Monday, 9 November 2015
Day 327: No more water – The Personal Drought Experience
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Day 317: We found water on mars – But what about intelligent life on Earth?
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Nestle at it again – Drawing water from a Drought Stricken Area…
"As residents of California are urged to conserve water and the state considers placing a mandatory restriction on outdoor water usage, Nestlé is trucking away undisclosed amounts of the precious resource in the form of bottled water.
The Desert Sun has an in-depth report of controversy brewing around the company’s bottling plant, which draws water from a drought-stricken area for its Arrowhead and Pure Life brand water. Because the plant is located on the Morongo Band of Mission Indians’ reservation, it’s exempt from oversight by local water agencies and is able to keep confidential information — such as the amount of groundwater it’s pumping and water levels in its wells — that other plants would be required to disclose. As a result, critics contend, it’s impossible to know just how much of the limited resource the plant is extracting to send elsewhere.
Here’s more from the Desert Sun:
“They’re entitled to use the groundwater basin, too. Everyone is. But it’s just a shame that this water is not being used locally. It’s being exported,” said David Luker, general manager of the Desert Water Agency. He said DWA’s position has been that the Morongo tribe should have to report its water use just like other entities."
– See more at SALON: http://www.salon.com/2014/07/14/nestle_is_bottling_water_straight_from_the_heart_of_californias_drought/
This is pure idiocy. How you can you justify drawing large amount of water from a draught stricken area? Here you have a company making millions in profit from selling bottled water while residents literally next door are forced to restrict water usage. The residents rely on wells that get their water from underground.
Now, picture a row of bathtubs – The first tub gets filled and the overflows into the next tub and so forth. The first tub is where Nestlé draws their water from and the other tubs are where the people get their water from. Unfortunately since the first tub doesn’t get a chance to fill up properly it affects all the other tubs. This is one of the problems the people are facing – Nestlé’s factory is using most of the available water and then they friggen export the water from the region.
And since The factory does not need to comply to the same regulations as the rest of the region they can simply continue drawing large amounts of water. The company had this to say about the situation:
"We proudly conduct our business in an environmentally responsible manner that focuses on water and energy conservation," the company said. Our sustainable operations are specifically designed and managed to prevent adverse impacts to local area groundwater resources, particularly in light of California's drought conditions over the past three years."
This statement is completely contradictory and the opposite to “water and energy conservation”, since making bottled water uses large amount of water to just make the packaging. I do not understand how this can be allowed and accepted. It’s all the in the name of profits – where there is money to be made there is a way, regardless on the impact it has on the environment or the wellbeing of people.
Nestle – the company that believes water should not be a human right. Just don’t buy anything Nestle anymore.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Cant always get what you want - but if you try you'll get what you need...
There is a song that goes "You can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard you'll get what you need". Nope, not true.
With 3 Billion in poverty and billions more struggling to make a living even if you try really hard you can't even get what you need. You need food, a home and water at least to be alive yet many do not have these basic human rights. So the sentence is misleading.
Poverty doesn't exist because people are lazy - there simply are not enough jobs available to make a decent living. People work hard - even to death just to able to feed themselves or their family. There are horrific jobs people are forced into just to make money. It always comes down to money or rather the lack thereof.
There is definitely enough food, in fact there is enough food being produced today globally to feed 12 billion people. That is a lot of food, then why are more than 1 billion starving with a food surplus enough for an additional 5 billion people? Well, the people do not have money to buy the food and so the food gets thrown away.
What about water? Companies like coca-cola that mass produce "diabetes-in-a-can" and other drinks require large amount of water and to get the water they claim lakes and rivers and what-not fencing it of and making it illegal for anybody else to get to that water. You have countries where people live right next to a water treatment plant, but cannot drink the water because they cannot pay for it. So they suffer.
Having a Living Income would end all of this suffering. If people had money to buy the things they need like food and water and housing you would have no starving, no thirsty or homeless people. And that is one of the principles of the Living Income Guaranteed proposal - to make sure everybody has their basic human rights and actually get what they need.
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Day 171 - Nestle telling it how it is! Truth and the killing of millions!
Nestle is under fire for showing the world how it is – for telling the truth. Yes, here is a company actually telling the truth.
Nestle’s head exec, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe had these comments about the right to water.
“Water is of course the most important raw material we have today in the world. It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. ‘’
The thing here to notice is that water is actually privatized already. That is the truth here. The proof? How do you get water? You pay for it. To get water we all have to pay for it. What about those who don’t have money to buy water? They die.
Water is important – this is obvious, because without water you die. Humans need water to live and thus it is essentially a fundamental human right. To privatize water is to keep it from humans and denying it to humans and actually killing humans. People argue that we cannot make water a basic human right, because there is a shortage. First ask why is there a shortage? Then go look in shopping malls and the drinks section and what do we wee – cokes and sprites and all sorts of cold-drinks. Millions of water is needed to manufacture these. Pure water is more important than cold drinks and alcohol. So we need less cokes in order to have more water.
There is no argument here. There is no debating this. This is common sense. Water as a basic fundamental human right is what the Equal Life Foundation represents along with other fundamental rights which can be read here. Big corporations are busy draining the earth for profit all the while murdering millions by denying them access to water and this must be stopped. Join us for real, practical solutions.