Yippee! We’re back!! And getting back to the basics in
this issue, which is all about H2O (that’s WATER for you laypeople).
Omnipresent and multiform, loved by all living things, it seeps, drips,
trickles, flows, pours, splashes, cascades, rages and roars. Can’t avoid it,
really, especially as it makes up most of our bodies (78% for babies, 60% for
us dried-up adults). Still waters run deep here at THORNY ISSUES, so
let’s open the floodgates and get paddling. Cheers!
The United Nations recognizes sanitation as a real
human right. Despite this, over 2 billion people around the world still don’t
have access to clean, developed sanitary facilities.
These facts have their own consequences, for instance:
- - Health
rights can be damaged when people in countries from the 3rd world are
constantly in touch with polluted water. Virus and bacteria can easily be found
in feces spread over the fields, mainly in the small villages of rural
emplacements.
- - If children
from these places often get sick, they won’t be able to go to school and so
their educational human rights will be damaged as well.
But, in the meantime, as a matter of global common
commitment and solidarity, there are several projects that are deeply involved in
managing universal water access, appropriate sanitation systems and hygiene,
and, at the same time, asking governments and the international community for
compliance with their political commitments.
Two goals are currently trying to be met by all of
these projects. First, climate change is directly affecting drinkable water
availability. That’s why environmental damage by human action and a huge and
excessively rapid industrial development are nowadays considered a real danger
to the availability of appropriate water. On the other hand, the existence of
human rights demands that public policies should ensure quality water resources
for all the population, even though water is primarily used by agriculture and
industry; only the remaining water, often polluted, is designated for domestic
and personal use.
Rural sanitation is a crucial challenge because the
need for a secure sanitation is not even considered by the governments or
segments of the population. Nevertheless, the access to a latrine in good
hygienic condition becomes a vital matter for reasons of health, privacy,
dignity, security and convenience. Let’s look briefly at some of the projects
that are currently being carried out worldwide.
** Local communities in the Republic of Malawi, a
landlocked country in southeast Africa, are being helped by sanitation
companies –for instance, www.aderasa.org -. Small and medium land owners sell their animal and
human excretions so that they obtain important economic discounts and have
created ecological latrines. These latrines have a witty design: they can be
placed wherever you want. Once the well is full of excretions, you can move the
latrine to another place above a new well and use it again. The previous well
will then have another purpose: an arboreal toilet. It is easy: a young tree is
planted on a full well and it may grow tall ad healthy. What is more, these
companies usually provide facilities to those owners that have economic
problems and accept the harvest of bananas as a first payment on the latrine.
** Another good example is Bangladesh. Many
organizations, local and foreign, are trying to reduce behaviors that are
non-hygienic, specifically defecating outdoors. It involves a strong effort in
education, knowledge of health practices, raising awareness and communal
cooperation. At the same time, these organizations often face several
difficulties. In addition, discussing sanitation and how we use the toilet is
usually taboo. Sensitivity and great commitment are needed to generate an
interesting and fruitful debate in which all residents participate freely.
Finally, it is also very important to make people
aware of having a clean latrine, to make them notice that defecating outdoors
and having our hands and feet filthy are the main causes of serious illnesses
and that this actually attract insects and other animals. These organizations
are constantly trying to unite all the people together and create a strong,
common mind. The more consistent the neighborhood union, the more the goals of
the group will be reached.
The main objective, as far as the humanitarian
organizations are concerned, is to create “non
outdoors defecating areas” so that people really accept the consequences
that come from insanity, poor health, illness and progressive soil
deterioration. Small successes are being achieved; for instance, in India and
in many countries in Africa, governments are determined to give public
financial aid in order to develop these kind of projects.
In conclusion, free access to sanitation has become a
matter of human rights, not only in developing countries or even public health
and safety. In order to achieve universal availability to a public water supply
service and to appropriate sanitation. Global participation and cooperation are
absolutely necessary from both governments and the people themselves. At the
same time, it is not enough to build sufficient latrines in specific places,
but also to educate population about the problems that may arise, to create
critical social movements, to condemn and boycott discriminatory practices and
to get governments involved in the final solution.
