Santa Barbara, California , USA - April 2003 - Patrick Nouhailler © (Photo credit: Nouhailler)
A Canadian Pacific Railway freight eastbound over the Stoney Creek Bridge, British Columbia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Looking across the Pacific from the hills of Santa Barbara, toward the Santa Monica Mountains. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
View on Vancouver on October 1, 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The University Center and Storke Tower at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This photograph was taken from the other side of the UCSB Lagoon. Photographed on April 2, 2006 by user Coolcaesar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)NAWAPA is Back in the News
The Big Picture Where It All Begins
Monopolies are highly sensitive political issues.
Typically, governments and the public resist monopolies because they
know that the business people involved will gouge them with higher and
ever higher prices.
So, the investors behind the bulk water export business in Canada hatched a bold and devious two step plan:
1. Obtain a source of abundant water for export from the British Columbia Government.2. Use the environmental movement and the public media in Canada to persuade policy makers in the Governments of Canada and British Columbia to impose a ban on their competition.
The population of southern California is over 24
million people. The region goes through continuous drought cycles. The
population continues to grow. The supply of fresh potable water is an
ongoing concern and it was a huge concern, in 1990, when southern
California was in the seventh year of the most severe drought in
its recorded history.
The bulk water export industry was poised to develop and two small communities, Santa Barbara and Goleta, opened their doors to Canada and the prospect of importing water from a reliable trade partner. Santa Barbara didn't trust Canada and decided to go for a desalinization plant. The public officers at Goleta were concerned about the experience of Santa Barbara with the Canadians but they felt they would need the water and travelled to Canada to discuss the matter with Government officials where they received assurances from Premier Bill Vander Zalm and members of his government that water licences would be available for export to their community in its time of desparation.
As an ally of W.C.W. Western Canada Water Enterprises Ltd., that had bribed the governing political Social Credit Party with political donations, the British Columbia Government under the leadership of Bill Vander Zalm threw
a multitude of regulatory hurdles in the path of the competitors that
slowed them down but did not completely kill them so, eventually the British Columbia Government used brute force to destroy the competition to W.C.W. Western Canada Water Enterprise Ltd. and broke the Canada US Free Trade Aggeement, the GATT and the Water Act and imposed the illegal moratorium on bulk water exports that denied all competitors the ability to get a bulk water export licence.
The mortorium was a fraud.
NASA: El Niño growing stronger over time
The El Niño weather pattern known for increasing Southern California rainfall appears to be strengthening over time and shifting its position in the tropical Pacific — a finding with deep implications for hurricane and weather prediction.A new study by scientists at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that the strength of El Niño, a periodic warming of equatorial Pacific waters, has nearly doubled since 1982, with the most intense event also the most recent — 2009 to 2010. The area now appears to be entering a La Niña period, when ocean waters cool.
El Niño also is shifting westward toward the central Pacific, the study shows, though it is traditionally considered an eastern Pacific phenomenon.
Mississippi on the brink of total shut down due to record drought
60 percent of grain, 22 percent of oil and natural gas and 20 percent of coal travels down the river.
But its reduced size and now-shallow waters are forcing barges to either stop running or reduce the weight of the goods they carry – leading to longer waits for those products in grocery stores. Some areas of the river have dropped 20 feet below normal – and the drop is expected to continue.Thursday, September 01, 2011
Why does the IRS have a $14 Trillion lien against the US?
That being said...
In 1944 At Bretton Woods at the tail end of the 1933-1944 bankruptcy reorganization of the global trade system.
The new global trade system was agreed to...
The one that all the people dependent upon it used to draw the line in the above chart.
From 1944-now.
There are theories of collapse...then there is what they would look like if they were in progress.
There is shrinkage...but because Bretton woods is global...as it collapses...absolute capitalist states that make up the system...collapse.
Because they are cut off from the system.
as soon as the end is reached it's impossible for the end to exist and so there is a beginning.
At the top it gets harder and harder to resist suffering the consequences.
That is why the owners of the system remain hidden...So that power seeking scapegoats can suffer the consequences.
