he contradictions afflicting humanity are macroscopic. While the main concern of the world powers appears concentrated on the ‘preventive war’ against the regime of Saddam Hussein, “in thirty years – in the exact words of Mikhail Gorbaciov – half of the inhabitants of the planet will suffer from a lack of water. It is a time bomb planted under our
civilization”. In substance, never more than today is there a need to affirm the sacred universal right of access to the vital liquid element.
In thirty years half of the inhabitants of the planet will suffer from a lack of water. It is a time bomb planted under our civilization
This is the substance of the Kyoto Summit, that opens tomorrow in Japan, in the presence of over 150 national delegations, 10-thousand delegates, a thousand journalists, in the suggestive context of a nation, that of ‘Rising Sun’, where water traditionally had a precise religious significance. The lakes of Shintoist veneration in fact contained many islands, each used to venerate a divinity.
But beyond poetry, the moment has really come to reason in a global logic before our world transforms into a desolate land. The water summit, to conclude March 23, despite being the third promoted by the United Nations on this theme, promises to be the most important held so far, right in the year consecrated for this supreme good. Aside from the old imperial Japanese city, many of the hundreds of meetings and work sessions will also be held in the nearby cities of Shiga and Osaka.
One thing is certain: the earth is at great risk and everyone should realize this, particularly those who want to merchandise this patrimony, based on demential liberal logics, forgetting that water is a right of every human being. A US citizen on average consumes 100 gallons of water per day, compared to the 3 gallons of an African that manages to not die of thirst.
Meanwhile, glaciers, rivers, lakes and underground aquifers currently ensure a ‘theoretical’ annual provision of some 164-billion cubic metres of water, though the quantity effectively distributed is reduced to at most a third, i.e. 50-billion cubic metres per year. The very recent UN “Water for people, water for life” report openly predicts a one-third reduction of water availability per head by 2025.
Not to mention the deaths caused by thirst. Over two-million people die each year and in 22 years the number is expected to double, affecting some 2-million children under the age of five. Tragedy is really advancing with apocalyptic figures if you consider that in twenty-some years the planet population will reach 8-billion and that over a third will be destined to live counting the drops, struggling to not die of thirst. There is no choice but to place our hopes in the good sense of the sovereign States. They have the duty to work toward specific objectives before our planet turns into an arid desert in which even the powerful will be buried in sand.
(From MISNA)