world water day

Today is World Water Day 2005. To my mind, water privatization is the scariest demon of this young century. Read about it here and in this excellent article by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke in The Nation. That story is two years old, and awareness has grown somewhat since then, but we have a long way to go. They write:

The antidote to water commodification is its decommodification. Water must be declared and understood for all time to be the common property of all. In a world where everything is being privatized, citizens must establish clear perimeters around those areas that are sacred to life and necessary for the survival of the planet. Simply, governments must declare that water belongs to the earth and all species and is a fundamental human right. No one has the right to appropriate it for profit. Water must be declared a public trust, and all governments must enact legislation to protect the freshwater resources in their territory...

Read more here.