Elected officials are best....Because then the scapegoats become all those below the top.
Or that which all below think is the top or cause of it all.
That is what is done...the top transfer all the sin into goat and walk it off a cliff.
Banish it into the wilderness.
"The Pet Goat" is a children's story contained in the book Reading Mastery II: Storybook 1, by Siegfried Engelmann and Elaine C. Bruner (ISBN 0026863553). The book is part of the thirty-one volume Reading Mastery series published by the SRA Macmillan early-childhood education division of McGraw-Hill. It uses the direct instruction teaching style."
"The story gained notoriety because U.S. President George W. Bush, as part of a photo op, was reading it with Florida schoolchildren at the time he was informed of the September 11, 2001 attacks by then White House chief of staff, Andrew Card."
"In modern Satanic theology, the pentagram is far more likely to represent the individual, or the choice to pursue individual glory or immortality rather than union or absorption with the divine- where some traditions advocate the sublimation of the ego or submission to god, Satanism exalts and glorifies it, deifying the human being. The symbol most commonly associated with Satanic practices is the "Sabbatic goat" or Goat of Mendes pentacle, often confused with Baphomet, a figure from Templar legend"
"The symbol of Baphomet was used by the Knights Templar to represent Satan. Through the ages this symbol has been called by many different names. Among these are: The Goat of Mendes, Sabbatic Goat, The Goat of a Thousand Young, The Black Goat, The Judas Goat, and perhaps most appropriately, The Scapegoat"--The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, Book of Belial (earth): The Satanic Ritual, pp136
"The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. The rite is described in Leviticus 16. The word also refers, in modern parlance, to one who is blamed for misfortunes, often as a way of distracting attention from the real causes."
Just Lie Back And Enjoy The Mind Rape
The Governor and Company of the Bank of England conceived by Scotsman William Paterson...A member of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors on Threadneedle Street...Has lent England and the World Trillions and Trillions of Pounds of Stirling Silver created out of thin air over the past 318 years....To finance global history the past few centuries.Alexander Hamilton founder of the oldest commercial bank in the USA until 2007...The bank of New York...Was the first Secretary of the US Treasury and proposed the first central bank of the USA following the city of London financed take over or American Revolution...The first President of the first central bank of the USA, Thomas Willing, was trained in the Inner temple of the city of London and declined to sign the Declaration of Independence.
The above is all in the history books for anyone to find if they get tired of being mentally lazy and look.
If it wasn't for all the subprime loans that were utilized to sustain the boom...It would have ended sooner.
But because they were...the boom was extended and the effect which was caused by the choice to take more than you give...or getting millions to sign on the dotted line that shouldn't have according to the rules...is magically transformed into the cause of the collapse.
The simple fact is that the USA after 63 years...exhausted its supply of dotted line signers...the bottom of the barrel was scraped...and once the bottom of the barrel was scraped down to the metal...The USA along with the global trade system began imploding to oblivion.
But those who benefit from the system don't want to fix it...So they continually promote this sub prime cover story.
The banks did what they did to to obtain the yield all the mindless yield locusts are chasing...
Once you become dependent upon living off the yield derived from others...they can't ever stop.
That is all this system of civilization that you all have fallen in love with does...produce yield until it can't...then it implodes...
The net producers support the net consumers...and once the producers can't or refuse to supply the demands of the consumers.
It's game over.
Economics as you all currenly comprehend it is a scam that is doomed to just inflate to maximum potential and implode.
That is all your Economics can do.
Bush Administration Caught In States’ Water Rights Dispute Nov 1 2007
Three Southeastern governors who are in Washington to lobby for water rights amid a potentially catastrophic drought are likely to put the Bush administration on the spot.If the administration decides to bolster Georgia’s drinking supply, Alabama and Florida may claim it’s crippling their economies to satisfy uncontrolled growth around Atlanta. If it continues releasing water downstream to Alabama and Florida, Georgia could argue that one of the nation’s largest cities is being hung out to dry.
Making matters worse for President Bush is the fact that all three states have Republican governors whose reputations could rise or fall based on their handling of the crisis.
