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Yes, we can run out of water, and maybe soon
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| | | Amy Goodman, left, introduces Maude Barlow, a senior adviser on water to the UN General Assembly. Photo by J. Choi (click for larger version) | |
November 05, 2009 | 12:34 PM
The global water crisis was the subject of this year's Goodman Symposium at Stony Brook University on Oct. 29. Nationally recognized expert Maude Barlow was the guest speaker at the 11th Annual George Goodman Memorial Symposium on campus.
Co-sponsored by the SBU provost's office and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at SBU, formerly the Round Table, the symposium was established in 1998 by Setauket resident Dorothy Goodman to honor her late husband, a former professor of ophthalmology at the SBU Medical School, according to the couple's daughter Amy Goodman.
Before introducing the guest speaker, Amy Goodman, host of the Democracy Now! radio and television public affairs program, shared the sad news that her mother unexpectedly passed away on Oct. 5. Dorothy was "the engine that made this symposium tick," Goodman said, noting that her parents were "deeply concerned about using science for the common good."
Barlow, the national chairperson of The Council of Canadians and senior adviser on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, then took the stage in the Student Activities Center Auditorium. The global water crisis, which began five years ago, has resulted from "the myth of abundance," Barlow said. In the last century, the human population has increased threefold, she noted, while the collective water use has increased by seven times.
Because residents around the world are using the water supply "way faster than it can be restored by nature," Barlow said, 22 countries in Africa and areas in India and Australia are already experiencing water shortages. In addition, people are "creating deserts by displacing water from where nature put it to where we want it," adding that part of the solution to the global crisis is "literally to leave water where it was put."
The speaker, who is also the best-selling author or co-author of 16 books, said 40 states in America, including Texas and Florida, are either already in crisis or could face water shortages in the next 10 to 15 years. Noting that the abuse of water is a factor leading to climate change, Barlow pointed out that an infant dies every eight seconds of a water-born disease. She added that 85 percent of all deaths around the world are related to inadequate water supplies.
In Canada, a massive engineering project to divert water in northbound rivers has been "horrible for ecology and terrible for the indigenous people," according to Barlow, who cited the "disconnect" between rural communities that suffer and large cities that are unaware of the crisis. Barlow said there is also an inequality that exists between the rich and the poor in some areas and added, "If you do not have money, you simply cannot access water" in too many locales.
Barlow, recipient of the 2009 Earth Day Canada's Outstanding Commitment to the Environment Award, said bottled water is another component negatively impacting the environment because 95 percent of the plastic bottles distributed globally are not recycled. The speaker noted that privatization of water is also a huge problem in countries like Chile, where large mining companies bid against the indigenous people to purchase water in public auctions. While she acknowledged this is an extreme case, Barlow said "it is where we're going to go if we don't decide water is a public trust and a human right."
As the dependency on technology continues to rise, many simply believe that "technology will save us," Barlow said, but processes such as desalination are "enormously expensive" and require a great deal of energy.
In order to alleviate the global crisis, water must be conserved and deemed a public trust, the speaker said, adding, "It doesn't belong to anyone individually — it belongs to everyone."
In Suffolk, each household uses about 10,000 gallons of water in January, according to Suffolk County Water Authority CEO Stephen Jones, who attended the symposium. This number, however, rises to 50,000 gallons during the summer months, said Jones, who encourages homeowners to reduce the use of automatic sprinkler systems to water their lawns.
He also recommended residents garden with plants that don't require much water and to keep their yards "a little more natural" by eliminating the use of fertilizers.
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