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Water Crisis: A Global Problem That's Getting Worse | Planet A — Transcript

by VICE News · 3,074 words · 414 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01Earth...
0:02the only planet in our solar system covered in water.
0:06Water was born 4.5 billion years ago
0:09among the cloud of gas and dust
0:11that collapsed to form our solar system.
0:14Icy particles collided and stuck together,
0:18creating pebbles and boulders
0:20and eventually planets the size of Earth.
0:22Volcanic eruptions released this water into the air,
0:25and, with help from icy comets and asteroids,
0:29created a freshwater ocean that turned the planet blue.
0:33Falling rain washed salt into the ocean,
0:35leaving fresh water mostly trapped in ice caps and glaciers.
0:40And as those glaciers receded,
0:42humans flooded into river valleys,
0:44built civilizations near water,
0:47and began to change it on a global scale.
0:51We’ve polluted it with toxins from industry
0:53and runoff from agriculture.
0:56We’ve taken more than our fair share
0:58by draining aquifers and entire seas.
1:01And we’ve disrupted the rains by dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
1:06We can only live a few days without water.
1:08And only by changing our relationship to it
1:11can we hope to avoid the coming crisis.
1:27[PLANET A]
1:29[Let’s unleash our collective power to save the planet.]
1:31[What can go right? Planet A. Supported by Zurich.]
1:32[WATER]
1:41From an indigenous perspective,
1:43water is understood as being a living force
1:46and as being equated to life itself.
1:49So, water isn’t thought about as separate from people.
1:52It's more understood to be
1:55who we are and in relationship to us.
1:58Deborah McGregor teaches at York University in Toronto
2:02and is Anishinaabe from the White River First Nation.
2:06She’s devoted her career to researching water,
2:08its place in the environment, and environmental justice.
2:12I just grew up right there, by the water.
2:14And you kind of knew it so well.
2:16We had to, you know, cut a hole in the ice to get the water.
2:20Pretty well, we had to do this everyday.
2:22McGregor’s an expert on how Canada’s original inhabitants
2:26managed the land.
2:27And how their knowledge can help reform a system
2:30that treats water like just another commodity.
2:33I think even if people don’t know very much about water,
2:38everyone still has a very intimate relationship with water.
2:42Everyone still needs water everyday in some form,
2:46in some form to live.
2:48All civilizations have needed access to clean water to survive.
2:53And we have always built those civilizations near water
2:56and spent centuries building systems
2:58to deliver water over hundreds of miles.
3:01For billions of years,
3:03water has been the lifeblood of the planet,
3:05as it flowed from the oceans
3:07to the air, and then down to Earth.
3:10But in just the geological blink of an eye,
3:13humans are fundamentally and irreversibly
3:16disrupting this natural cycle.
3:19And one impact is causing the most obvious damage.
3:23Climate change exasperates everything that’s happening
3:25in relation to water.
3:27And we can see this actually playing out
3:29in the United States right now.
3:30You have one part of the country having major wildfires,
3:34and they would desperately like to have water.
3:37Meanwhile, opposite end of the country,
3:39they’re dealing with major flood-like situations involving hurricanes.
3:43So what you have is some places have way too much water,
3:46and other places who desperately need the water aren’t getting it.
3:51This increasing imbalance is being felt around the world.
3:55In the last four decades,
3:57drought has devastated more people worldwide
4:00than any other natural disaster.
4:09[SHRINKING SUPPLY]
4:11Somalia is used to frequent droughts.
4:14But not ones that last as long as this one.
4:17It’s been going on since 2015.
4:21How does this experience compare to
4:24what happened with the drought in 2011?
4:26The previous drought wasn’t a big deal.
4:29It isn't worth mentioning.
4:32But this one happening now,
4:34do you know what they are calling it?
4:36“The Elder Giant.”
4:38Because it hit most of Somalia.
4:40Over ten years of nearly continuous drought here
4:43has killed much of the livestock
4:46and driven nearly 50 percent of the country to the brink of famine.
4:51We have been traveling along this road for miles.
4:55I left some of my herd by the side of the road that couldn’t go on.
4:59That’s what’s happening, there’s no fresh water available.
5:07Climate change is also melting ice caps and glaciers,
5:11which is reducing the world’s supply of fresh water.
5:14Melting snow and glaciers from the Andes and Himalayas
5:17provide water for drinking and for agriculture
5:20to one fifth of humanity.
5:23And in North America,
5:24the receding snowpack in the Eastern Sierras
5:27is affecting tens of millions of Californians.