“The lotus comes from the murkiest water but grows
into the purest thing” (Nita Ambani).
“It is easy for people in an air-conditioned room to
continue with the policies of destroying Mother Earth. We need instead to put
ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide that lack water and
food and suffer misery and hunger” (Evo Morales).
“Be water, my friend”, said Bruce Lee in relation to his vital philosophy. And he was certain since our body is water, nature and wildlife are water, the Earth is water and even the sky provides us with water. Humanity has considered water a sacred element for thousands of years. Seas, oceans, rivers, lakes and waterfalls have been used from ancient times to explain magic and mysteries stories even to justify the origin of humans. One example of these ancestral beliefs is Lake Titicaca, a sacred lake located on the border between Peru and Bolivia. It is known as the highest navigable lake in the world and there is a mythical explanation that relates the lake to the origin of the Inca civilization. The God Sun (Inti) and the Goddess Moon (Quilla) were suffering an unrequited love since they could never find each other. Nevertheless, there was a prophecy about their love: one day, the Earth darkened and Quilla joined Int. They made love and two brothers were born, a girl and a boy, in Lake Titicaca. When people arrived at Titicaca, they found a handsome man (known as Manco Cápac) and a very beautiful woman (Mama Ocllo). Their father, Inti, ordered Manco Cápac to teach the local population to cultivate lands and raise animals and ordered Mama Ocllo to teach women how to spin and weave clothes and do housework. Inti gave them advice to guide the Inca population and a golden rod whose function was to mark a fertile land that would be the end of their pilgrimage. In that place they were to found the capital of the Inca Empire. Therefore, Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo started their longest trip to the north of the sacred lake, going across the lands of Urus, Collas and Aimaras. When they arrived at Cusco Valley, Manco Cápac dropped the golden rod and it disappeared into the earth. That place was known as Cusco, the center of the world, in honour of the gods. This is only one simple example of the worldwide stories about the strong relation between water and life. When we think about our physical reality, we can be conscious of our fragility as humans.
What would you think if someone told you Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture
(Japan), an example of horrendous pollution, with foul smelling and dirty water
became clean in the summer of 1999 after 350 people gathered and offered their
words?
And if they say that a bottle filled with polluted water could react to a
Zen monk's thoughts or merely by showing the words "Thank You"?
It seems quite impossible but a man spent his whole life proving it: Dr.
Masaru Emoto ( July 22nd 1943- October 17th, 2014).
Lake Biwa's crystals before people's prayers
Lake Biwa's crystals after people's prayers
This man tried to convince the world with his experiments that water
is liquid consciousness: the soul of the universe. Water's molecular
structure records vibrations of sound, colour, form, words, emotions and
thoughts. Water stores the intentions of each one and returns them.
What good news¡¡ because both the planet and the human being consist of
mostly water, which means if we show gratitude and love, all that water becomes
better and everything will be better.
The evidence … is in Ice
crystals.
Water exposed to John Lennon's song "Imagine"
It all started when Dr. Emoto was studying the healing power of
homeopathic preparations whose base is water. As part of his research he froze
water samples and photographed the water crystals under the microscope and…
many pictures later under different conditions...a big surprise! Water crystals
were beautiful when water has been exposed to positive speech and thoughts or
classical music, even in cases which started from contaminated water! However, negative intentions made frozen crystal formations "ugly".
The Japanese researcher's theory is based on the intrinsic pattern at
the atomic level in all matter. The smallest unit of energy. And this unit is also the same for the energy of human consciousness. At this point he explains that while science can not yet arrive at this
fact, quantum physics does: “Heisenberg's uncertainty principle” clearly
suggests that we do alter our environment. The water crystal phenomenon is his
proof that thoughts and feelings affect PHYSICAL reality.
