Category Archives: Environment

This is where you Live.

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Education, Environment, Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future

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The other day I was wondering how one would describe Earth to an alien or a classroom of our modern-day interconnects kids.

Where would one start.

Is it round?  Not quite it is an oblate spheroid instead of a perfect sphere. It takes the Earth on solar day to rotate upon its axis.

An alien might come to earth and attempt to understand the planet by reading the literature of the planet, or just the dictionary. Looking up the word “earth” the alien may be surprised to see the this term has multiple meanings, referring to a planet and to a substance (soil/dirt).

May be the best place to start is to give an perspective of where we are in space.

As you look outward into space, you’re actually looking backwards in time. The light you see from your computer is nanoseconds old. The light reflected from the surface of the Moon takes only a second to reach Earth. The Sun is more than 8 light-minutes away. And so, if the light from the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) takes more than 4 years to reach us, we’re seeing that star 4 years in the past. There are galaxies millions of light-years away, which means the light we’re seeing left the surface of those stars millions of years ago. For example, the galaxy M109 is located about 83.5 million light-years away.

A radio signal to travel once around Earth in 1/7 of a second.  To get to the moon from Earth, so the round-trip time is twice this or 2.46.

From the sun to earth at the speed of light  seconds.https://youtu.be/Bw-I9JimhOM

If aliens lived in those galaxies, and had strong enough telescopes, they would see the Earth as it looked in the past. They might even see dinosaurs walking on the surface.

Only a few of us have ever seen Earth from afar.  It’s mankind’s rarest view of all.

To see it without borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, we would all have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from space you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth….”Earth, our home planet.

It is a beautiful blue and white ball when seen from space.  the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life.

All of the things we need to survive are provided under a thin layer of atmosphere that separates us from the uninhabitable void of space.

HERE IS HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE IT;

It was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Earth is made up of complex, interactive systems that are often unpredictable. Air, water, land, and life—including humans—combine forces to create a constantly changing world that we are striving to understand.

It is the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest in the solar system.

About 71% of its surface is covered by water; the rest by land.

It is orbited by one satellite, the Moon.

Earth’s total surface area is 196,950,000 sq. mi. The area covered by the oceans is 139,480,000 sq. mi. Total land area is 57,470,000 sq. mi.

Earth’s diameter is just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents.

Our planet’s rapid spin and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape. The magnetic field does not fade off into space, but has definite boundaries.

Our planet completes its elliptical orbit around the sun in an average solar year, 365.24219 days. Its average distance from the sun is 80,777,537.8 n.mi.

The Earth’s axis is tilted 23.45 deg away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane.

It wobbles very slightly.

The Moon orbits the Earth about once a month (every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.9 seconds) The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 238,857 mi., about 30 times Earth’s diameter.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents. The surface layer is made of rock. This outer layer formed a hard, rocky crust as lava at the surface cooled 4.5 billion years ago.The crust is broken into many large plates that move slowly relative to each other. Mountain ranges form when two plates collide. The plates move about one inch per year. About 250 million years ago, most of the land was connected together, and over time has separated into seven continents. So millions of years ago the continents and the oceans were in different positions.

Scientists had previously concluded that the Earth was slightly older than 4.5 billion years old, but had not found a piece of the Earth’s primitive mantle.

The solid shell that is between the Earth’s crust and the outer core makes up about 84 percent of the Earth’s volume. Until recently, researchers generally thought that the Earth and the other planets of the solar system were chondritic. This means that the mantle’s chemistry was thought to be similar to that of chondrites, some of the oldest, most primitive objects in the solar system. Chondrites contain certain isotope ratios of the chemical elements of helium, lead and neodymium.

Sixty-five million years ago it looked quite different than it does to-day.

There are about 300,000 plant species and about 1,400,000 animal species on Earth.

In the next 6.4 billions of years it will be eating by it nearest star the Sun which is 149,597,891 kilometers away.  It will take a little more than 8 minutes before we realized it is time to put on a sweater. It takes Sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

It weighs 5.9736×1024kg.  That is about 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (or 5,974,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms).

80% of its fresh water is in its polar ice caps. Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature span (32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit/ 0 to 100 degrees Celsius). The surface is unique from the other planets because it is the only one which has liquid water in such large quantities.

Its greatest present day threats come from humanity which is at a crossroads now, where we have to make an active choice.

Evolution, the Big Bang, and climate change are all things that were first proposed as hypotheses long ago.

