The Coming Fight Over Water...

It’s hard to imagine that someday people will look back at this time as “the good old days,” but after reading several reports on the prospect of dwindling resources, that may turn out to be the case.

Consider our most precious resource over the next fifty years: Water.

That’s right, water will be more important to most people of the world than oil.

The reason: Supplies of fresh water are running out.

Regardless, of the facts, ruthless entrepreneurs are seeking to lock up available supplies and the rest of us are finding that we can’t both water the lawn and feed the crops without entertaining the ideas of conservation.

But regardless of good intentions, others see profits in water.

Consider that just recently the farmers of India found themselves out of water for their crops Why? The new Coca Cola bottling plant was using it all up.
Something had to give and in this case it was Coca Cola, but in that particular case, there was no blood shed just a rational decision

It will not always be so.

We saw that with the way Enron leaned on India in the past taking advantage of its president’s relationship with Bush. Lest we forget, Bush learned how to make a profit through insider dealing with his questionable oil venture from the president of Enron, his buddy, while the investors got soaked.

Dimensions of the water problem are more complicated than might first appear on the surface.

Consider one example garnered from the BBC several years back.

It turned out that after a tributary of the Ganges became a concession of a French bottled water concern, it became necessary for the poor indigenous people who lived and worked by the river to now pay for water they once obtained at no cost. This created additional hardships for people already living at the very brink of survival….Not concerned, the French company sold people the very water they got for free…

Now, let’s jump to the American Southwest where farmers and livestock growers and families compete for the same declining water assets. As most know, the primary water source for much of the Southwest is the Colorado which is fed from snow and fresh streams in the mountains…

In the past, among the farmers and others competing for the same water supplies, there was considerable talk about water credits, like pollution credits, which could be purchased or traded. But the reality was that that still did not answer the more immediate question of who is entitled to water rights. This has been going on through the courts for years and the parties to this suit are beyond compromise at this time.

And if we probe further we will see the same thing going on between Jordan and Israel,
Between Chinese farmers and their government, and many others who are at a watershed now with very few good options.

Is this a peek into the future?

All we know is that the supply of fresh water where it’s needed most is becoming crucial and that even under the best of circumstances, supplies are limited.

The irony is that our own abuses of the environment has contributed to global warming that has had the effect of opening up the world’s largest supply of fresh water at the Greenland Cap causing hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh water to pour daily into the North Atlantic, thereby changing the salinity of the Conveyor Belt that moderates the World’s climate and potentially and, paradoxically setting off what might become a new Ice Age.

If that should happen because we neglected to do anything about global warming, we would have a lot more to worry about than who is entitled to the water.

Les aaron

The Armchair Curmudgeon

See Final Warning available from LAACO llc at hubmaster@aol.com
Final Warning available from LAACO llc at hubmaster@aol.com

Ready to believe the unbelievable? Tune into what’s really happening in the environment. Written as fiction to protect our sources but recounting real world experience, FINAL WARNING is a new political-environmental thriller that interweaves a tapestry of ongoing events and circumstances that describe the real environmental world—from outright abuse to criminality for profit. Final Warning brings readers up to speed on why the US stalled in the discussions and why there was little interest in a meeting of the minds.

It not only describes the causes of the environmental challenges we face but also the consequences that threaten our very well being. The protagonists in this case is a special legal unit set up to run the evil doers down but, instead, encounters roadblocks at every turn and even murder. What we learn is deplorable. That the despoilers will go to any length to promote their interests. Lying, obfuscation, misdirection, fraud, the transfer of huge amounts of money even murder are not beyond their purview. .

It begins with a secret report filed with the president of the United States warning America of the environmental challenges to be faced by Northern Europe within the next ten years.. The president glances at the top secret report and proceeds to go on his vacation to the ranch without taking any action even though the message was marked urgent.

This book explores a dozen seemingly unconnected events that are linked to abuse of the environment with daunting consequences that can affect each and every one of us and weaves them into a overall result that simply floods the senses with unimagined possibilities. What evolves is a comprehensive tale that embraces not only the US but the entire world and it gives us an insight into world that we cannot possibly understand where nothing stands in the way of profit and gain. .

It also considers the wealth of misinformation being distributed by those who seek to defuse the threat of environmental tipping points that most scientists feel are real.
The legal defenders of the environment find themselves embroiled in challenge after challenge that eventually erupts into murder when the pursuers get too close to their motives.

. Once the gauntlet has been laid down, it’s only a question of time before the forces of good and evil face off. The evil doers have all the cards, an unlimited supply of money, unlimited assets and control of the power centers of government; the investigators only have their will and the desire to put the evil wrong-doers behind bars.

What transpires is a life and death struggle that pits the forces of evil against a few good men. But the clock is running down and the Investigators are finding themselves bloodied at every turn. This exciting adventure chronicles what you don’t read in the newspapers and the outcome will leave you breathless…

The author, Les Aaron, before becoming an environmentalist and political activist, spent forty years as an international spokesperson for business and industry.

Final Warning 8 ½ x 11, 452 pages, available from LAACO llc, 239 Lakeside Drive,