Water exposed to the words "You disgust me"
In general, the scientific community agrees that it is very unlikely
there is any reality behind Emoto's claims. He has been criticized for
designing his experiments in ways that leave them prone to manipulation or for human
error influencing the findings. In 2003, James Randi invited him to take the
"One-Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge" to performe one of his
experiments under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He did not participate.
Water exposed to a heavy metal song
Despite all the criticism, his proposals have been
quite seductive for many.In Spain, “Grupo Pascual” hired
his services to analyze its mineral water drawn from underground springs of the
“Sierra de Guadarrama”, compared with water from other springs. Emoto concluded
that its water crystals have the most beautiful forms of all the springs of
Spain.
Water exposed to the word "peace"
The real truth is that water has been Dr. Emoto’s passion. All his
findings are collected in a series of books entitled “Messages from Water“, and
I am entirely sure that one of these books will be the best present for a “New
Age” girl like my friend Maggie (Lance’s ex-wife).
All land is part of a river basin
and all is shaped by the water which flows over it and through it. Indeed,
rivers are such an integral part of the land that in many places it would be as
appropriate to talk of riverscapes as it would be of landscapes. A river is
much more than water flowing to the sea. Even the meadows, forests, marshes and
backwaters of its floodplain can be seen as part of a river, and the river as
part of them. A river carries downhill not just water, but also important
sediments, dissolved minerals and the nutrient-rich detritus of plants and
animals, both dead and alive.
Fishing Eagle (Doñana, Huelva SPAIN)
The diversity of a river lies not
only in the various types of country it flows through but also in the changing
seasons and the differences between wet and dry years.
The great milestones of human
history took place along the banks of rivers. Fossilized remains of our
earliest known hominid ancestor were found by Ethiopia’s
Awash River. The first civilizations emerged
in the third millennium BC along the Euphrates, Tigris, Nile and Indus, and little later along the YellowRiver, and the rich variety of
plants and animals which they sustain, providing hunter-gatherer societies with
water for drinking and washing, and with food, drugs, and medicines, dyes,
fibres and wood. Farmers reap the same benefits as well as, where needed,
irrigation for their crops. For pastoral societies, who graze their herds over
wide areas often of parched plains and mountains sustaining food and fodder.
Towns and cities use (and misuse) rivers
to carry away their wastes, while rivers also serve as roadways for commerce,
exploration and conquest. The role of rivers as sustainers of life and
fertility is reflected in the myths and beliefs of a multitude of cultures.
Rivers have often been linked with divinities, especially female ones. In Ancient
Egypt, the floods of the Nile were considered
the tears of the goddess Isis. The rivers of India are perhaps wrapped in more
myths, epic tales and religious meanings than those of any other nation.
The state of the issue : A couple of rivers
-The Ganges and the Mekong-.
The Ganges
This river, which starts in Nepal, in the Himalayas, flows fifteen hundred
miles through India and Bangladesh and into the Bay of Bengal at Calcutta, is considered
by the Hindus as a goddess, a river that is both pure and purifying. It is the
dream of all good Hindus to visit Varanasi
(Benares), the holiest city in India,
and to bathe in the Ganges at least once in
their lives.
Millions of devout Hindus plunge
into the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela
festival. This festival lasts 45 days and around 70 million Hindus usually
participate in it, immersing themselves and filling small containers with river
water for the relatives that can not attend.
The Kumbh Mela Festival
The Kumbh Mela Festival (2)
But in some places at Varanasi, the
fecal-coliform count has reached a hundred and seventy million bacteria per
hundred millilitres of water. Around five hundred million of people live in the
basin of the Ganges and its tributaries and
hundred and fourteen cities dump their raw sewage directly into the river.
Waterborne illnesses like amoebic dysentery, typhoid and cholera are common
killers, especially among children. The river also has alarming concentrations
of heavy metals. It has been known for years that there are high rates of
certain cancers in the plains of the Ganges.