Climate change is not. What are we doing about it. The same as always. Turn it into a product for profit.

One choice is to acknowledge these issues and potential consequences and try to guide the future (in a way we want to). The other choice is just to throw up our hands and say, ‘Let’s just go on as usual and see what happens.’ My guess is, if we take that latter choice, yes, humanity is going to survive, but we are going to see some effects that will seriously degrade the quality of life for our children and grandchildren.

The ongoing wars, the distortions of truth we have witnessed, the widening gaps between rich and poor disturb us more than we can say; but we have had so many reminders of powerlessness that we have retreated before the challenge of bringing such issues into our classrooms of our brains.

The best effort so far is the creation of an Earth Day this year.  One day!

Population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation. No one knows how close Earth is to a global tipping point, or if it is inevitable.

Life on Earth is constantly changing and only the fittest organisms survive.

Every few of us appreciate how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there’s no coming back from something like that. The dictionary offers a firm set of definitions for this term, but no single definition, which leads to a sense of complexity. The complexities of perception are, in part, what post-modernism is all about.  I describe it as pure insanity.

The Earth system now includes human society, Our social and economic systems are now embedded within the Earth system. In many cases, the human systems are now the main drivers of change in the Earth system. Earth system changes, natural or driven by humans, can have significant consequences without involving changes in climate. Global change should  not be confused with climate change; it is significantly more. indeed, climate change is part of this much larger challenge.

Throughout history human societies have had to confront and adjust to climatic and environmental hazards. A long-term perspective that draws on such experiences must inform today’s climate policies. I argue that climate policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to hazards should be informed by our knowledge of past human experience.

In today’s globalised world our food tends to take a long route from farm to table, relying on international trade routes that pass through several bottlenecks. Sudden disruption of such delivery systems – via climate change or political volatility – can severely affect the food security of particular regions.

Large-scale governance is unavoidable in today’s world where hazards are regional and often transcend political boundaries, unfortunately at the moment we are relying on out of date World Organisations that are incapable of putting the  Earth First!

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/32001208″>EARTH</a&gt; from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/michaelkoenig”>Michael K&ouml;nig</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/79771046″>Climate Change &mdash; The state of the science</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/anthropocene”>WelcomeAnthropocene</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

 

Take a trip into the unknown.

https://youtu.be/YzMrNFd4oOk

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The Beady Eye, Looks at Our Common Future Under Climate Change.

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, The Future

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The hope of the twentieth century rests on its recognition that war and depression are man-made and needless as is so with Climate Change.

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel.

All can be avoided in the future by turning from … nineteenth-century characteristics … and going back to other characteristics that our Western society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding an increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self-discipline.

We now know fairly well how to control the increase in population, how to produce wealth and reduce poverty or disease. We may, in the near future, know how to postpone senility and death but to what avail if we continue to deny Climate Change.

It certainly should be clear to those who have their eyes open that violence, extermination, and despotism do not solve problems for anyone and that victory and conquest are delusions, as long as they are merely physical and materialistic.

Our problem is that capitalism provides very powerful motivations for economic activity because it associates economic motivations so closely with self-interest.

Money and goods are not the same thing but are, on the contrary, exactly opposite things. Most confusion in economic thinking arises from failure to recognize this fact.

Goods are wealth which you have, while money is a claim on wealth which you do not have. Thus goods are an asset; money is a debt.

You would think that policymakers with the dark future of Climate Change ahead would be addressing a new set of existential questions.

Such as: Should Economics that grew wealth bear more of the burden to stop climate change.  Another words developed countries should take the lead allowing less developed countries to maintain emissions.

As we all know to date no international mitigation and abatement efforts have taken place on a large enough scale to freeze emissions. We don’t see any intense geopolitical cooperation. Countries will not do anything on behalf of other that requires them to sacrifice their own interests.

Off course when you introduce future generations into the question democracy as it stands is not equipped to represent the interests of future generations never mind the here and now. Humans that don’t exist have no say as to what will it mean to live a meaningful life in a world that has eliminated all wildness, and forms of life from the planet.

So here we are poised to become agent of the greatest catastrophic events ever to hit our planet which could have to support over 10 billion people by 2050.

We are currently on a trajectory to warm the planet 4°C. In such a 4ºC world most of us will not be able to adapt never mind our natural systems.