Trickle Down
Maude Barlow made the transition from housewife to feminist activist in the 1970s, eventually advising former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau on women's issues. In the 1980s, she shifted her attention to the long battle against Canada's free trade agreements.While she hasn't turned her back on her earlier causes -- her Council of Canadians recently asked the Supreme Court of Canada to look into the constitutionality of NAFTA's investment rules and Barlow is an outspoken critic of the planned Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) -- the focus of her latest book, Blue Covenant, is the state of the global water supply.
Four years on from Blue Gold, which she co-authored, Barlow feels the looming water crisis has still barely registered in the public consciousness.
"I guess what I'm hoping is that this is a kind of cri de coeur to get people alarmed enough," she told The Tyee from her Kelowna hotel room. "People are becoming very alarmed about global warming from greenhouse gas emissions but have not put this piece in the puzzle yet."
That's something that has to change in a hurry, she says, or we are all in a lot of trouble.
The glaciers are melting and a lot of the systems that feed the watersheds here from the glaciers will be in trouble. So this notion that because it's wet now, we'll always be able to maintain the amount of water that we need everywhere is not true and it's certainly not true for here. The water systems here are also affected by the overextension of the water-taking for the tar sands.
"Thirdly, I see the beginning of a process of a kind of semi-privatization happening here in B.C. and I think British Columbians should be concerned about whether they're going to be able to maintain control over their water resources. It's kind of happening more through a process whereby companies get the private rights, the hydro-electricity rights on lakes and water systems in B.C. but then might be able to claim to own the water or to be able to decide what happens to the water. So a lot of people are really worried that this is a step towards the potential privatization of water. Also in B.C., there is a huge problem on the First Nations reserves around water.
Canada has stood consistently against a right to water convention at the United Nations or setting up a rapporteur or moving that whole issue forward. I think it's because declaring water a human right would basically negate the reality that it's actually a good, a tradable good as defined in NAFTA."
On NAFTA
"I think the government should ignore NAFTA and bring in a full ban on the commercial export of water. And I argue that the U.S. has basically broken NAFTA by the way that it handled the softwood lumber issue. I mean, three rulings went against them and yet they continued to disobey those rulings and continue to this day to be arguing and imposing these fines on Canada. So I think they basically abrogated NAFTA by that behaviour and I don't think Canada should be required to abide by it at all."
"Until recently, the World Bank and all the big corporations and the Canadian International Development Agency and the Northern governments have been basically saying it's a need that can be just as easily delivered by for-profit, private entities. Therefore, they can make a profit. If it's a need, it can be delivered by public or private institutions or agencies. I argue if it's a human right as opposed to a need, then we cannot add the profit principle to it and that you have to take the profit principle basically out. And that's a fundamentally different way of looking at water."
"We would have to be really, really careful that we're not again coming in and imposing a solution. But the people in the Global South don't want privatized systems. They have risen up very strongly against it. They want local control of their water. They want it delivered on a not-for-profit basis. They want it to be considered a fundamental right.
They've been forced into the position of having to take these private systems through the World Bank and the other regional development banks who say if you want money, if you want funding for water services, this is what you have to do, we're going to set the conditions.
"So far the United Nations in its Millennium Goals is just looking at connecting up the pipelines with people. It's not looking at all at stopping pollution and until we stop the front-end destruction of water, we'll never solve the problem that so many people don't have access to water. So it has to be hand in hand. You can't just look at the concept of "is there enough water," it's what has happened to that water and how's it being treated and how's it being polluted.
"Lots of countries have water, it's just that they're either destroying it through their economic policies or it's polluted. There are very few countries that are actually going dry. It's that they've mismanaged or corporations operating there have destroyed the water table. We can bring back water tables so in every country, in every society, in every watershed system, we have to start protecting water and bringing it back."
The global water crisis and the commodificationof the world's water supply
A Special Report issued by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG)
The water privateers are now also setting their sights on the mass export of bulk water by diversion, by pipelines and by supertanker. Modified tanker deliveries already take place in certain regions that are willing to pay top dollar for water on an emergency basis. Barges carry loads of freshwater to islands in the Bahamas and tankers deliver water to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Turkey is preparing to sell its water by shipping it on converted oil tankers and through pipeline from the Manavgat River to Cyprus, Malta, Libya, Israel, Greece and Egypt.
