Pixelated Semantics

A new excuse for exploitation and war

The risk of wars being fought over water is rising with exponential rates of global population growth and "widespread complacency", according to Scientists at the World Water Week - although the first civil war over water (at least in the modern era) took place in China only recently, when two cities fired firework-type rockets at each other in a water-driven dispute. There are plenty of other potential flashpoints, from Central Asia to Africa and beyond. Last year there was a new UN body established to "mediate", supposedly, in such liquid disagreements, although there appears to be nobody, as usual, to advocate for the environment itself. Amusingly, the BBC report on UN water-rights mediation has wisdom that "the experience of history gives grounds for optimism that water disputes are unlikely to explode into violence between nations" - in other words, because it's rarely ever happened before, it won't happen now; forgetting conveniently that the demand for water on this planet has never been higher, and that the biggest consumer, people, have never felt less responsible for their impact on the environment. 70 Percent of the planet's water is used in generally extremely inefficient agricultural practises. Ironically the last location in recorded history of a war over water is Irak, 4,500 years ago, between the civilisations of Lagash and Umma on the River Tigris.

Note to a future reader: The irony occurs because currently some humans are fighting over remnants of the world's Oil reserves in Irak. This is partly due to the mega-corporations not yet having worked out how to maintain similar profits from Water. Like Oil, Water is a "free" natural resource whose restricted supply and exploitation will allow a very small proportion of humans to make huge amounts of money. Money is that useless stuff that you curse when dying of thirst.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 2:16 pm ::