First real estate, now water? Scary stuff...

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I had read years ago about the scarcity of water on this planet and the fact that someday instead of fighting wars over oil, countries would fight over water. Apparently, it has already happened to some extent in the Middle East, but it’s hard to know what is true and what is not given the political leanings of all the mainstream media outlets here in the US. I personally know of some towns here in Arizona that have gone completely dry at times and had to have water trucked in, so it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to think that over there, in a completely desert environment, water would be even more scarce and a very precious commodity indeed.

Commodity – now that’s an interesting word. One definition of commodity is something of use, value or advantage. Another definition is “A raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee.” Now the thought of someone buying and selling copper, or even coffee isn’t so scary, as those items are not necessary for sustaining life itself – they are “luxuries” (although I could very well argue that in my case, as in many others I’m sure, coffee truly IS necessary for sustaining life!). But when it comes to water, thinking of it as a commodity, something that can be bought and sold, is a bit scary.

Now I am not naive, and I know that right now in almost every country in the world, the rights to water are owned by certain groups or organizations, primarily utility companies, and we all pay for the water we drink and use for other purposes. I think it is fair to say that most of us take it for granted that we will have access to water at a cheap price, and there will always be enough for us to use for the things we need it for – washing clothes, bathing, watering lawns, washing cars, etc – and there’s never a worry for whether we will have enough to drink. We trust that the utiility companies are regulated by government entities that watch that kind of stuff and make sure we as consumers are protected. So what’s so scary you wonder?

Well, what is scary is when ownership of water starts moving from government regulated utilities to the same kinds of companies that created the current mortgage crisis; companies that buy and sell things simply to make profit with no thought of the social or economic impacts their decisions might have on all of us; companies that are willing to inflate the price of things artificially to make huge profits and are very skilled at eluding any kind of government regulation; companies that, as a whole, we all refer to “lovingly” as Wall Street. And when these companies, when Wall Street starts looking to get into the ‘water market’, THAT is scary indeed. And this morning, I saw the first such evidence that indeed, that is where they are starting to look (ironically enough on a website called “the street”) :

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11597235/2/time-to-get-into-water.html

I am not going belabor you with all the details of the article, as most of it is boring ‘investment speak’ about yields, markets, strategies, etc. I did find part of one line particularly troubling – “A more mainstream approach to owning water exposure…” …a mainstream approach to owning water exposure. That sounds innocent enough, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want to own some water exposure? The question I ask myself is, just what exactly does that mean? Could it be that they just don’t want to say “..to OWNING water” because they know the thoughts and feelings that might invoke in people, given the fact that no human can live without water for more than 3 to 5 days? I can go quite awhile without copper, cotton or even cattle. But water? Make that so expensive that I can’t afford it, and – well, that’s truly scary!

The Native Americans lived by the creed that no one OWNS the land – that we all just borrow it from Mother Earth, from the Great Spirit for the time we are here. We white people called them savages, rounded them up and put them on reservations so we could bring the wonders of modern society to this country. But what could be more savage than claiming to actually OWN the water that is on this planet? It’s one thing to own land (one thing I am not very fond of either), but an entirely different thing to own water. And when people with no morals, no ethics, and no concern for the lives or livelihoods of the average American citizen are starting to talk about getting into the “water market,” it causes me grave concern, and it should you too. I think instead of worrying about oil, or solar power, or electric cars, we all ought to turn our attention to the one energy source that really matters – the source of all life – before they make it too expensive to afford. We can let our houses go into foreclosure when they make them too expensive to keep – but what will we do when we can’t afford water? Something to think about.