Ok,
so it is another one of those damned, annoying, bleeding heart, United Nations World Days, soon to be
brought to your doorstep by black helicopters
everywhere. Whoop-ti-do! What’s the big deal with World Water Day and why should I give a damn?
For
starters, just review some recent headlines and ongoing trends.
1)
With
another year in an epic drought
under its belt, National Aeronautic and
Space Administration (NASA) satellite photos reveal that California has only about one year’s
stored capacity in it reservoir system. Strict compulsory rationing may be necessary but is being fought tooth and
nail by business interests. One of the
nation’s riches agricultural regions may
essentially go out of production.
2)
On the other hand in low-lying Florida rising sea levels caused by dramatic melting of the Polar Ice Cap are contaminating wells with brackish water and killing fresh
water swamps that filter much of the state’s drinking and agricultural
water. Meanwhile the ostrich-head-in-the-ground of Right Wing hero Governor Rick Scott
just forbade all state employees for
even using the words climate change or
global warming. This week the first employee was suspended
just for reporting those words in notes of a conference he was assigned to take
as part of his job. He will not be
allowed to return to work until he provides a note from his doctor attesting to his mental health.
3)
The practice of extracting natural gas trapped in deep deposits by explosive fracking has been confirmed to
contaminate aquifers in Canada and the U.S. Meanwhile oil pipe line ruptures have
contaminated rivers and streams from West Virginia to the pristine drainage of the Yellowstone in Montana and
a series of oil tank car train
derailments have polluted other streams and wetlands.
 |
| Many women in arid rural India have to carry water for miles. Clean water is also a woman's issue. |
4)
Since the President
of the Swiss-based Global
conglomerate Nestles declared “water is not a human right” and urged privatization
of water resources to be exploited
for profit, pressure to make that a reality has grown despite wide spread
public revulsion. Nestles and other
water giants continue to pressure weak and sometime corrupt African governments to sell water outright
or grant concessions even in areas
in which drought is a problem. A bottle
water company is threatening to sue a California municipality to exercise its “rights” to water before water utility customers. Conservatives around the country are urging
cities to follow bankrupt Detroit
and sell their water utilities to private interests who will then jack up rates and cut off water
supplies to tens of thousands of dead
beats—the poor. In Illinois
newly elected budget slashing Governor
Bruce Rauner is reported to be ready to urge his personal good pal Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel the sale of water
distribution functions of the Metropolitan
Sanitary District to private industry to make up for local revenues lost to
state budget cuts.
 |
| Advancing deserts threaten world food supplies. |
5)
Prolonged
draught across much of Africa and portions of Asia is accelerating desertification
of broad swaths of the planet. The Sahara Desert now advances southward by
miles every year. The result has been
two decades of regional famines, dislocated populations and massed migrations across international borders, civil wars, and regional instability. The
same trends in southeast and south Asia in much more densely
populated and politically sensitive areas threaten even greater
disruption. And the same trends of
desertification now exist from northern Mexico
through the American Southwest and Texas up into the Southern Plains leading climatologists to warn that Dust Bowl conditions could return.
I go on, but you get the drift. If
this litany is not enough to get out
of your easy chair and take action
to preserve the world’s threatened water resources, nothing will.
World Water Day has been observed on March 22 since 1993 when the United Nations General Assembly
declared the date World Day for Water. The declaration grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The UN and its member nations devote the day to implementing UN recommendations and promoting concrete activities within their
countries regarding the world’s water resources. Each year, one of various UN
agencies involved in water issues takes the lead in promoting and coordinating
international activities for World Water Day. Since its inception in 2003,
UN-Water has been responsible for selecting the theme, messages and lead UN
agency for the World Day for Water.
This year the theme is Water and Sustainable
Development with the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) as the lead agency with support from World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
HABITAT, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), The World Bank,
and the United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA.)
You
can learn more about the issues and what you can do at the World War Day
website at http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday
My
own faith community of Unitarian Universalists under the
leadership of the Unitarian Universalist
Service Committee (UUSC) is
promoting water awareness as part of Climate
Justice Sunday being observed today by many congregations. The UUSC also
has a guide to action and resources available on its web site at http://www.uusc.org/water-resources-for-organizing-your-congregation-or-community
Time
to get busy.
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