In the summer of 2000, Israel began negotiations to buy over 13 billion gallons of water a year from Turkey; the tankers are already moored to huge yellow floating stations two miles offshore, awaiting delivery orders. Turkey's water company says it has the pumps and pipes to export four to eight times that amount.
To deal with droughts in southern European countries, the European Commission is looking into the possibility of tapping into the sources of water-rich countries such as Austria. If its plans to establish a European Water Network are realized, Alpine water could be flowing into Spain or Greece, rather than Vienna's reservoirs, within a decade. "This means that in theory we could supply everyone in the European Union, all 370 million of them," declares Herbert Schroefelbauer, deputy chairman of Verbund, the country's largest electrical utility. A high-tech pipeline already transports quality spring water from the Austrian Alps to Vienna, and the proposal to extend this system to other countries is creating great unease among Austria's environmentalists, who warn of the damage bulk exports could have on the sensitive alpine ecosystem.
Gerard Mestrallet of Suez Lyonnaise is planning another Suez Canal-this time in Europe. He has announced his intention to build a giant 160-mile aqueduct to transport water from the Rhone River through France to the Catalonian capital, Barcelona.
To address England's growing water crisis, some political and corporate leaders are calling for large-scale exports of water from Scotland, by tanker and pipeline.
Nowhere are dreams for the trade in water as big as they are in North America. Every few years, plans to divert massive amounts of Canadian water to water-scarce areas of the United States, Asia and the Middle East by tanker, pipeline, or rerouting of the natural river systems, are raised only to be shut down by public protest. One of the largest proposed diversion projects was called the GRAND Canal-the Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal. It originally called for the building of a dike across James Bay at the mouth of Hudson Bay (both of which now flow north) to create a giant freshwater reservoir out of James Bay and the twenty rivers flowing into it. A massive series of dikes, canals, dams, power plants and locks would divert this water at a rate of 62,000 gallons a second down a 167-mile canal to Georgian Bay, where it would be flushed through the Great Lakes and taken to the U.S. Sun Belt.
The NAWAPA-the North American Water and Power Alliance-was a similar scheme. The original plan envisaged building a large number of major dams to trap the Yukon, Peace and Liard rivers into a giant reservoir that would flood one-tenth of British Columbia to create a canal from Alaska to Washington state and supply water through existing canals and pipelines to thirty-five American states. The volume diverted would be roughly equivalent to the average total annual discharge of the St. Lawrence River.
Report OH Business magazine stated "Pollution, population growth and environmental crusading are expected to put enormous pressure on the world's supply of freshwater over the next ten years. Some of Canada's largest engineering companies are gearing up for the day when water is moved around the world like oil or wheat or wood...What will be important is who has the right to sell it to the highest bidder."
Meanwhile residents of water-scarce regions continue to live in denial. In a July 1998 article for The Atlantic Monthly titled "Desert Politics," writer Robert Kaplan notes the blind faith of people living in the Arizona desert believing that some magical solution to their water shortage will manifest itself while they Id continue to build in an area never meant for human habitat in these numbers. He notes that more than
800,000 people live in greater Tucson alone and four million in Arizona, a tenfold increase in seventy years. According to Wade Graham of Harper's Magazine, municipal development in Phoenix is occurring at a rate of an acre every hour. Kaplan writes,
"Maybe, as some visionary engineers think, the Southwest's salvation will come ultimately from that shivery vastness of wet, green sponge to the north Canada. In this scenario a network of new dams, reservoirs, and tunnels would supply water from the Yukon and British Columbia to the Mexican border, while a giant canal would bring desalinized Hudson Bay water from Quebec to the American Midwest, and supertankers would carry glacial water from the British Columbian coast to Southern California-all to support an enlarged network of post-urban, multiethnic pods pulsing with economic activity."
CANADA AND ALASKA: OPEC OF WATER!