5:31NASA estimates that seven areas across the globe
5:34are losing nearly 300 billion tonnes of ice every year.
5:39Dwindling access to water
5:40is triggering migrations in many countries.
5:43When people don’t have access to water
5:46because there actually isn’t any
5:48because they’re dealing with drought-like conditions,
5:50people will have to move.
5:51They’re basically climate change refugees.
5:56[GUARITA, HONDURAS]
6:01In Central America’s Golden Triangle, crop yields are dropping.
6:09Audelio Mejia and his family have been farming these lands for decades.
6:14Now he's dealing with crippling droughts year after year.
6:19For us, the way the climate's been changing is a threat.
6:23When water was needed most, we didn't have it.
6:27That’s why the production from this harvest was low.
6:35Sometimes when I see examples of friends
6:39or neighbors or people I know [leaving],
6:43it's tempting to migrate but...
6:45It’s difficult for a farmer and worse if there’s nobody to give guidance.
6:53But while it’s easy to blame climate change
6:55for the global water crisis,
6:58there’s a far more powerful force at work.
7:05Farming uses 70 percent of all available fresh water on the planet.
7:10And it’s a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions,
7:14second only to energy production.
7:18Industrial agriculture sucks up huge amounts of water
7:22in places like Colorado.
7:24It drains rivers and streams to irrigate corn
7:27to feed cattle in massive feedlots.
7:30The water use is astounding.
7:33It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one bushel of corn,
7:37and each head of cattle eats 50 bushels of corn over its lifetime.
7:42That adds up to 125,000 gallons of water for every animal.
7:47And because these farms get water for free,
7:50the cost to the planet for cheap meat is rapidly disappearing groundwater.
7:58[SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CA]
8:02This has far-reaching impacts on farmers
8:05and our entire food system.
8:09California’s San Joaquin Valley
8:11is one of the most fertile places on the planet.
8:14And it too is running out of water.
8:20Farmers are being forced to dig deeper and deeper
8:22in order to find less and less groundwater.
8:26We’re the bread basket of the United States.
8:28Fifty percent of your fruits, nuts, vegetables
8:31come from the San Joaquin Valley
8:33or California in general, California agriculture.
8:35Tony Azevedo is a third-generation farmer in the San Joaquin Valley.
8:40He grows tomatoes, pistachios, and other crops
8:44on 8,000 acres of farmland.
8:46You know, for years we didn’t use the wells at all, the groundwater.
8:49We always had surface water to farm with.
8:51The problem now is that we are in a drought.
8:54So we’re relying on groundwater to do all of our irrigating.
8:57What’s the process of planning ahead for what could happen?
9:00Well, now, the last five years,
9:01we’ve been pumping a lot of groundwater
9:04to keep this ranch going.
9:06And eventually, we’re going to run out.
9:08We have 85 employees.
9:10Some of them are third generation, counting on us to stay solvent,
9:14so that’s always in the back of my mind,
9:16how long we can go here.
9:19What’s the plan if this continues and there’s no rain,
9:22no runoff?
9:24I guess we're done.
9:29Disappearing groundwater isn’t just a problem in the United States.
9:33This NASA satellite map
9:35shows just how bad things have gotten.
9:38The red you see on the map
9:40shows the places where groundwater is being steadily depleted.
9:44As early as 2025,
9:46experts say that half the world’s population
9:49will be living in places where there isn’t enough water.
9:52And it's estimated that by 2040,
9:54most of the world won’t have enough water
9:56to keep up with demand all year long.
10:04And when wells run dry,
10:06existing tensions flare up.
10:12In Basra, Iraq,
10:13severe water shortages helped spark anti-government protests.
10:18My throat is dry, but I would never take [water] from them!
10:21We had three basic demands:
10:22water, electricity, and employment.
10:26Now they bring water.
10:27We don’t want it.
10:30Shame on you criminals!
10:40The danger posed by our looming water crisis
10:42is listed by the World Economic Forum
10:44as among the top ten global risks to humanity,
10:48just below weapons of mass destruction,
10:50but above natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
10:55Yet the main cause of the water crisis isn’t just climate change.
10:59It’s rooted in our relationship to water.
11:02So when water becomes a resource,
11:04it then has to be “managed” as a natural resource.
11:09So, then laws are created,
11:10authority and jurisdiction is given to what can happen to water
11:14and then who can have access to it.
11:16It could be allocated to forestry operations,
11:19it could be allocated to agriculture,
11:22so people will then compete
11:24because it creates that kind of capitalist competition scenario.
