The following is from Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke’s book Blue Gold, The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water:
According to the United Nations, 31 countries in the world are currently facing water stress and scarcity. Over one billion people have no access to clean drinking water and almost three billion have no access to sanitation services. By the year 2025, the world will contain 2.6 billion more people than it holds today, but as many as two-thirds of those people will be living in conditions of serious water shortage, and one-third will be living with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will exceed availability by 56 percent.
Many of us who have lived most of our lives in the industrialized countries of the North may find it difficult to imagine running out of water. We have lived with steady supplies most of our lives and have used it lavishly. But at current rates of use, we will run short. At a time when we are on a rising curve in water use because of increasing industrialization, intensified farming, and population growth, water resources are being depleted at an accelerated rate. Aquifer overdrafts, massive urbanization, and unchecked pollution are withdrawing supplies from the world’s water account, just when we need to be saving more…There is simply no way to overstate the fresh water crisis on the planet today. The alarm is sounding. Will we hear it in time?
Tags: water