As we move beyond the stable state we are already well beyond the zone of uncertainty.  The risk for all species – including ours- grow and grow.

planetary boundaries

We need to start thinking in terms that we are just not used to thinking of as a human species.

Will it be left to the market to decide.  With businesses as hubs for democratic engagement this could unfairly shift costs onto either consumers or taxpayers.

I’m not convinced.. that we’ve ended up with a society that’s really able to harness the innovation potential of business.

Climate change challenges democracy. But climate change also needs democracy.

We live in a carbon dependent world. And for the most part, we are loath to forego this somewhat cosy arrangement. Carbon dependency is promoted in part by technology which gives us many good things on the cheap: electricity, personal mobility, affordable consumer goods, cooling and warmth. It is also encouraged by governments which promise easy options to low-carbon outcomes, without delivering these options. And for the most part, we do not seem to care, as the goodies continue to arrive.

We all know in our hearts that this is a cop out: we are duped but we connive in the deceit. Democracy is not a system that forces us to face up to these contradictions. We want to live in a sustainable society but the political system does not reward or support the innovators and entrepreneurs who would guide us to it.

Political institutions manipulate us, as do the power brokers who shape political opinion and guide policy.  Democracy shuns the long-term.

The goal of equipping democracy to mitigate and adapt to climate change is not a one-time endeavor but a continuous process.

Today, the formerly contented European middle classes, sitting in the gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, for the first time in living memory cannot be sure their children will be better off than they are. Confronted by this austere prospect, this group – the natural allies of climate stability – will become unsettled.

The world’s nations are desperately looking for guaranteed techno-fixes to climate change. Democracy around the world has suffered as governments seek to lean on eco-technocrats to cut back on investment in education and health and invest instead in technology for climate mitigation and adaptation.

I really do believe that people can provide the answers – if only we could unleash the real power of that creative potential. Environmental innovation has to be about much more than technology. I’ve realized that, and I’m going to make it my business to ensure that as many other people as possible do too.

So where best to start than requesting your Television Stations to highlight Climate Change in their Weather Forecast.   Join me. This is a war against no enemy other than ourselves.

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EU Agricultural Subsidies – The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by in Environment, European Union., Politics., Sustaniability

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Its going to be a turbulent year for the EU with Greece going broke, the UK looking to opt out and immigrants arriving by the thousands.

The economic down turn of recent years exposed fundamental problems and unsustainable trends in many European countries. It also made clear just how interdependent the EU’s economies are.

Over the past decade, Member States have experienced divergent economic trends, which have, exacerbated competitiveness gaps and led to macro-economic imbalances within the EU.

The question now is are we looking at stronger political union or a repatriation of powers to National Sovereign Nations within the EU.  

One way or the other the EU needs to look beyond the current crisis.

The EU is already under pressure from competitors and demographic change.

Any reforms within the Members seems to take for ever to implement.

Take for instance the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which was one of the original pillars of the European Community, comprising France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In negotiations on the creation of a Common Market, France insisted on a system of agricultural subsidies as its price for agreeing to free trade in industrial goods.

The treaty of Rome set out its basic principle and objectives:

  1. To increase productivity, by promoting technical progress and ensuring the optimum use of the factors of production, in particular labour.
  2. To ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural Community.
  3. To stabilise markets.
  4. To secure availability of supplies.
  5. To provide consumers with food at reasonable prices.

Those objectives were written in 1958 and have never been amended.

The main purposes of EU agriculture should be:

• Provision of a safe, healthy choice of food, at transparent and affordable prices.

• Ensuring sustainable use of the land.

• Activities that sustain rural communities and the countryside.

So what is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)?

For more than twenty years, starting in 1992, the CAP has been through successive reforms. In June 2013 ministers reached a deal with Euro MPs and the European Commission, though the reform package has not yet been agreed in full.

The CAP began operating in 1962, with the Community intervening to buy farm output when the market price fell below an agreed target level. In 1970, when food production was heavily subsidised, it accounted for 87% of the budget.

The CAP has been steadily falling as a proportion of the total EU budget for many years.

The plan then was that total spending should peak in 2008/9 and then decline until 2013, when the next major revision was due. In 2013 the budget for direct farm payments (subsidies) and rural development – the twin “pillars” of the CAP – was 57.5bn euros (£49bn), out of a total EU budget of 132.8bn euros (that is 43% of the total).

Owing to the way in which the common agricultural policy has developed and to the use of ‘historical references’, the level of aid may vary considerably from one farm to another, from one member country to another or from one region to another.

