The biggest humanitarian crisis the world over may be the one brought on by the “water wars” - the idea that mega-corporations can actually “own” water. Actually, “own” shouldn’t be in quotation marks. Because they do own it. In hundreds of places around North America, and in thousands of places around the world. Blue Gold is a documentary movie based on a book by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke of the same name. It takes a look at major water companies trying to buy out the water in the United States, and the people who have fought them every step of the way. It deals with the unscrupulous and evil practices of those companies.
It’s nice to see kids taking an interest in this sort of thing. The story of the kid who convinced his school and the stores in his neighbourhood to stop selling a particular brand of water is sweet and inspirational. The kid (from Carleton Place) who started the Ryan’s Well initiative to provide clean water to people in Africa is amazing. But the thing I took away from the movie more than anything else was the incredible, painful, and heartbreaking suffering felt by the people across the world from us, simply because companies own their water.
There is a story about a village in Africa where the water is tapped and doled out by a big international corporation. When one of the houses in that village caught on fire, the neighbours decided not to put it out - or maybe they couldn’t - because they couldn’t afford the water to do so. The young children inside perished in the flames. And this isn’t the only devastating story brought on by the water wars. There are more, and they are sad and awful and they should never, ever happen in this world. What’s amazing is the level of corruption and indifference to human life and suffering exemplified by these companies.
In many cases, the companies feel that it’s in their best interests to allow waterways to become polluted. The water becomes undrinkable, the people get diseases and die, and when the company comes in to buy the water, they appear to be the saviours of the community when they clean up the pollution and restore the water. Then, they sell it to the very people who have been drinking it and bathing in it for free for so long, at such rates that they can no longer afford to live. This is human behaviour at its worst, it’s going on right now all over the world, and it’s just getting worse as more and more places agree to “privatize” their water. People need to know. And this movie is a great way to learn about it.
