1 out of every 5 humans has no access to water

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/johnston05242008.html


Pulse of the Planet

Dam Legacies, Damned Futures


-snip-

The global numbers of those struggling in misery are truly staggering. One in five humans lack access to water. One half of humanity lives without basic sanitation, and half of these folks lack electricity. More than one quarter of the world’s children are malnourished. Half of the world’s population lives in cities, and one third of those urban dwellers live in slums. Half of the world struggles to live on less than two dollars a day.

-snip-

Since World War II some 54, 000 large dams have been built, generating an estimated 20 percent of the world's electricity and providing irrigation to fields that produce some 10 percent of the world's food. These dams have also flooded some of the most productive agricultural lands in the world. They have caused the endangerment or extinction for half of the world's fresh water fish. Changes in downstream water quality have decimated the fisheries, waterfowl and mammals of the world's deltas. And, for the tens of millions of people whose lives and livelihood were rooted in the banks and valleys of wild rivers, upstream and down, and for the hundreds of millions who struggle with the degenerative impacts of dead or dying fisheries, dam development has literally destroyed the health, economy, and culture of communities and entire nations.

-snip-

In the past few years, thousands of new large hydroelectric dam projects around the world have been announced or are in the planning and early construction phases. Hydroelectric energy has been adopted by the world’s nations as an appropriate strategy to combat global climate change and offset predicted water shortages. Over a thousand large dam projects have been announced in China. Every river on both sides of the Himalaya will be modified in some way. Turkey has recently proposed its intent to privatize its rivers and lakes, selling the right to develop and control water resources for 49-years to private corporations. And, projects that were formerly proposed and dismissed because of their adverse social and environmental impact, are back again – like the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon. The World Bank financing for this dam was canceled in 1989 following Amazonian Indian protests. Today, financing is available, and some 15,000 Kayapo and other Amazonian groups are again threatened and they are protesting over the possibility of forced eviction and the inevitable loss of a way of life.

-snip-

We live in a time of immense crisis. The lessons we learn from examining the legacies of past dam development and addressing ulcerating conditions in meaningful ways – with political processes and actions that repair, make amends, and make peace – these are lessons in the meaning of the term security. Dealing with dam legacy issues and rebuilding a sustainable way of life requires governance and action that prioritizes human and environmental security over profit and power. It’s a legacy we can’t afford to ignore.
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it will be ignored.

enjoy your days while you can

[opihimoimoi]

1. Most peeps hate bad news....they go to the sports page first

[ensho]

2. I can't tell you the number of people I've come across that refuse

to watch news on the TV, listen to news on the radio, or read anything that is news. or discuss 'news'.

they make a point of it.

and most of them don't vote.

[lonestarnot]

3. The ostrich syndrome.

[opihimoimoi]

5. with a bit of Sloth....its too easy to be lazy these days & still make a living..sometimes for mega

bucks...

[opihimoimoi]

4. Them Pubs have succeeded in dumbing down a great segment of our Pop over the years

The level is incredible.....

Peeps don't give a shit these days...NASCAR is more important