Today’s CAP is more market-oriented.

Under the new CAP, farmers still receive direct income payments to maintain income stability, but the link to production has been severed. In addition, farmers have to respect environmental, food safety, phytosanitary and animal welfare standards.

For the EU’s new member states, in Central and Eastern Europe, direct payments to farmers are being phased in gradually.

France is – and always has been – the largest recipient of CAP funds (20% of the total in 2006), with Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK all also receiving significant amounts (two-thirds of the total between these five countries). Although getting smaller absolute amounts, Greece and Ireland receive the largest per capita payments.

France is the biggest agricultural producer, accounting for some 18% of EU farm output.

France receives around €11 billion each year from the EU in agricultural support, but very little of it actually goes to those who do the farming.

With over 500,000 recipients of EU farming subsidies in France, over 80% of the funds actually goes to large industrial food processing businesses and charitable organisations. The largest recipient is the chicken production conglomerate Doux, who received a whopping €62.8 million in aid between October 2007 and October 2008. In the year 2008 the group had a turnover of nearly €2 billion.

The average annual subsidy per farm is about 12,200 euros (£10,374). About 80% of farm aid goes to about a quarter of EU farmers – those with the largest holdings. Major beneficiaries include rich landowners such as the British royal family and European aristocrats with big inherited estates.

The CAP does not cover commercial forestry.

The Commission proposed to cap at 300,000 euros the total subsidy a large farm could receive – but that appears unlikely to get into the final deal.

Across the whole EU, it is the bigger farmers who are the greatest beneficiaries, with 20% of farmers estimated to receive 74% of funding.

The idea was to combat large payments going to aristocratic landowners and wealthy agri-businesses, but it ran up against powerful lobby groups.

To day the CAP costs each EU citizen around 30 euro cents a day. CAP expenditure actually makes up less than 1% of all public expenditure in all the EU’s member countries. In addition to the direct cost, it is estimated that European consumers pay approximately €50 bn more in higher food costs.

Over 77% of the EU’s territory is classified as rural (47% is farm land and 30% forest) and is home to around half its population (farming communities and other residents). Europe has 12 million farmers and an average farm size of about 15 hectares (by way of comparison, the US has 2 million farmers and an average farm size of 180 hectares). The eastward enlargement increased the EU’s agricultural land by 40% and added seven million farmers to the existing six million.

Agriculture is a sector which is supported almost exclusively at European level, unlike most other sectors, which are governed by national policies.

Supporting farmers’ incomes ensures that food continues to be produced throughout the EU and pays for the provision of public benefits which have no market value: environmental protection, animal welfare, safe, high-quality food, etc.

The EU already funds numerous programmes that can be channeled towards these goals. For example, between 2007 and 2013, over €50bn is available for R&D projects, over €3bn for competitiveness and innovation and nearly €7bn for lifelong learning. This is all in addition to €277bn worth of regional funding for the same period through the Structural Funds.

As climate change makes itself ever more felt, the cost of sustainable farming can only continue to rise.

The EU budget is in turn mainly financed out of its ‘own resources’: customs duties, levies, VAT and resources based on member countries’ gross national income (GNI). The CAP represents over 40% of EU budget expenditure and is the most expensive of EU policies.

Regional aid – known as “cohesion” funds – is the next biggest item in the EU budget, getting 47bn euros.

The CAP budget for Rural Development (which seeks to safeguard the vitality of the countryside) 2014-20 for all 28 member countries will total €95 billion (at current prices).

The last reform was implemented in 1994

Today, the Budget amounts to €150bn (£117bn), which is paid for by the 28 members of the EU, and is also used to pay administration costs incurred by Brussels, such as salaries.

Farm subsidies are expected to account for around 38pc of the EU budget between 2014 and 2020, or around €363bn of the €960bn total.

A total of €8.7bn was spent last year in administration costs alone, although the European Commission highlights in its Myths and Facts FAQ, that this amounts to less than 6pc of the total budget.

However, the CAP continues to face a number of challenges, particularly in addressing biodiversity decline, water pollution, soil degradation, accelerating climate change and the steady growth in demand for food, fuel and energy.

Here are the Challenges:

  • How to make the Single Payment Scheme more effective, efficient and simple by continuing the move to full decoupling..
  • How to adapt market support instruments originally designed for six, to a larger system of twenty-seven states in a more globalised world.
  • How to master challenges in areas such as climate change, biodiversity and water management and adapt to new risks and opportunities.

