Warning..I am a bit of a Debbie-downer today. You might want to skip this post which would more properly be named a rant. You’ll recognize it as the rant it is as I ramble and spew and moan my way through it. But hey at least there is a nice video to watch at the bottom as a kind of reward for those who wade through it. Well okay the video is actually what caused me to write the rant in the first place. I just wanted to share this nicely done video I ran across and then when I tried to write something to accompany it somehow I veered off course into full blown rant. Pardon me. I am so embarrassed. But really, it is a nice video. Really.
The whole seemingly futile effort to stop destroying this planet–to stop ripping out its guts both from a social perspective and from a purely environmentally one–has been on my mind a lot lately. It all feels interconnected to me and it all seems painfully pointless to fight it anymore. The obvious inevitable result being failure. People have been fighting the good fight for so long and with so little to show for it.
As a race it seems we are hell bent on the “gimme more more MORE” mentality with no regard or care for the way we are rotting from within. Enough is not good enough. Success is seen only as climbing higher and higher and damned with the consequences. We must double our profits, triple them, quadruple them. Exponential growth is how we define success. Resource limits be damned, human suffering be damned, true happiness be damned (we are drowning in a sea of antidepressants, the problem has gotten so bad that they are actually polluting our waters now!).
More and more we are a world of haves and have nots. We have allowed it to go so far as even incorporating water for goodness sake. WATER. Can anyone seriously argue that it is not a basic human right to have access to life sustaining clean water?
Meanwhile we pollute and destroy a natural resource we once thought limitless and through greed have caused unthinkable suffering.We box up animals on huge factory farms with no regard to the suffering or the environmental and social harm it does. We deny basic health care to our fellow human beings. We support capitalistic systems that have all but destroyed the middle class because we harbor in our hearts the hope that we too can one day be part of the magical super-wealthy 1 to 3% that control the majority of wealth. We lovingly protect the system because we have bought the dream hook line and sinker.
We have ignored dire warnings, predictions, and pleadings from those with the foresight to see where we were headed. We have squandered resources and failed to plan. And like the Romans and Mayans before us we are collapsing under our own poor choices.
We have the resources to end our dependence on oil. We have the resources to end hunger and provide water for all who need it. We have the resources to give basic medical care to those that need it. Yet we choose not to. We are all unwillingly to share our piece of the pie.
For those that stuck with me through the whole above rant here is your reward. The video is a sweet little animation done by Trunk Animation and directed by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney for the song “Bottom of the River” by the Tom Fun Orchestra.
Enjoy!
Tom Fun Orchestra-Bottom of the River from trunk animation on Vimeo.
Of course I am with you on almost all of what you say here. We’ve done an appalling job protecting our shared natural resources – and we need to do much better. It is no individual’s right, no corporation’s right, to destroy what belongs to us all. Many crusaders have put in hard decades of work cajoling, condemning, educating and raising the alarm, and at long last it seems the public mindset is really starting to come around. We need responsibility in stewarding what we have left, and diligence in cleaning up what’s been ruined – nature is resilient, and can come back from quite a pounding! But for the love of God it is TIME TO STOP POUNDING. Time to start tending.
As to the “almost all”…I have to say – and it may be a small point in the scheme of things –
>Can anyone seriously argue that it is not a basic human right to have access to life sustaining clean water?
Well, I can! And quite seriously. Because it is not a right – basic, human, or otherwise. A right is not something you need, that someone must then provide. A right is a thing you have – intrinsic, founded in your essential human dignity – that no one is allowed to take away.
Government’s first job is to safeguard our rights, and see that they are not violated. Government’s second job is to provide the best service it can given available resources. A municipal water supply would fall under the second job. It is not a right – plenty of us live in areas where municipal water lines don’t reach – but of course where municipal water is provided, it is absolutely an obligation of the provider to ensure that it is safe and clean (as with any other service, public or private).
I apologize for what may amount to an idiotic quibble! As to ranting, do it as often as you feel the need (especially since you do it well!). I was going to say, “as often as there is something to rant about,” but – I fear we’d never stop ranting then, would we? There are always far too many deserving targets. But while we can’t rant our lives away, stunting our souls and turning blind eyes from the joy there truly is to be found in life, let’s step up and rant when we can, when we have to.