Especially in light of economic globalization, it is a myth that large cross-border transfers of water are not economically feasible. The only difference between these and other mega-projects is that water becomes a product transferred across borders. These megaprojects are identical in purpose to domestic water projects and governed by the same economic analysis. There is no reason to believe that current massive government subsidies to industry and agribusiness are going to end anytime soon. Transnational corporations operating in water-intensive industries are going to expect local governments to find and fund the water supplies they need before making investment and production decisions.
WHOSE CONTINENTAL RESOURCES DID YOU SAY?
Speaking before an 'Energy Resources' hearing of the United States Senate in May 1971, Brice O'Brian, President of the U.S. National Coal Association, said, ". . . our Government considers Canada our own for energy purposes." This was not the truculent statement of a naive and insensitive American industrialist. To the contrary, O'Brian was merely echoing the sentiments of President Nixon, US political opinion, and his fellow industrialists.The following month, in a statement on US energy needs, President Nixon himself said that one major solution to the crisis the country was facing lay in the importation of vast quantities of energy from Canada - that is, natural gas, oil, coal, hydro-power, and water. These energy forms, together with such commodities as minerals, coal, pulpwood products and the like, have come to be known as 'continental resources'.
The idea of 'common ownership' of those resources by all the peoples living on the North American Continent is of comparatively recent origin, although the concept, must have been in the minds of US leaders, both political and industrial, for a great deal longer. Such a concept would be laughable were it not the serious matter it is: such logic implies that the resources of the continental US are also the common ownership of Canada, as well as vice-versa. The only trouble is, the United States has no resources left to speak of and therefore has none to share; what US leaders mean by 'Continental Resources' is consequently self-evident.
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Terraforming Ascension Island
David Catling (University of Washington) has been following the travels of Charles Darwin and investigating his association with botanist and explorer Joseph Hooker. Darwin reached Ascension in 1836 at the tail end of his epic voyage aboard the Beagle. The island in those days was, as the inhabitants of the more southerly island of St. Helena told him, no more than a cinder, a volcanic outcropping between Africa and South America, and a long way from each.The description reminds me of Iceland, which can be unexpectedly verdant in places (particularly the southwest, south of Reykjavik), but which also houses landscapes that are positively lunar in appearance, so devoid of evident life in all directions that you are reminded sharply of the place’s geological immaturity. But just as Iceland has its areas of farmland and growth, so Ascension has acquired a green patina on Green Mountain, its highest peak. The difference is that Ascension’s burgeoning ‘cloud forest’ is entirely artificial. Catling speculates that Darwin had a hand in the eventual growth, which Joseph Hooker became instrumental in creating.
Darwin evidently goaded Hooker to advise the Royal Navy to begin sending trees to Ascension, the idea being to create more water for the growing naval base on the island. From the BBC story:
The idea was breathtakingly simple. Trees would capture more rain, reduce evaporation and create rich, loamy soils. The “cinder” would become a garden.
So, beginning in 1850 and continuing year after year, ships started to come. Each deposited a motley assortment of plants from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa and Argentina.
Soon, on the highest peak at 859m (2,817ft), great changes were afoot. By the late 1870s, eucalyptus, Norfolk Island pine, bamboo, and banana had all run riot.
Water War Does Not Bode Well for Agriculture
American Farm Bureau Federation,
To have food you must have water. This may seem like commonsense to
farmers, but unfortunately many consumers don’t connect the two.
Consequently, a tug-of-war game being played out in some states over
water rights is pitting municipalities and residents against farmers and
ranchers. Little do consumers know, they will really be on the losing
end if farmers do not have adequate water supplies to continue producing
food for our nation.Take for instance what is currently happening in California. Facing a three-year drought, the government is buckling down on water consumption by residents and farmers. But while residents are being told they can’t water their lawns during specific hours of the day or wash their cars at home while leaving on the water hose, farmers are being forced to fallow as much as 30 percent of their cropland so not to use water. Now, throw into the mix dozens of water-related lawsuits, most filed by environmental groups, who promise to provide a prolonged judicial drought even if it rains like crazy. It’s a tough predicament for California producers.
