Water Wars

In her book Vanada Shiva points out a growing concern many people do not pay attention do in their everyday lives. We take water for granted, and find hard to imagine a day when the tap runs dry. In Water Wars the author does an excellent job of analyzing the privatization, pollution, and profit of water in the International arena. She takes a scientific approach and explains the means and methods of water processing and extraction. In offering several tragic examples of where the water tables have already run dry in India, and the horrible loss of life which followed. Clearly, that which we take for granted in America is something of scarcity in other less fortunate countries. Either way, Shiva points out in her book the necessity of understanding that once the drinkable water is gone, there are no alternatives (Shiva 15). The water crisis, being an ecological disaster with commercial causes requires a worldwide overhaul of pollution standards - industrialized countries and poor countries alike must address the situation quickly, because once the water runs out calamity is just around the corner.

The author spends a deal of time assessing the climate change and the threat it poses to the water supply. Clearly, cyclones and tsunamis pose a great threat to the water supply. At the time the book was published the tsunami of 2004 had not happened yet, but in Shiva's analysis of the cyclone of 99's damage to the water supply I can only imagine the massive amount of damage the most recent tsunami must have done. Over the past century the world's climate has been getting increasingly warmer, and she explains on page 42 that as the level of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere rises, more heat is trapped and the global temperature steadily raises. This is ultimately behind the recent weather shifts, the numerous hurricanes, and recent flooding and droughts throughout India. One would think that flooding, as an over abundance of water, would not damage water supply, however it does so tremendously. Flood water is dirty and not drinkable, and because of the oil, pesticides, gases, and poisons swept away with floods the drinkable water is polluted and destroyed forever. This sadly leads to tremendous loss of life due to infection, sickness, and dehydration. It is piteous that ultimately, behind all this devastation and slow parching of our planet is corporate greed.

Shiva did an excellent job of setting the stage for her attack