DRANT #303: GENERATIONAL CAPITALISM

We must look our children and grandchildren in the eye.
And beg for forgiveness.
Beg that they will forgive us for robbing them of their future.
That they will forgive us when they have nothing to drink or breathe or eat.
Forgive us for drinking it all, and fouling it all, and wasting it all - and consuming it all, and leaving nothing for them.
We don't need cute t shirts or tear jerky photos of Polar Bear cubs, or "green" movements or "ecological" organizations.
What we need is to stop our insane consumption, now.
We must all of us change our lives-- one of us at a time, each of us - one day at a time, one hour at a time, one gluttonous decision at a time.
One meal and one car ride and one Evian at a time.
One flush and one shower, and one round of golf and one hamburger, and one dog washing at a time.
Or you can look your children in the eye, and explain why you chose the air conditioner and the nice green lawn over their future.


http://www.prospect.org/cs/special_report















Where Has All the Water Gone?
MAUDE BARLOW
"The world's water crisis poses grave threats to our survival. Can we change course?
Imagine a world in 20 years in which no substantive progress has been made to provide basic water services in the Third World; or to create laws to protect source water and force industry and industrial agriculture to stop polluting water systems; or to curb the mass movement of water by pipeline, tanker, and other diversions, which will have created huge new swaths of desert.
Desalination plants will ring the world's oceans, many of them run by nuclear power; corporate-controlled nanotechnology will clean up sewage water and sell it to private utilities, which will in turn sell it back to us at a huge profit; the rich will drink only bottled water found in the few remaining uncontaminated parts of the world or sucked from the clouds by corporate-controlled machines, while the poor will die in increasing numbers from a lack of water.
This is not science fiction. This is where the world is headed unless we change course--a moral and ecological imperative. But first we must come to terms with the dimension of the crisis.
...The freshwater crisis is easily as great a threat to the Earth and humans as climate change (to which it is deeply linked) but has had very little attention paid to it in comparison. It is like a comet poised to hit the Earth. If a comet really did threaten the entire world, it is likely that our politicians would suddenly find that religious and ethnic differences had lost much of their meaning. Political leaders would quickly come together to find a solution to this common threat.
However, with rare exceptions, average people do not know that the world is facing a comet called the global water crisis. And they are not being served by their political leaders, who are in some kind of inexplicable denial. The crisis is not reported enough in the mainstream media, and when it is, it is usually reported as a regional or local problem, not an international one..."
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Facing Up to Freshwater Pollution
NANCY STONER AND JON DEVINE
We are at a turning point as momentous as the 1970s, when the Clean Water Act was enacted.

The Backlash Against Bottled Water
KARL FLECKER

Water Wisdom
ROGER D. STONE
A conversation with water expert Peter H. Gleick on today's crisis, and a vision for tomorrow's sustainability

The Perils of Privatization
WENONAH HAUTER
The conflict between multinational corporations' quest for profits and the simple human right to clean, safe water

Changing Water Policies in the Dry Southwest
CHRISTINA ROESSLER
Smart water use and a shift in water culture form a winning strategy.

The Missing Piece: A Water Ethic
SANDRA POSTEL
We must make the protection of freshwater ecosystems a central goal in all that we do.
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