So why such pollution allowed, then?
It is not just that people are not aware of the dirtiness or ignorant of the
dangers. In India, there is
an additional obstacle to change: so sacred is the Ganges
that it is considered beyond harm. Its waters are pure, even medicinal, and this
is the responsibility of the gods, not of humans.
Nevertheless, some initiatives and efforts have been taken
to try to change the situation. A
spiritual leader and civil engineer – V.B. Mishra- is trying to clean up the
river. In 1982, with two other engineers, he founded the Sankat Mochan
Foundation, a private secular organization dedicated to cleaning the Ganges. They are conducting a feasibility study for a waste-pond system at Varanasi. The foundation has won the support
of both the central and municipal governments; the final obstacle to building
the ponds is now the state government of Uttar Pradesh.
It should be point out that the
Ganga Action Parivar (GAP), a non-profit organization launched in April 2010 by
the Dalai Lama and P.S.Ch. Saraswati is also
trying to help in clear up the river. One of its outstanding members said this about
the issue: “The Ganga needs and deserves
serious cross-sector collaboration that involves the government and scientists,
but also faith leaders who have the
networks and the capacity to shape perspective through story rather than
shaming”.
The Mekong
The MekongRiver is located in Southeast
Asia. Whit headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau, the river flows
approximately 4,900
kilometres on its way to its delta, located in Cambodia and Vietnam,
before emptying into the South China Sea. The
river spans six countries including China,
Myanmar, Laos, Thailand,
Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Mekong
is still a relatively healthy, natural, free-flowing river. It is one of the
most biodiverse rivers on Earth. Most of its habitats and connections between
habitats are still intact. It is capable of producing 2.6 million tons of fish
a year, despite fishing pressure from millions of people who depend on the river
for their sustenance. This makes it the most productive river in the world.
The
Mekong is also home to many species of giant
fish. It’s unclear why so many species of giant fish live in the river.
Certainly part of the answer is the river’s size: large rivers have more space
and more food to accommodate larger types of fish.
Giant Mekong catfish (Thailand, May 2005)
The ecoregions that make up the basin
comprise an incredibly wide diversity of habitats. These unique landscapes are
home to no fewer than 20,000 species of plants, 1,200 bird species, 800 species
of reptiles and amphibians, and 430 mammal species. Moreover, new species
continue to be identified.
From 1993 to 2005, economic growth
and electricity demand in the Mekong region
increased at an average annual rate of about eight percent. Power demand is
expected to grow at six to seven percent annually to 2025. The total potential
for hydropower is estimated at 53,000 MW, of which only about five percent is
currently installed.
The largest threat to the
conservation values of the river system is from the series of dams and other
hydropower projects planned for the river’s mainstream and tributaries. Such
impacts are expected to include a growing inequality in the lower MekongBasin
countries and an increase in poverty in the short and medium term, especially
among those in rural and urban riverside areas. Food is also likely to be
affected by reductions in fisheries production and impacts on agricultural
productivity due to inundation and changed water levels.
There are also significant threats
unrelated to hydropower development:
-Sand mining, to
provide material for construction industry.
-Over-fishing.
-Pollution,
particularly from agriculture and residential runoff.
Saving the world’s rivers
These are only two samples of our
rivers. Both are in very different and difficult situation. The Ganges, a river
to clear up, a river to be reborn and The Mekong, a river to take care of, a
river to propose as world heritage.
Phong Dien floating market (Vietnam)
Rivers of all sizes all over the
world have felt the process of human development. Across the world, we have
mismanaged and in some places almost destroyed, the ecological core on which
river health –and indeed our own survival- depends. Vast areas across both the
developed and developing world have similar levels of threat to their freshwater
resources. Moreover, the engineered “solutions” developed by the industrialized
nations, which typically emphasize treatment of the symptoms rather than
protection of resources, only too often turn out to be too costly for poorer nations, but also
appear to do little to secure the health of the rivers.
