And That's My Take...(Water is the New Oil)

AND THAT’S MY TAKE…(WATER IS THE NEW OIL)
© 2010 by Curtis Sagmeister. All Rights Reserved.

Water is the new oil.

That phrase will soon be as famous as the three opening words of Moby Dick.

But water is so much more than oil, for it gives life, nourishes our body and land, and dictates when and where mankind congregate. Those that have it shall enjoy luxury beyond the wildest imaginations of the oil tycoons and sheiks of today. Those who need it shall be their slaves, in every sense of the meaning.

As Mother Earth warms, climatic change affects flora and fauna alike, and mankind, it his ever present greed, stands in the middle, ready to exploit his position, to capitalize on the misfortune of others. It is not entirely wrong that this occurs. Since the dawn of mankind this has been the one universal truth. One has an abundance of bananas because he lives where they flourish. Another has widgets because of the close proximity of raw goods to manufacture them. Each seek top dollar for their commodity.

As long as one is prepared to pay for the optional commodities of bananas or widgets, then some form of trade can occur, whether it is for currency or for another commodity. Indeed, if both parties were so inclined, trading widgets for bananas would be a sane enterprise.

But what about water?

Water is an essential component to everything we make, everything we do, and almost everything in our being. Our brain is 80% water. We simply cannot survive without water.

The emerging economy will place a very high premium on the price of quality drinking water. We can see this developing already in our supermarkets, where entire aisles are devoted to bottled drinking water in every flavour, assortment, and claim one can conjure. The two leading world soft drink manufacturers, Coke and Pepsi, now rely on their respective branded water products for a stately portion of their revenues. And the seemingly regular ‘boil water’ advisories streaming from health authorities in our developed nations does little to ensure confidence in our supply of fresh drinking water.

It is indeed true that something in the order of a billion of the world’s human population does not have access to potable drinking water. Some estimates claim more than half of the world’s population relies on drinking water that is at risk.

So, it is little wonder then, that when one nation has a seemingly endless supply of safe drinking water, and another country needs a similarly endless supply of the good hydrogen/oxygen collaboration, that entrepreneurs and oligarchs will carve out a niche for themselves to monetize that which we have made even more precious by our wrongdoings.

Schemes and plots already in play have countries pitted against each other, adding to mounting tensions that currently include claims on other resources and sovereignty. With world politics and military actions becoming more common (often without regard to national or international law), can it be any wonder that nations with an abundance of water have their eyebrow raised at neighbouring countries with the military might to goosestep their way through our puddles?

And that’s my take…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photographer. Author. Poet. Songwriter. Student of Human Behavior. Community Activist. Social Commentator. Environmental Steward. Wage Slave.

Visit Curtis Sagmeister online at www.sagmeister.ca
Visit Curtis Sagmeister blog at http://curtissagmeister.blogspot.com