Sunday, July 6, 2014

Water like All Basic Human Rights is For Sale

Staff Writer, Nicole Meyer-Greene
Water / Renewal Resources
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With water resources becoming more scarce from corporate polluting and pillaging, people all over the world are voicing their concerns over privatizing and profiteering the public's natural resources. 

Just like in the Great Lakes region, Companies Extracting B.C. Groundwater For Free are causing quite a stir. Corporations are caught time and time again stealing resources and selling them back to the people for a profit. Water is not the only one, oil, trace elements are taken from countries to make products in others.  

How is water viewed in the commercial world? One CEO was caught making the case for privatization and later recanted: "People are using a video interview Mr Brabeck gave in 2005 to argue that he thinks water should be privatised. This is not the case. He is not in favour of privatization, but is advocating more efficient water management by individuals, industry, agriculture and governments. He makes this clear in an interview given to the Guardian newspaper in February 2013." 

Detroit is currently turning off water to those residents who cannot pay. Detroit's Water War: a tap shut-off that could impact 300,000 people, so much for people's rights. 

Why not create a water crisis so that people who own land near or on huge aquifers can enjoy selling water to the people for a price? The Guarani Aquifer: a little known water resource in South America gets a voice, "George W Bush owns a huge ranch on the aquifer which some activists are interpreting as an American neo-imperialist threat to South America’s sovereignty." You betcha. 

A product developed for African nations may be of use in these situations of growing water inaccessibility. It's called the Warka Water. The device is "an inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air."
The invention from Arturo Vittori, an industrial designer, and his colleague Andreas Vogler doesn't involve complicated gadgetry or feats of engineering, but instead relies on basic elements like shape and material and the ways in which they work together.

At first glance, the 30-foot-tall, vase-shaped towers, named after a fig tree native to Ethiopia, have the look and feel of a showy art installation. But every detail, from carefully-placed curves to unique materials, has a functional purpose.

The rigid outer housing of each tower is comprised of lightweight and elastic juncus stalks, woven in a pattern that offers stability in the face of strong wind gusts while still allowing air to flow through. A mesh net made of nylon or polypropylene, which calls to mind a large Chinese lantern, hangs inside, collecting droplets of dew that form along the surface. As cold air condenses, the droplets roll down into a container at the bottom of the tower. The water in the container then passes through a tube that functions as a faucet, carrying the water to those waiting on the ground.

Using mesh to facilitate clean drinking water isn't an entirely new concept. A few years back, an MIT student designed a fog-harvesting device with the material. But Vittori's invention yields more water, at a lower cost, than some other concepts that came before it.
More photos here at Architect and Vision

Instead of turning to the United Nations for help, by the way our current economic depression and past recessions can be directly linked to the U.N.'s social justice stance, why not create our own solutions? To the United Nations and their advocates, one nation cannot be better in any way than any other nation. This notion and other ideologies have created terrible outcomes for Americans including gun registration and confiscation (U.N.'s ATT), land grabs (Agenda 21), education deficiencies (Common Core, amongst others), and let's not forget one world government. 

But all in all, the United Nations does not believe in rights or freedoms unless the U.N. approves your motivation:

Article 29.

  • (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
  • (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
  • (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
It seems that the only way to correct the path America is on is to provide our own needs through invention, innovation, and genius.

We cannot depend on anyone else safeguarding our life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness but us.