11:29Who wins and who loses in that competition
11:31has direct consequences not just for people
11:34but also for ecosystems.
11:39[APALACHICOLA, FL]
11:42When the state of Georgia allows the city of Atlanta
11:45and South Georgia farmers
11:46to pull hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day
11:49from the Chattahoochee river in the middle of a drought,
11:53it actually affects the oysters in Florida.
11:57I was kind of working at the bottom.
12:00Hurting oystermen like Aberham Hartsfield
12:02and his son Shannon.
12:06We never had sea urchins in our oyster bars before.
12:11This fresh water comes and pushes all these predators away.
12:14And right now, the salinity has changed drastically.
12:18Less fresh water in Apalachicola Bay
12:21means more predators,
12:23and that means fewer oysters for the Hartsfields to harvest.
12:27Because of decisions being made in Georgia,
12:29Shannon Hartsfield says oystering is nothing like it’s been in the past.
12:34You caught and threw them into the bottom of the boat
12:36and it would pile up.
12:39So many species are disappearing,
12:41and we need them for ecosystem health.
12:42And you need to have ecosystem health in order for people to be healthy.
12:50[WATER JUSTICE]
12:55Even though we wouldn’t survive more than a few days without water,
12:59it wasn’t until 2010 that the UN passed a resolution
13:02recognizing that access to it is a human right.
13:07And even when they do have access to it,
13:09poor water quality means that access can be deadly.
13:14Nearly 3.5 million people, mostly children,
13:17die every year from water-borne disease.
13:21Two billion people don’t have access to clean, safe water.
13:27In India, the Ganges river is sacred to the nation’s 1 billion Hindus.
13:33But it’s also one of the worlds most polluted waterways.
13:38The Ganges is the main source of water
13:39for more than 500 million people,
13:42but it’s contaminated with viruses and bacteria
13:46that cause life-threatening diseases like cholera,
13:48typhoid, and viral diarrhea.
13:53Today, Ganga is more polluted than it was 30 years ago.
13:59I have seen the situation worsening only.
14:02No improvement at all.
14:051.6 billion gallons of raw sewage and industrial waste
14:10pour into the Ganges every day.
14:12How much sewage is coming out there right now?
14:14150 million liters per day.
14:19Why aren’t there processing centers
14:21or water treatment facilities or infrastructure, basically, to--
14:24This is the inability and inefficiency of the government.
14:29Even though you could be living right beside a river
14:32you can’t drink the water there,
14:33and that’s because of contamination of it
14:37through industrial development.
14:38So, it’s an inequitable burden placed on the people downstream,
14:41who then have to live with the contaminated water.
14:45In the city of Kanpur, for example,
14:47hundreds of tanneries release toxic chemicals and heavy metals
14:51into the water.
14:53Those who contribute least to the pollution
14:55are the ones who suffer the most.
15:00Water's responsibility
15:03as an entity or having agency
15:06is to support life.
15:07And we interfere with that by polluting it,
15:10by damming it, stopping it from flowing
15:12and doing what it should be doing.
15:14So, we interfere with water doing its job, basically.
15:18And we don’t have the right to do that.
15:19And every time we do that, that’s an injustice.
15:22Industrial contamination,
15:24basically release of chemicals and contaminants into fresh water
15:30has had devastating impacts on the natural world
15:33because of the impact on aquatic life.
15:37These impacts on plants and animals trickle down
15:40and can affect humans as well, sometimes for generations.
15:44Some heavy metals can stay in the sediment of rivers and lakes
15:47for hundreds of years.
15:52[SYRACUSE, NY]
15:57Lake Onondaga in northern New York State
16:00was once called the most polluted lake in America.
16:04Decades of industrial pollution
16:05turned the lake into a toxic waste site.
16:09Even though the pollution stop decades ago,
16:11children and women of child-bearing age
16:13can't eat the fish in the lake because of high levels of mercury.
16:18The company that’s responsible for dealing with the pollution
16:21says the lake has been cleaned up.
16:24But the Onondaga Nation, the traditional stewards of the lake,
16:28disagree.
16:30We’ve cleaned up the lake. We’ve done the dredging and capping.
16:33We’re doing the habitat restoration, which is turning out wonderfully.
16:38Honeywell, which bought out one of the original polluters,
16:41and taxpayers have spent around a billion dollars
16:44to clean up the bottom of the lake.
16:46And the company is still restoring other sites around the shore.
16:51Sid Hill, a member of the Onondaga Nation,
16:54says Honeywell and New York state need to be doing more.