The questions are:

  • Why do we need a European Common Agricultural Policy?
  • What are society’s objectives for agriculture in all its diversity?
  • Why should we reform the CAP and how can we make it meet society’s expectations?
  • What tools do we need for tomorrow’s CAP?

The answers are:

The European Union needs a common EU policy to ensure a level playing field within the EU, guaranteeing fair competition conditions. To maintain diversified farming systems across Europe.

  • To insure that no GMOs or pesticides are used. To ensure EU agriculture respect the environment. Give greater importance to non-market items, such as environment, quality and health standards, sustainability.

•  To Respond to the effects of climate change. To Protect the environment and biodiversity, conserve the countryside, sustain the rural economy and preserve/create rural jobs, mitigate climate change. To decrease its impact on global warming and maintain biodiversity, water resources etc.

•  To take into account the various higher expectations from consumers, for example with regard to the origin of foodstuffs, guarantees of quality etc.

•  To Strengthen the competitiveness of European agriculture. To Transform market intervention into a modern risk- and crisis-management tool. To Recognize that the market cannot (or will not) pay for the provision of public goods and benefits. This is where public action has to offset market failure.

•  To Ensure better coordination with other EU policies applying to rural areas.To Bear in mind that the correct payment to farmers for the delivery of public goods and services will be a key element in a reformed CAP. To Rethink the structure of the two support pillars and clarify the relationship between them; make adequate resources available for successful rural development. To Create fair competition conditions between domestic and imported products.

  • To Provide employment in rural areas. To Implement a fairer CAP – fairer to small farmers, to less-favoured regions, to new member states.
  • To Avoid damaging the economies or food production capacities of developing countries; help in the fight against world hunger.
  •  To giving more importance to innovation and dissemination of research.
  •  To link agricultural production, and farmers’ compensation, more closely to the delivery of public goods such as environmental services.
    • To Introduce transparency along the food chain, with a greater say for producers.

Industrial agriculture should have little place in the CAP, its support being more appropriately directed to more deserving recipients.

Serious questions are being raised about the reasons for the current levels of spending, the efficiency and the extent to which it provides genuine EU added-value. In recent years, farms’ energy bills have increased by 223% and the price of fertilisers by 163%. Agricultural prices have increased by 50% on average.

It must take a strategic approach to CAP reform. Go for total, not partial, solutions taking account of CAP challenges on the one hand and the interplay between the CAP and other internal and external EU policies on the other hand.

Can any of this be done?

The EU has no shortage of crises on its borders and beyond.

It is hard to see that EU will succeed in galvanizing European governments into a more coherent policy. EU states will certainly not be willing to increase the overall size of the budget, it is clear that it will have to dedicate a much smaller share of the budget to the CAP. The budget cannot keep increasing in the midst of an economic crisis.

Keeping EU farm spending level until 2020 is impossible and there are suggesting that EU funding for issues such as research and development provide better EU added-value.

Believe it or not, the thing that could change farming isn’t the climate or a new piece of equipment. A microbe in the soil could be the key to helping farmers grow more crops.

Only 5.4% of EU’s population works on farms, and the farming sector is responsible for 1.6% of the GDP of the EU (2005). The number of European farmers is decreasing every year by 2%. Additionally, most Europeans live in cities, towns, and suburbs, not rural areas. However, their opponents argue that the subsidies are crucial to preserve the rural environment, and that some EU member states would have aided their farmers, anyway.

When many people saw the first stunning photos of the fragile Blue Marbel of Earth from space, it changed their outlook of humanity. It was a singular moment in time when people around the world were watching and looking toward the future.

When it comes to people like all of us the EU has a long way to go before we all see a common future.

There is no security on this earth: there is only opportunity.

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Life goes on.

01 Friday May 2015

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While the scary numbers pile up.

The state of the Planet hit several remarkable records.Earth From Moon Wallpaper Hd Earth from moon hd crescent

The amount of carbon dioxide gas hits the highest level in at least the last 800,000 years.

The Arctic Ice since satellite records is at it lowest. 13.3% per decade.

We dump 19.4 billion pounds of plastic into our oceans every year.

An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year.

We will be facing a 40% shortfall in water supply by 2030.

Climate change-related extreme events, plus population growth, could increase hunger by up to 20% by 2050.

What are we doing about it. Not much that will make a difference. Curbing emissions which is a joke wont be enough to halt a looming climate catastrophe.

