Here's what I want you to do: Imagine me standing in your kitchen with my fingers in my ears, eyes closed and chanting la la la la la whilst closely resembling a 4 year old on a bad day.
What I don't want to hear is that according to FAO Water, it takes a whopping 140 liters of water to make me a cup of coffee. I get it, coffee isn't the best thing for my skin, hair, nails and teeth but darlin' it might be the only thing that keeps me from screeching at my children on those OhSoEarly mornings. But I do feel more than a twinge of guilt about filling a bathtub just for a jolt of early morning java.
It gets worse.
A hamburger is 2,400 liters of water and I can't think of a good reason that I'd drain and refill an outdoor hot tub each day for that.
Whether you live in New Zealand, New York or Sub Saharan Africa, water is at the base of every civilization. We need to drink it. We need to water our plants and our animals, be they food or workers. We need to be clean and we need to wash away our waste.
But what if your water supply isn't safe? Or reliable? Or there at all?
What if guys like T. Boone Pickens buy the biggest pump and draw 80% of the water from a county only to sell it right back to them? I'm just asking questions. If you want the answers you'll have to talk to the good people of Roberts County, Texas and get their opinions. It seems that Pickens' oil tycoon style of buy, buy, sell, sell, use and pshaw to conservation has served him well. Water acreage in his neighborhood has doubled in price and value.
What if you turned on the tap one day and there was nothing? Would you panic? I would.
Some people don't worry because they don't have a tap. It's rainfall or nothing and with our ever warming earth, it's often nothing.
With climate change as it is, the already marginalized rural poor (pdf) of Africa are in dire need of water management for rain fed agriculture. According to the FAO:
Investments in water control need to be planned and implemented in the much broader framework of agricultural and rural development, where production, markets, finance and infrastructure are conceived in an integrated way and are mutually supporting.
You see without the rain, there is no food. The fishermen starve and the crops dry out. Without the food there is no life, no livelihood and no hope.
Parisians are chomping at the bit because in 2010 their water supply will once again be publicly held.
As a capitalist, I'm sure it's hard to understand the excitement about a publicly held utility but let's imagine for a moment that Los Angeles' water and power was not run by the DWP but by a water baron or two (Boswell anyone?) do you think that someone selling you water would encourage conservation? And how safe would it be?
According to David Nahai my tap water is tested 365,000 times each year, or 1,000 times each day. I trust it because authorities must answer to an entire city. Transparency is key. Oh, and I can afford my water because anyone can look at public records. Unlike privatized water in France where many executives are languishing in prison after leaving their citizens high and dry.
So as I sit on my computer with my reliable electricity ever mindful to not spill my glass of water I need to be thoughtful about my virtual glasses of water. Do I need coffee if the real cost is a bathtub full of water? Do I want a burger when it means draining a Jacuzzi? My water is cheap and plentiful (relatively) because of an imperfect but well intentioned bureaucracy.
Can I help a farmer in Africa through the choices I make? These guys know we all can and think that we should.
Further Reading:
