Water: The Blue Gold that Threatens World Stability

The showdown for control of the world’s water, the so-called “blue gold,” could intensify during the next few years in the face of unrestrained efforts by the world’s dominant economic and political powers to monopolize that vital resource. The crisis advances silently; the media speaks of wars in the Middle East, in Africa and in other corners of the world, and little is said of the threat that looms over the majority of the world’s population.

California, made famous more than a century ago by the gold fever in that part of the western United States, now accumulates land titles as it faces a terrible drought — a situation some farmers have used to their advantage by selling their private water reserves at the price of gold.

The “Salad Bowl” state, which has an annual agricultural production valued at $44.6 billion and produces half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, has suffered an absence of rain for three consecutive summers. An article from the newspaper La Opinión cited economists who reported that the resulting need for water has multiplied the price of that essential liquid 10 times in the last five years.

Scientists indicate that global warming will worsen the droughts and increase the cost of maintaining the water supply system in that western state of the United States, all of which is expected to compound the crisis even more.

Furthermore, the Department of Water Resources specified that the rains in 2013 were only 25 percent of what is traditionally registered — those 180 millimeters represent the lowest number since 1895. The department also warned that those arid conditions could continue throughout this entire year.

This weather predicament, however, is nothing compared to the situation that faces the 783 million people who live without clean water, as well as the 2.5 billion people who lack appropriate sanitary conditions, among them more than 1 billion who defecate in the open air, according to data from the United Nations.

This water shortage is poised to become one of the most threatening problems on the planet, a cause for war between countries and oppressive competition between economic powers to take control of the “blue gold.”

Human causes, such as rapid population growth, outdated infrastructure, excessive pumping of aquifers, inefficient farming practices, and fertilizer and pesticide contamination, all influence the problem. Then there are factors accelerated by climate change, like the evaporation of lakes and rivers and the decrease in precipitation.

Nevertheless, in the face of what could be a catastrophe of global proportions, it is shocking to see how the centers of financial — and therefore political — power have behaved on the international stage.

An article published on the website of a Canadian academic organization, Global Research, on May 22, 2014 warns that the new water barons, the big banks of Wall Street, are rushing to buy up huge reserves of the precious liquid throughout the entire world. Jo-Shing Yang, the author of the analysis, warns that the investments made by banks such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, and Barclays Bank, among others, are part of the alarming trend that is gaining speed all over the world.

These financial entities are consolidating their control over the water supply at the same time that some governments are working rapidly to limit the capacity of natural citizens to be self-sufficient in terms of water.

Jo-Shing cites the case of a U.S. citizen, Gary Harrington, in the state of Oregon, who was declared guilty of collecting rainwater in three tanks situated on his farm and sentenced to 30 days in prison. On the other hand, the multimillionaire T. Boone Pickens, as the owner of the Ogallala aquifer, has access to more water than any person in the United States, and can use 65 million gallons of the liquid per year.

The evidence points to a new world order, in which multimillionaires and elite banks are allowed to possess aquifers and lakes, but common citizens cannot even collect rain water or snow in their own backyards or private lands, commented the Canadian website’s publication.

Some analysts suspect that big investors and world banks are swarming to the water sector not only to buy the rights to the reserves of the crucial liquid and technologies for its treatment, but also to hunt for opportunities to privatize public water services and infrastructure.

The article from Global Research believes that Wall Street is pouring billions of dollars into the water sector as it prepares to take part in the global appropriation of the world’s water supply during the next few decades.

A wide range of investment possibilities, even more than those offered by oil, are enticing the groups that are attempting to monopolize the precious liquid. Water rights encompass, for example, the use of subterranean aquifers; the use of rivers, lakes and natural springs on the earth’s surface; participation in desalination projects; management of water purification and treatment technologies; and control of irrigation and well-drilling technologies.

The water sector in general includes public water and sanitation services, water infrastructure maintenance, water engineering services, and the profitable business of the production and sales of bottled liquids. Since 2008, many big banks and super investors have been obtaining increased profits from the market in the water sector and the identification of the liquid as a basic commodity that is much more significant than oil, said Jo-Shing in his analysis of the problem.

For some of these magnates, water shortage is the definitive crisis of the 21st century, even more important than the scarcity of oil or the energy crisis. But this growing emergency, instead of encouraging groups of power to engage in coordinated action to prevent a world catastrophe, has actually created more competition for a market that already in 2005, only in the United States, generated an income of about $190 billion — a sum that has since almost tripled.

The fight for the control of water isn’t limited to the reserves in the Libyan under soil, the Saharan desert, other Middle Eastern zones, or the South American Amazon.

The largest banks in the world, like JP Morgan Chase, maintain an aggressive policy everywhere in the world. In October 2007, JP Morgan beat out its rivals, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, in the race to buy stocks in the United Kingdom sector. According to Global Research, JP Morgan sees the financing of infrastructure as a global phenomenon, and it continues to pour money into its investments in efforts to take advantage of the world’s water supply and its infrastructure.

This is the situation the world population faces. If organizations like the United Nations cannot manage to unite efforts for the common good, then the future looks all the more uncertain, fraught with wars and growing inequalities, thanks to the fight to control the “blue gold.”