16:58What’s your biggest critique when it comes to the way
17:01this whole remediation project has been going with the lake?
17:06It’s just the idea of not disclosing everything
17:09and having this propaganda issue that it’s clean, it’s a clean lake.
17:13“Oh, we cleaned the lake.”
17:16It’s still a superfund site.
17:18There’s still toxins in there.
17:20I don’t see the next generation ever seeing a clean lake.
17:26The legacy of industrial contamination
17:28isn’t just confined to Onondaga Lake.
17:31So, I also grew up that if you were a woman of child-bearing age,
17:35you shouldn’t be eating a certain number of fish
17:37from the Great Lakes because they were contaminated.
17:39You know, people have this relationship with water,
17:41but that relationship is starting to be disrupted
17:43through contamination of water.
17:46For Jeanne and Sid, the larger issue is the system
17:49that led to the contamination in the first place.
17:52Who do you blame for the pollution?
17:54Whoever runs those multinational corporations
17:58that trample over
18:01and harm the environment
18:03or whatever else is ever in their way for their profits.
18:08I think about that a lot.
18:09What was anybody thinking of when they were just...
18:14free dumping into the water, just dumping, dumping.
18:20When no one takes responsibility for the health of the planet's water,
18:24it's easy to pollute.
18:26But trying to own it can be just as disastrous.
18:34Water is thought of as being a commodity,
18:37something to be bought and sold.
18:38Water can also be property.
18:41So water is also understood to be private property,
18:44so you have unequal access, and as a result people suffer.
18:49So having access to fresh water
18:51is really important in order to just live.
18:54[FLINT, MI]
18:59Flint lives matter! Flint lives matter!
19:04In Flint, Michigan,
19:06the government treated water like just another cost to be cut.
19:09It switched the city’s supply to the Flint River
19:12but failed to prevent lead from leaching into the water.
19:16Kaitlyn Tobin's son drank the water.
19:18I barely let him take a bath in the water.
19:22I buy bottled water
19:25and try washing him down as much as I can,
19:27and then he was getting bumps all over.
19:31They said because of the lead in his own blood,
19:33he couldn’t get rid of it.
19:35They know a long time ago that they were poisoning people.
19:39They could care less, so...
19:43Lead is toxic in even the smallest amounts
19:45and can cause irreversible brain damage
19:47and even death in children.
19:49And parents here worry about their kids’ future.
19:54-What do we want? -Clean water!
19:56-When do we want it? -Now!
20:00This water is from my tap.
20:02This right here shows it.
20:03They are saying this is safe for us.
20:05This is what happens when profit take precedence over people.
20:08And we’re just here to stand as one to say that we won’t stand for this.
20:11-What do we want? -Clean water!
20:13-When do we want it? -Now!
20:15If we don’t get it, shut it down!
20:19At the core of our global water crisis
20:21is how we manage and allocate water.
20:24Experts say that if our depletion,
20:27pollution, and misuse of fresh water continues unchecked,
20:30it could affect not only our entire food system
20:33but also push ecosystems and societies
20:35to a point of no return.
20:43Experts say one solution to the looming water crisis
20:46is a radical shift in how we choose to see and value water—
20:50not as a resource or a commodity
20:53but rather as a life-sustaining force
20:55essential for human and planetary health
20:58and an entity in its own right.
21:00In the Anishinaabe concept,
21:01we think about water as being part of four elements
21:04that make up the planet.
21:05And water is always in relation to these other elements.
21:09To me, one of the primary things
21:11that people can learn from indigenous peoples
21:13is that you need to have this relationship with the natural world.
21:20When you’re outside or near water, in the presence of water,
21:26to me, it conveys a sense of respect.
21:29It's a sense of awe that despite everything,
21:32water is still flowing,
21:33water’s still trying to do what it’s supposed to be doing
21:36despite everything that you throw at it.
21:39It’s just such an awesome power.
21:42In this new era, humans are responsible for
21:45the greatest impacts on the planet’s water.
21:48But McGregor believes we still have the power
21:50to change the course we’re on.
21:52People are the ones who have the power and the will
21:54and the intelligence to mess up.
21:57We’re so intelligent that we can be so beautiful
22:00and innovative and creative,
22:03but we can also be so destructive,
22:05so there’s that side of us.
22:07So, we’ve been destructive collectively as humanity,
22:10some way more so than others,
22:12and we have to then use our intelligence
22:15and our will and our power
22:16to solve this huge thing that we’ve created.
22:19So, we’re the ones who actually have to change.

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