Large hydropower projects are often
propagated as a “clean and green” source of electricity by international
financial institutions, national governments and other actors. The dam industry
advocates for large hydropower projects to be funded by the Green Climate Fund
and many governments advocate dams as a response to climate change through
national initiatives.
Man fishing in Cambodia
Support from climate initiatives is
one of the reasons why more than 3,700 hydropower dams are currently under construction and projected. But
large hydropower projects are a false solution to climate change. They should
be kept out of national and international climate initiatives for the following
reasons:
1. Particularly in tropical regions,
hydropower reservoirs emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases. In some
cases, hydropower projects are producing higher emissions than coal-fired power plants generating the same amount of electricity.
2. Rivers take about 200 million tons of carbon out of the
atmosphere every
year. In addition, the silt that rivers like the Amazon, Congo, Ganges and Mekong
carry to the sea feeds plankton and absorbs large amounts of carbon. Hydropower
projects and other dams impair the ability of rivers to act as global carbon
sinks by disrupting the transport of silt and nutrients.
3. Hydropower dams make water and
energy systems more vulnerable to climate change. Unprecedented floods are
threatening the safety of dams: In the US alone, floods have caused more than 100 dams to fail since 2010.
4. In contrast to most wind, solar and micro-hydropower projects, dams cause
severe and often irreversible damage to critical ecosystems. Building more dams
to protect ecosystems from climate change means sacrificing the planet’s
arteries to protect her lungs.
5. Large hydropower projects have
serious impacts on local communities and often violate the rights of indigenous
peoples to their lands, territories, resources, governance, cultural integrity
and free, prior informed consent.
6. Large hydropower projects are not
always an effective tool for expanding energy access for poor people. Large
hydropower projects are often built to meet the demands of mining and
industrial projects, despite developers' claims that the energy is intended for
the poor.
7. Even if they were a good solution
in other ways, large hydropower projects would be a costly and time-consuming
way to address the climate crisis.
8. Unlike wind and solar power,
hydropower is no longer an innovative technology, and has not seen any major
technical breakthroughs for several decades.
9. Wind and solar power have
become both readily available and financially competitive, and have overtaken large hydropower in the addition
of new capacity. As grids become smarter and the cost of battery storage drops,
new hydropower projects are no longer needed to balance intermittent sources of
renewable energy.
If someone
should ask me what is the most important thing that human beings have achieved in
the lifestyle of modern life, I would answer without any doubt having water
installed in our houses.
Every day
we cook, flush the toilet, take a shower, clean the house, wash our clothes or
water our plants just by opening the tap at home. But are we really aware of
the privilege this is in our daily lives? I don’t think so. Even when a pipe is
broken, we feel deeply frustrated. And as soon as it is fixed, we take it for
granted again.
In
addition to health issues, water is a must for industry, agriculture, and
animal production.
However,
water reserves are a fixed resource. Meanwhile the population continues to grow
significantly.
International institutions calculate that by 2030 the demand for water will have increased by 40%, which the planet will not be able to supply.
Another
important problem is the shortage of water that many countries suffer,
especially some in Africa, such as Tanzania,
Ethiopia or Kenya. We might
think that the cause of this lack of water in the countries mentioned is the
climate with its scarcity of rain and extremely dry seasons. The United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa report related
“ hydric-stress” to poverty, government corruption, lack of infrastructure and
low agricultural production.
These two
situations are alarming to international organizations, who warn very seriously
about the threat of conflicts that the scarcity of water can provoke. The
Pacific Institute, a non profit group, has reported in a recent survey that war
is a real possibility in Africa, Middle East and Asia.
But nobody in a global world is going to be saved in this scenario. The US
Department of State has pointed out this situation as a threat to national
security.
Wars for
water are not new. Examples like Bolivia in 1999 and some tribal
conflicts are currently a reality. These cause the flight of thousands of
refugees hoping to escape death. Protecting our borders against them might be
one solution, but facing the future might be a better one.