The struggle for water can also be seen in the decades-long water fight between Alabama, Florida and Georgia, which recently intensified when a federal judge ruled that Georgia has few legal rights to Lake Lanier, the main water supply for Atlanta. Metropolitan Atlanta has roughly 5 million residents and projects more than 2 million more by 2030. Without the use of Lake Lanier, the government is already looking into further tapping into water resources used by farmers across the state – water that’s already being partially diverted to Florida and Alabama to fuel power plants and sustain a federally protected mussel population
BUILD THE MISSOURI RIVER DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
The moment
the financial system snaps, America
must be ready to re-employ its
work force re-building roads, bridges,
urban water and sewage systems, rail
transport--and building America's
unfinished river projects.
David Brin has an article showing how restricting the Mississippi from meandering freely - and flooding - is a scheme with inevitable disastrous consequences : Contrary Brin.
There’s not enough water-so let’s get more, not use less
What do you do when you don’t have enough water? The answer depends on how wealthy and powerful you are.
If you’re poor and isolated – i.e. you’re among the largest segment of the Earth’s population - you must put the same water to multiple uses. You drink a little, then wash with it, then boil it for cooking, and then finally use whatever remains for your plants.But apart from its limited supply, the main problem with water is that it’s not where it’s needed. In North America, most of it is in the north, while the populations and agricultural regions consuming it are further south. It’s an obvious problem that appears to have an obvious solution: bring the water south. The fact most water is in Canada is at worst a minor irritant. If you’re rich and powerful, you can take whatever you need from somewhere, someone, else.
Suggestions for how water might be transferred include building an underwater pipeline from Alaska or Canada to California, towing icebergs and water-filled plastic bags from Alaska, using a fleet of converted oil tankers, and diverting northern rivers south through a series of canals and man-made lakes.
The benefit-cost analysis of such schemes says they’re not even worth thinking about.
The Business Of Water - Privatizing An Essential Resource
- In her 2002 book titled, "Water Wars," noted author, social activist, and ecologist Vandana Shiva called privatizing water:
- -- ecological terrorism;
- -- a global water crisis;
- -- along with overuse, waste and pollution, it can cause "the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth;"
- -- the road to "an ecological crisis with commercial causes but no market solutions; (they) destroy the earth and aggravate inequality; the solution to an ecological crisis is ecological, and the solution for injustice is democracy;" and
- -- water rights are natural and "usufructuary....water can be used but not owned;" it belongs to everyone as part of the commons as an essential "basis of all life....under customary laws, the right to water has been accepted as a natural, social fact."
- Shiva lists nine water democracy principles:
- (1) it's nature's gift;
- (2) it's essential to life;
- (3) "life is interconnected through water;"
- (4) it must be free "for sustenance needs;"
- (5) it's limited and exhaustible;
- (6) it must be conserved;
- (7) it's a commons;
- (8) "no one has a right to overuse, abuse, waste, pollute," or own it; it belongs to everyone; it can't be treated as a commodity; and
- (9) there's no substitute.
- Corporate profiteers have other ideas and, since 1997, have met triennially at the World Water Forum (WWF) to discuss privatizing water globally in coordination with the World Water Council (WWC). It's dominated by two of the world's largest water companies, Suez and Veolia, as well as the World Bank, other financial interests, UN bodies, and powerful interest groups representing business and world nations.
- WWC's agenda is profits through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) wanting to privatize global water resources, sell them to the highest bidder, promote destructive dam and water diversion projects, extort high prices, and make an element of life available only to those who can afford it.
- Their scheme involves controlling city/municipal/community distribution as well as stealing public water, bottling it, selling it at exorbitant prices, and claiming it's pure when, in fact, it's no safer than tap water.
- In fact, a 1990s four year National Resources Defense Council study on the bottled water industry found "major gaps in bottled water regulation and conclude(d) that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water." Using independent labs, it tested over 1,000 bottles of 103 brands and found:
- -- one-third contained "significant contamination (i.e. levels of chemical or bacterial contaminants exceeding those allowed under a state or industry standard or guideline);" and
- -- contaminants found in some but not all samples tested included excessive coliform bacteria, synthetic organic compounds (such as toluene, xylene, styrene and others), flouride, phthalate, arsenic, nitrates, and other inorganic contaminants.
