really good question and it makes you think. The answer is flatly no and a Haitian mother probably has it better than those in Sub-saharan Africa or lower east Asia, where the calorie intake is probably 500-1000 every couple of days.
"Among the theories: Turner is trying to corner the land over the Ogallala Aquifer, the world's largest underground water system, to gain power in the water-starved West." Ted Turner's Massive Land Purchases Generate Suspicion - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com
There is a boycott of the Nestle Corporation going on due to their aggressive and possibly unethical marketing of powdered baby formula in the third world. It said to be causing more trouble than it solves because mothers mix it with bad water and it causes illness or they stretch the powder by making it too weak, causing malnutrition. It also lacks the natural antibodies in mothers milk making infants more susceptible to disease. Bad water is part of the issue, but also is the question of whether the infant if better provided for by giving better nutrition to the nursing mothers. That is what is missing from the Nestle boycott.
Ted is a sonofabitch but he is no different than the rest at the world bank. I am currently installing a water catchment system off my roof. All I have room for is a 1500 gallon tank but damn, I pay near a $100.00 a month for my water which is imported from the Colorado river. I once lived in an adobe home however it was only 15 ft. above the water table. I taped a percolator system and found the best tasting water I have ever had. A house made of dirt DOES NOT mix well with water, for those not clear...
baton rouge and new york both have spectacular water and i drink it like crazy. drinking water in the third worls is a huge and real problem, far more important than many of the nonsense issues we obsess over when we pretend to care about crap. bad water is mostly an issue about economic development is crappy countries, and we as americans cant really do much about it, except for to encourage democracy and free trade worldwide.
Turner is actually doing much more conservation that exploitation on all of his land holdings. Many were bought specifically to protect them from development.
Not to mention the cost. It is so heavy that trucks can't fill up with just "water" so they have to make more trips with more trucks to get it all to where it is going. Bad for roads, consumes more fuel, blah blah.
Water is something most of us take for granted, that is for sure. It takes a lot more effort to provide clean drinking water to your home than most people imagine. Someone posed a question at a meeting I was in one time, asking what entity uses the most electricity in Austin. Answers were typical - University of Texas, AMD, Intel, Freescale, all the large corporations - but the answer is Austin Water Utility. My wife is a Civil Engineer who specializes in water. I'm going to have to tell her about that film.
I work for a branch of a major corporation that deals in water/wastewater pumping systems for municipalities. You would not believe the amount of electricity used in capturing, pumping and treating water. In fact, the major emphasis these days is finding new ways to reduce electrical usage. However, as I said earlier, most major cities have very old equipment, unless they have built new plants or improved older ones. That equipment is very energy inefficient but expensive to replace. It's a catch 22-spend the money to upgrade or maintain old equipment with higher operating costs. Most governments prefer to pay higher operating and maintenance costs rather than big capital expenditures, even if it means more money spent in the long run. It's a tough mentality to change.
The year we moved here, the city had just passed a bond issue to build new desalination / reverse osmosis plants. They built 2. To pay for this, they increased water rates by a factor of 2.5. They acted surprised when consumption plummeted, thus revenues plummeted as well. Solution? Let's raise rates again! I currently use about half as much water as we used to use in BR (even though I have 2 teenagers now. In BR, I am basing this on when it was just Lisa and I. My water bill in BR (w/ sewer, garbage, recycle fee and all the others) was 25-40 bucks per month. Here, it runs at least $100 bucks per month and it is set to go up again. Can't wait to leave this tax happy town.