When you take something out of the Earth, you need to put something back in.

The Selfish wasteful ways of Capitalism combined with modern humans is destroying the very planet we all have to live on.

Thoughtless mindless use of its limited resources for short-term profit, and the use of pesticides and there like is destroying life forms that took million of years to appear on our planet.

We all know the interconnectedness of all life. The we’re here, we’re powerful with nuclear weapons , we’ve got the technology, we therefore are entitled to every dame thing on this planet, is at the root of much of our problems.

Perhaps our current ecological crisis is telling us that something is wrong with our relationship with ourselves, with others, and earth.

The Dangers are clear.

We all want to live.

Without a reverence for all life that lives in the midst of other life we the brainy ones will be going no further than the moon, space station or not. 

If you are interested there are plenty of previous post covering a verity of subjects interconnected to this post.

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Water used to be free.

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Environment, Privatization, Sustaniability

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In fact, it still is — at least in nations blessed with plentiful clean tap water but that doesn’t stop the world from spending over $100 billion on bottled water a year.

I have posted on the subject of Fresh water as recently as the 31st of March this year. ( Fresh Water, Essential for human survival or a commodity for profit)

We all know that our Earth has and will continue to face many problems, some caused by nature itself and others caused by us its most intelligent inhabitants.

The problems caused by us are mostly related to excess of self-indulgence to the detriment of what effect it has on everything around us.

We seem incapable of acting for the common good, and when we try to do so our attempts are retrograded to profit. ( For example; Carbon Credits, Fishing Quotas, Arms Trade, Governments, Religions, you name it and its governed by money.)

We ourselves are now becoming commodity to be exploited and it will not be long before we will have no rights to clean Air never mind water.

Water is more than a chemical substance containing one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms it has become a reason for conflicts and a controversial commodity, and yet, it is inevitable for every human being and animal on the planet.

The global inequalities in access to clean water is only going to increase due to its Privatization. It is literally being turned into a commodity to produce profit.

So what do we see when it comes to Fresh Water.

It is purified and then sold to us at thousandfold increase in price:

As still water, carbonated water, functional water, and flavored water, as absolute water” and “harmony water” as mineral water, pure water, the ecological water, soda water, alkaline water, coconut water, deep-sea water, mint water, tonic water, sparkling waters, naturally sparkling, still waters,natural water, distilled water, wild water, absolute water, preserved water, controlled water,  etc;

The category of “wild water” includes products like Pepsi-owned Enchant’s marketed so as to convey through its label,  strength, vitality, and human’s fusion with nature.

Absolute water is in a league of its own, and uses neither nature-themed nor industry-themed signs. The designs of the bottles are revolutionary and futuristic. Their beyond-nature and beyond-human appearance suggest that this water is extremely pure and transcendent.

Then we have preserved water, marketed as nature to contemplate, a source of peace and quietness, a preserved nature, untouched.

And last but not least controlled waters which are totally safe and clean called still water. It sales makes up 64.9% of the overall market.

Oops I nearly forgot tamed water. It is adapted for consumer benefit. Nestlé’s Pure Life, for instance, uses more dynamic shapes and human figures to demonstrate its tamed water’s message of happiness, liveliness, and cooperation.

In terms of revenue, Asia-Pacific dominated the global market in 2013, accounting for a market share of 33%. Europe surfaced as the second largest contributor in the global market for bottled water, accounting for a market share of 28.8%.

The bottled water world industry is a market dominated by European water brands.

Shifting patterns of consumer preference in favor of flavored and vitamin-rich functional water and innovation in terms of portability and packaging of hygienic water has propelled the demand for bottled water in the global market to highs where the producers are buying up resources at an alarming rate.

You might be surprised to learn that 25% of bottled water comes from municipal supply.

While the world’s population continues to grow at an alarming rate, water is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity. 80% of the world’s population are exposed to some risk of insecure freshwater resources.

The global water market is dominated by major players like Groupe Danone, Coca- Cola Company, Icelandic Water Holdings ehf., Mountain Valley Spring Company, The PepsiCo Inc., Nestle Waters, Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. Ltd., and LLC.

Nestlé currently controls more than 70 of the world’s bottled water brands, among them Perrier, San Pellegrino and Vittel.

Nestlé’s annual sales of bottled water alone total some CHF 10 billion. And yet the company prefers not to discuss its water business.

To be able to sell and make money from water, you first have to own it.

