Avoid those purchased water bottles--where possible.Yes, one can readily see how the decommodification of water will be a boon to the poor everywhere.
The United Church's 39th General Council voted August 17 to discourage the purchase of bottled water "starting within its courts and congregations."
Meeting in one of its three decision-making commissions, the Council also voted to boldly affirm its conviction that "water is a sacred gift that connects all life," and the privatization of water must be avoided.
"Its value to the common good must take priority over commercial interests," said the Council. "Privatization turns a common good into a commodity, depriving those who cannot pay and further threatening local ecosystems."...
It voted to "firmly call upon our federal government to declare water as a human right, support municipalities in keeping water in public control, and resist any attempts by the United States to increase exports of Canadian fresh water under the energy proportional sharing provisions of NAFTA."...
The Council voted to receive for information the report "Water: Life before Profit."
[Emphasis added]
18 January 2007
The Sacred Tragedy Of The Commons
Belated word comes from Canada that it is a sin to drink bottled water. The United Church of Canada (L'Eglise Unie du Canada) has decided that water is a human right and thus must be protected from profiteers and the United States:
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If you understand "common good" to mean "the good of leftists," then it's not clear they care about what decommodification of water would do for the poor.
I assume that what's really going on here is that they don't understand what it means for something to be a "commodity," and thus don't understand that they're asking for water to stop being cheap and readily available. Of course, that they are so ignorant of a topic that they feel competent to lecture the rest of us on is what makes them leftists.
Robert Schwartz is putting the final touches on the invasion plan even as we speak, Peter. You and the missus just sit tight and keep your heads down. When it's all done we shall invite you over for a beer and a soak in our new quarter-acre hot tub.
I wonder what the Canadians thought of that movie "V" where the lizard aliens come down to steal our water.
My guess as to the timing of the "huge rapacious Yankee pipelines for sucking good Canadian water" is between 20 - 40 years from now.
It's pretty clear that 21st century America will have to either suck up Canadian water, or build a lot of expensive water-purification plants. Or grow less food.
Why do Canadians recoil in horror at selling actual water to America, but slaver over selling us wood & wheat, which are largely just processed sunlight & water ?
It sounds as though if we can only genetically engineer beavers who will divert Canadian rivers of their own accord, we can have all the water we want.
There is something about this that puzzles me. Why are we talking about precious Canadian water when we've got so much good old Illinoisan water? Last I looked Lake Michigan extends all the way down to Chicago. And the Great Lakes are all interconnected, right? I say we drain the sucker, and let our good friends to the north refill it for us.
[T]he Governor of Arizona insists he has found a far more rational way to solve the water problem.
There is of course a completely rational way to solve America's water "problem" - don't let any more people live in the Southwest, and quit raising so much beef.
There's plenty of water in America, it's just not where we most want it to be.
But it's easier to buy water than to give up freedom of movement and red meat.
If you think Peter's crazy, cognac-fueled paranoid fantasy scenaro is just so much Canadian defeatist blather, you really gotta read "Cadillac Desert". There was a time when Texas lawmakers lobbied for a federal water project to pump Mississippi water 500 miles uphill to turn west Texas into another Imperial valley.
Seriously, it is a fascinating read.
The problem with clergy is that they really have no practical role to play in society except to recite some canned liturgy twice on Sunday and then to answer angry letters during the week about where all the collection plate money is going and counsel some overwrought parents that their adolescentson Johnny probably isn't going th Hell because he spends too much time in the bathfoom. So they drum up these harebrained ideas to give their vocation some relevance.
There was a priest in my parish back home in RI who believed God called him to bless the Scituate reservoir so that we could all have Holy Water on tap.
Peter: nice try indeed. Water flows downhill. Hah! But if you are right, then we still have invasion and conquest as the low-cost option.
I'm just joking, Peter. Sorry! :(
I thought of using gin-soaked, but I knew you had classier tastes than that.
This shows that I shouldn't be blogging when I'm stoked on cheap homemade beer.
Nice try. Lake Michigan flows north. Ha ha!
At its current level, that is.
Should the US drain Lake Michigan sufficiently to lower its level by, IIRC, about 30 feet, then that flow would reverse.
Keep in mind, again IIRC, Lake Michigan is by far the deepest of the Great Lakes.
So there is plenty of room to let gravity do our work.
But don't forget, wars are started over such bald-faced resource grabs, especially over water...
Oh, wait, it's Canada. Carry on.
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