More people should get worked up about what’s important – it’s a shame we live in a cultural mood where we feel like we have to apologize for talking about something important! As if passion for truth were embarrassing.
Nope not a quibble. You are indeed correct. 🙂 Sometimes a rant goes off the rails as this one kinda did. But then again that is kind of the nature of a rant.
I suppose what I am objecting to is the privatization and non public control of water. A situation in which water has now become a business and people have become beholden to share holders. In a world in which there is increasing pollution of the water and rising desertification–a world where about 1 in 6 doesn’t have access to the water they need–the privatization and profitization of water by giant unfeeling and for profit corporations is a frightening demonstration of humanity at its worst.
Water is a $500 billion dollar industry now controlled almost entirely by three multinational corporations. Corporations whose schemes have repeatedly failed in their promises resulting in out of control water prices, skyrocketing sewage bills, bad water quality, and even people being arrested for collecting rain water. People who could not longer afford their water have been cut off in developing nations resulting in disease and death.
I actually think that there is benefit in seeing water as a basic human rights issue because it then protects those that need it the most. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to standard of living that is adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including food, clothing, housing and medical care (etc) I think water should be understood to be included in that list.
A much smarter lady than I, Vandana Shiva, put it as such in her book “Water Wars” (which I have not read yet):
“ Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature’s gift and denies the poor of their human rights.†When private companies try to make large profits through high water prices, it denies the poor the inalienable right to the most necessary substance for life. Inaccordance with this fact, point number seven states, “Water is a commons. . . It cannot be owned as private property and sold as a commodity.†How can one justify claiming water as their own through contractual agreement while letting another human being go thirsty? Water is a commons because it is the basis of all life. Water rights are natural rights and thus are usufructuary rights, meaning that water can be used, but not owned. As far fetched as water ownership may seem, it is happening at an increasing rate around the globe. ”
Oops now look at that. I’ve done gone off on another rant. This time it’s your fault dogimo! But no worries because I do so enjoy a good rant….he he 🙂
So do I! Especially one so dignified and civilized.
But I really think we’re in danger of losing our fundamental rights, and the risk gets worse the more we water down the concept of rights to include things that we say must be provided. Water belongs in with the rest of the UN’s list, but none of those items on that list are rights. Rather they are things we as a whole should strive to provide to the greatest number in the greatest need.
We must fight that fight forever. We need to know it is not a winnable fight. We will always have the poor with us – not because Jesus said so, but because Darwin did: the size of any population will always expand beyond the ability of available resources to support. We can’t make rights about resources. If that happens, quality of life goes out the window in a world where your privacy and liberty is gone, because someone says your life must be managed and controlled to protect resources and ensure safety.
So rather than attempting to declare as a fait accompli that everything people need is already a right, and by so doing, water down and imperil the very concept of rights, we should direct that good impulse toward fostering the greatest justice in the system, and the greatest compassion in the people who live within it.
All of my solutions border on science fiction, alas.
Begging forgiveness, but here is how nature handles the issue: live where the water is. Water is free where it accumulates and nowhere else. It is free to the extent the supply holds out, it is free in the condition it sits upon the rock and ground. Even where in places where that is still possible, it leaves populations in difficulties, subject to drought and other ills.
There is significant machinery involved in the transportation, purification, and storage of water. In general I agree privatization does not serve the public, but it is not true that water is free – except where it already exists in abundance without transportation, purification, and other management. And in many cases, it may not be safe to drink even there – does the local deer population have giardiasis?
I don’t pretend it is a simple issue. The profiteering turns my stomach. But if a modern water supply is wanted in a developing area, can it be done by the locals? If the answer is no, then I don’t see how they can be said to have rights in that area.
I do think people should be allowed to collect rainwater! As long is it’s only for use – not ownership. I also hope they know how to treat it so its potable. Taking anything as its delivered from nature is an at-your-own-risk proposition, since legal science has not progressed to where a lawsuit has a prayer against the sky.
Oooo…I am sorry, Alice. That is too long.
Iy yi. Do NOT get me talking about rights! I am a ‘human rights nerd.’
Nope, not too long at all. We need MORE human rights nerds in this world! 🙂
I love that my little rant could produce some interaction!