Every year the company pumps out millions of cubic metres of water, for transportation in road tankers to huge bottling factories.

In the small towns of Fryeburg, Newfield and Shapleigh, journalist Res Gehriger witnessed how Nestlé tries to stifle and suppress local opposition to its operations with an army of powerful PR consultants, lawyers and lobbyists.

The company sells mainly spring water with a designation of origin. In developing countries, however, the corporation pursues another concept – namely Nestlé Pure Life. This product is purified groundwater, enriched with a Nestlé mixture of minerals. Nestlé Pure Life is a clever business concept. And particularly so in the developing world.

In countries such as Pakistan where the public water supply has failed or is close to collapse, the company proudly presents its bottled water as a safe health-enhancing alternative.  But for the overwhelming majority of consumers, it is an expensive out-of-reach alternative.

The scenario of a city in which everyone has to pay for life-giving water, is already a sad reality in Lagos. Families eking out an existence in the slums spend half their meagre budget on canisters of water. The upper class?  They purchase Nestlé Pure Life.

Nestlé is a company intent on amassing resource rights worldwide. With the aim of dominating the global water market of the future.

The global bottled water market was valued at US$157.27 billion in 2013 and is expected to reach US$279.65 billion by the end of 2020, registering an impressive growth at a CAGR of 8.7% from 2013 to 2020.

In terms of volume the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.3% and reach a market size of 465.12 billion liters by 2020. Over half of all Americans 54% drink bottled water. There are over 700 brands. America is now drinking more bottled water than milk or beer.

According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC), in 2014 the total volume of bottled water consumed in the United States was 11 billion gallons, a 7.4% increase from 2013. That translates into an average of 34 gallons per person.  While that may sound like a lot, it actually puts the U.S. in 10th place when it comes to global per-capita consumption

Bottled water is the second largest commercial beverage category by volume in the United States. However, bottled water consumption is about half that of carbonated soft drinks and only slightly ahead of milk and beer.

60% of the global bottled water market is dominated by the national and regional players.

The commercialization of water, which on a global scale finds its manifestation in the bottled water industry:Cartogram / Map of the Global Bottled Water Consumption (total and per capita)

Global consumption of bottled water goes up 10 percent each year.drinking bottled water

China is now the second largest consumer market for bottled water in the world. China drank roughly eight billion liters in 2000, and just under 21 billion liters in 2009.  It is now drinking around two billion liter less than U.S. 2014.

China Water (1.5 liter bottle) Cost 3.66 ¥ us$ 0.56

France-based Evian is the most popular bottled water brand in the world. Pepsi-owned Aquafina is the best-selling bottled water brand in United States.  Both have mountains on their packages, signifying the pursuit of something greater.

You don’t have to be a genius to see where all this is leading.

Water insecurity is a global phenomenon, and in most of the populated places on earth water resources are under some form of stress that poses a potential risk.

“The biggest enemy is tap water ” said a Pepsi VP in 2000. “When we’re done, tap water will be relegated to irrigation and washing dishes,” said Susan D. Wellington of Quaker Oats, the maker of Gatorade.

But its more than just words: Coca-Cola has been in the business of discouraging restaurants from serving tap water and pushing bottle water for years.

Fear of tap water is part of the reason for the bottled water surge.

A report by Food And Water Watch says that almost half of all bottled water is derived from tap water

The production of water bottles uses 17 million barrels of oil a year, and it takes three times the water to make the bottle as it does to fill it.

For a product that claims to be environmentally responsible the bottled water industry does more than its fair share of planet trashing.

The amount of oil used to make a year’s worth of bottles could fill one million cars for a year. It takes about 72 billion gallons of water a year just to make the empty bottles. Another words it takes about two liters of water to make every liter you see on shelves of supermarkets and the like.

What do we get in return:

Out of all the plastic bottles that pollute our seas, our oceans, that are tossed out the windows of our cars, left to roll up on to our beaches fewer than 20% are recycled to a second life. To put this in perspective the California Department of Conservation estimated that roughly three million water bottles are trashed every day. The bottle that takes three minutes to drink takes up to a thousand years to biodegrade.

Pepsi Co claims to have diverted 196 million beverage containers to recycling using its own resources since it made its initial commitment in 2010, yet this represents only about one-third of one day’s sales of beverages in the United States.

More than 40 countries worldwide, including most European Union nations, have adopted some form of EPR (extended producer responsibility) mandate that shifts some or all financial responsibility for packaging recycling from taxpayers to producer brands.