- Food & Water Watch advocates for economic and environmental sustainability through research, the media, public outreach and education, including lobbying for safe, wholesome food as well as public control of groundwater, oceans, lakes and rivers.
- In February 2009, it published a report titled, "Money Down the Drain: How Private Control of Water Wastes Public Resources." It covers corporate efforts to convince cash-starved communities to privatize their water and wastewater systems, saying it's how to raise vital revenue, be more efficient, and the best way to upgrade facilities at low cost. The facts prove otherwise:
- -- because of financing costs, taxes, high executive pay, expected profits, and numerous other factors, privatization is expensive and irresponsible;
- -- private utilities charge up to 80% more for water and 100% more for sewer service;
- -- costs are contained by downsizing workforces, destroying unions, relying on cheap labor, using shoddy construction materials, deferring maintenance, and backlogging service requests to focus all efforts on profits.
- Cities belatedly learn that public control delivers better, cheaper, faster, more reliable service and happier customers. Food & Water Watch concluded that:
- Privatization is not a sustainable model or a way to rejuvenate community water systems. "From high costs and inefficiency to unaccountable and irresponsible operators, a deluge of problems has swamped communities that turned to the private sector. Corporations prioritize earnings over quality, and stockholders over consumers. They seek good returns by cutting corners, neglecting maintenance and hiking rates."
- Privatization is the problem, not the solution to protect our valuable water resources and distribute them equitably to everyone at a reasonable cost. "Public money for public utilities is the best way....to ensure clean, safe and affordable water for generations to come." It also preserves higher paying jobs and the right of workers to organize. Irresponsible profiteers operate otherwise.
- Social activist Maude Barlow chairs the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest citizens organization advocating for numerous economic and social issues, including Canadian independence, progressive policies, energy security, and publicly controlled clean water.
- She explains that future peace or peril depends on whether water is commodified or a public good, saying dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access, and corporate control "have created a life-or-death situation across the planet."
- Schemes to shift water from one ecosystem to another for profit are a human rights and environmental nightmare. Private solutions are the problem, not the solution to equitable distribution, conservation, and sustainability.
Most Slaves In America Were White
The white slaves not indentured, who began to arrive here in 1618, included hundreds of children – – waifs and strays – - who had been rounded up from streets of London to serve wealthy farmers in Virginia.Other slaves came from the ranks of the homeless and the poor, whom King James I held responsible for spreading the plague, and from England’s swelling prison population.
The scheme was supported by James I, who believed the homeless and itinerant of London were spreading plague.
Of the first 300 white slaves to land in Virginia, only 12 managed to survive four years. The others died of ill treatment, disease, attack by native Americans or overwork.
Contemporary records show that one child victim, Elizabeth Abbott, was beaten to death when her master ordered her to be given 500 lashes for running away.
At least 70,000 white men, women, and children from England and Ireland were shipped to the colonies to be sold as slaves on the auction block during the 170 years of British rule.
Radio Interview - Water monopolization; dead judges; NAWAPA
John Frederick Carten from Water War Crimes was my guest for a bombshell of a show.
Mr.
Carten is the only lawyer in Canada who speaks honestly and openly
about the judicial mafia, and the judicial, legal and political
corruption that has become systemic in Canada's government structures.
He
is going after the criminal elements of Canada's government, which are
selling our water out the back door to a giant secretive monopoly.
Shockingly,
nine of the judges that have been corrupted into covering for this
cabal have died suddenly. John suspects there may be a serial killer
tying up the 'loose ends' on this grossly underreported scandal.
We ended the show with a discussion of a proposed solution to water privatization/monopolization and falsified scarcity.
Related articles
El Niño pulls a disappearing act, so our winter should be warm, dry(azstarnet.com)
Tropical Indo-Pacific climate shifts to a more El Nino-like state(terradaily.com)
Good News Regarding El Nino(huffingtonpost.com)
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