the European Union.
Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has, somehow, come to the conclusion that those 780 million, as well as the rest of the planet’s 7,046,000,000, and counting, inhabitants, should pay for clean water. Nestlé is the world’s biggest food product company, earning some $65 billion, annually. Now, cue dramatic music and a water wars montage, because Chairman Brabeck looks to be heading into his supervillain stage of development…
http://youtu.be/SEFL8ElXHaU
“Water is, of course, the most important raw material we have, today, in the world. It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. There are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that, as a human being, you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. The other view says that water is a foodstuff, like any other, and, like any other foodstuff, it should have a market value. Personally, I believe it’s better to give a foodstuff a value, so that we’re all aware that is has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there. I’m still of the opinion that the biggest social responsibility, of any CEO, is to maintain and ensure the successful and profitable future of his enterprise for, only if we can ensure out continued long term existence, will we be in the position to actively participate in the solution of the problems that exist in the world.”
My question is, what happens to those who can’t pay for clean water? Sounds like a water wars movie in the making.
Image © ControversialFiles (YouTube Screenshot)