Brands that place packaging into commerce need to take more responsibility for its life cycle impact. 

Recycling produces so many benefits to society that it should be a priority for corporate sustainability programs.

The biggest threat to increasing recyclability in the beverage sector is the growing use of flexible packaging….Using nonrecyclable packaging when recyclable alternatives are available wastes enormous amounts of resources, in contrast to aluminum and PET, which can be recycled many times over.

Of the 30 billion plastic water bottles sold in the United States in 2005, only 12 percent were recycled.

According to Doug James, a professor of computer science and computer graphics at Cornell University and a recycling advocate, we are left with 25 billion bottles world-wide that are dumped in landfills, littered or incinerated.

Essentially, there is no way for bottled water to be as environmentally responsible as tap water.

Many regions of the world lack access to clean drinking water, and bottled water is the only safe alternative. Companies know this and have been cleaning up in countries like China, Pakistan and India in recent years.

The 2011 global forecast for bottled water called for over $86 billion in profits. This includes sparkling flavored water, sparkling unflavored water, still flavored water and still unflavored water. A very impressive number considering a similar product comes basically free from the kitchen sink.

The global water market could be worth $800 billion by 2035, with Asia making up half that value as rapid economic growth and a rising population boosts demand, the president and chief executive of Finnish chemicals firm Kemira said.

“Water is the fastest growing market at the moment, with a size of $500 billion globally,” Harri Kerminen said in an interview in London.

Some experts foresee the water market hitting $1 trillion by as early as 2020.

So don’t be a Wally get your self a reusable stainless steel canteen.

It will pay for its self, stop you picking up some horrendous disease, and save on large dental bill if you leave the fluoride in. (Put it uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours and any chlorine will dissipate.)

The alternative is to carry on drinking bottled water which I am sure is subject to the same safety regulations as Tap water which covers all washing machine tablets, all washing up liqet, all shampoos, all industrial run off, all farming fertilizers run off, all lead piping, all landfill toxins, toilet cleaners, all fracking ( 7.5 trillion gallons of water mixed with dangerous chemicals a year in the US) all brown water shower/bath.  We know that pollution is a human problem because it is a relatively recent development in the planet’s history:Two photos showing point source and nonpoint source pollution. Top: point source pollution pouring from a dredge pipe into a waterway. Bottom: Nonpoint source pollution Pollution from ships and factories polluting a waterway

According to the environmental campaign organization WWF: “Pollution from toxic chemicals threatens life on this planet. Every ocean and every continent, from the tropics to the once-pristine polar regions, is contaminated.”

There is no easy way to solve water pollution; if there were, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem. There are three different things that can help to tackle the problem- education, laws, and economics.

Why am I bothered or for that matter why should any of us be bothered that water is being turned into profit.

Perhaps we are focused too much on reducing carbon emissions and have failed to take a sufficiently broad view including end-of-life fate and impact.

Materials that are “designed for the dump” reinforce a message to consumers that it’s okay to continue to throw away materials that could have been made to be recycled.

The very least we can do is work to protect and preserve earth. It’s not all about making massive profit.

The time for global action” to protect the integrity of our planetary home is now to develop a new set of guiding global goals.  We must embrace a culture of shared responsibility, one of all actors–governments, international institutions, private sector actors, and organizations of civil societies, and in all countries, to the people themselves.Working together as a team for innovation

We must remove this responsibility from the United Nations and create a new world Organisation.

What kind of new worldwide organisation could be established that would truly defend humankind’s common resources and limit the major powers?

The UN’s imperfections were manifest from its creation. It was built upon some obvious contradictions.

The UN was premised on the idea that the gravest threat to mankind was cross-border aggression, the main cause of the second world war: history later showed that the gravest threats came from states abusing citizens within their borders, or from terrorists who disregarded borders. Instead of strengthening collective structures to perform essential humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks, rich countries have decided to go it alone or stay home. The strings that member states attach to payment of their UN dues are even more demoralising.

If we want a healthy earth we need an organisation that represents Earth irrelevant of religion or power. That is Self financing, that rewards good practice and applies penalties for not. That is not governed by the might of Capitalism. ( See Previous Posts)

Mark my words if we don’t soon start seen our world as we there will be no Freshwater worth drinking.

 Nobody is winning right now on this thing. We’re not moving the needle.

Life is ultimately about choices—and so is pollution.