Blog Action Day: Water as a human right

Today is Blog Action Day 2010. This year, the topic is water. Why?

Water is something all living creatures on this planet need to survive. And as much as some boardroom executives may claim different, nobody owns water. We just use it. It evaporates, it gets flushed, it works its way back into the system somehow. Fact is, water can't be manufactured. No new water has been created since the beginning of time. Sure, different climate patterns means that at different times there could be more or less water in the air, or in the soil, or in the oceans, etc...

The bottom line is this: We all need water, just like we all need air. And just like with air, what one group or country does to its water is bound to have downstream impacts on others, neighbors as well as people on the other side of the globe. More and more experts in fact are predicting that water may become a key trigger for armed conflict in the coming decades.

So on this Blog Action Day, my message to my fellow humans is this, and especially those closer to me in the Western world: None of us have more of a right to water than another. When we use more than our fair share, we are stealing from someone else. When we pollute and waste the water we have, we are committing crimes against our species and our planet.

I was happy to see the United Nations declare access to water a human right recently. But then this needs to turn into meaningful action:
- Never again should we see the type of corporate greed that led to the water riots of Cochabamba several years back. All nations should secure water as a public utility and protect its access, ensure its cleanliness, and defend it against any attempt by one group to profit from its control and distribution.
- All companies that rely on water as part of their business operations must be held to the highest standards to safeguard it from pollution or excessive, wasteful use. The shipping, oil and mining industries specifically come to mind for the former, and some forms of agriculture for the latter.

My sincere hope is to see more and more people act as citizens of the earth before acting as citizens of a given nation, or employees of a given company, members of a given religion or political party, etc...

We only have one planet, it belongs to all of us - and none of us. Let's cherish it, and treat it as though our grand children and their grand children and their grand children have as much of a right to a vibrant, healthy and bio-diverse planet as the one our grand parents inherited from their grand parents.