Song for Jasmine

Sigourney Weaver is one of my favourite actresses. I first saw her as Ellen Ripley in Alien, when I was at college, and have enjoyed most of the films I’ve seen her in since.

I don’t know if it was “Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey” that set her on the road to environmental awareness, but whatever got her started, she is definitely a powerful voice for the protection of our world.

Her most recent blockbuster movie, Avatar, has certainly helped throw her into the spotlight in this role, together with its director, James Cameron. Even before that film came out, she was using the publicity it was attracting to divert attention to another film, for which she is the narrator. “Acid Test: The global challenge of ocean acidification” is a Natural Resources Defence Council documentary about what has been called “global warmings’ ugly sister”, the chemical changes in the ocean that are being caused by all that CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere.

Fox News wanted to interview Sigourney about her role in Avatar, even starting the interview with some trailers from the film. But she wanted to talk about Acid Test instead, and completely took control of the interview! It’s worth watching, she was clearly not going to be put off her stride by the hosts. One could almost feel sorry for them, but me, I enjoy seeing Sigourney in those ‘Ripley’ moments!

Now, she’s turning her attention to the Belo Monte dam. This is a hydroelectricity generation project which is planned to be built on the Xingu river, in the Brazilian Amazon. She has narrated a video which describes the impact of the dam (also shown here), and invites us to sign a petition to the Brazilian government to encourage them to cancel the project.

Dams which provide hydroelectric power are widely considered to be ecologically friendly things, so why does she think this one is bad?

Well, there are several reasons. One is that this will become the third-largest dam in the world, and the environmental impacts will be correspondingly huge. Building this dam will require moving more earth than was moved to create the Panama canal, and will block almost the entire flow of the river. An area equivalent to a circle 29 km across (18 miles) will be inundated.

Native peoples will have their way of life destroyed, obviously. It’s not surprising they rely heavily on the river for transport and fish, and that they farm much of the land that will be flooded by the dam. Ecosystems will be totally destroyed too, with several species that live only there doomed to extinction.

Of course, not all species will suffer, malaria mosquitos are expected to thrive in the new expanses of still water.

The dam is also destined to be one of the least efficient in the world. During the dry season, it will produce only one tenth of its maximum capacity. The annual average output will be less than 40% of the nominal capacity. In order to raise the efficiency, the Brazilian government needs to construct more dams upstream, to control and regulate the flow of water all year round. In fact, there are more than 60 large dams planned for the amazon basin over the next 60 years. That’s a staggering number!

Many people are hoping for a sequel to Avatar. For the people of the Xingu river, if the Belo Monte dam gets built, there will be no sequel, their world will be gone. So if you can spare 10 minutes, take a look at the video. Then, if you agree with me that this dam is a bad idea, please sign that petition!

I know of a farm where they don’t feed the animals. They even allow predators to roam freely, taking up to one fifth of their stock. And they’re proud of it.

That sounds pretty awful, but it’s not, it’s actually very good news. You can hear all about it in this video of a talk by Dan Barber. Dan is a New York chef who is quite outspoken in his views on the way we produce food today. He’s also a nice guy, which comes across clearly in the video. If you’d rather read a transcript, here it is.

The farm Dan talks about is Veta la Palma. It’s a fish-farm on the Guadalquivir river, in Spain. It produces 1,200 tonnes of sea bass, bream, red mullet and shrimp each year. Miguel Medialdea, the farm’s biologist, explains that they don’t need to feed their fish because of the way the farm is set up.

Miguel himself says that he is not an expert on fish, but he is an expert on relationships. By working with nature to build a sustainable ecosystem, instead of working against it to maximise profit, Veta la Palma produces fish in a way that also benefits the wildlife of the region.

In fact, their farm is one of the most important private estates for bird life in Europe. Before the farm, there were only 50 bird species there, now they count 250 species. This includes flamingos that commute 150 miles daily from their nesting sites to feed there, following the A92 highway.

If that’s not a recommendation for the quality of the fish, I don’t know what is!

In the latest James Bond film, A Quantum of Solace, our hero thwarts the plans of a major international criminal organisation. They were planning to take control of the government in Bolivia by taking control of the nation’s water supply. That sounded a bit far-fetched to me when I saw it. I didn’t know then that it had already happened! The World Bank forced water-privatisation on Bolivia back in 1997, as part of their preconditions for receiving aid. The companies that took the contracts explicitly excluded many poor city-districts from the water supply, and increased prices dramatically for those that did get water. You can see for yourself some of the bills people were getting. Maybe this James Bond film isn’t so far from the truth after all?

I learned about this by watching a film called FLOW, For Love Of Water, by Irena Salina. You can see this film for yourself via YouTube, it’s available in 8 parts, and they are linked at the end of this article. I can highly recommend it, it’s an eye-opener. Here are some highlights for you.

Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil. It seems odd to make an industry out of something which is as fundamental to human life as air and food, and which falls from the sky. You’d think there would be enough for everyone, and indeed there ought to be. According to the UN Human Development Report 2006 (chapter 4, page 133):

One in every 10 Bolivian children dies before they are 5 years old, mostly from lack of clean drinking water. Privatisation of water-resources has been a disaster for them. But what about you? Who owns the water you drink? Who owns the water that falls on your land? Probably not you. Some of the earliest empires in the world relied on control of water for their power. Even today, however, it seems that “hydraulic empire” are still very much in existance.

In South Africa, river water can carry cholera and other diseases. Privatisation has led to the installment of pre-pay water meters, at prices that can amount to one fifth of a persons’ income, replacing what used to be free communal pumps. Many families cannot afford to pay for water that used to be freely available. They have no choice but to resort to using untreated water, with all the health risks that involves. Hardly a service to the people.

Jean-Luc Touly, a former accountant with Vivendi/Veolia, asks the question: How can Vivendi shareholders wait 10-15 years for profit from poor people? Obviously they won’t, they’ll be looking for a faster return on their investment. Jean-Luc is now very outspoken against such monopolies controlling our water, and is actively engaged in making another film, “Water Makes Money” on that subject. They are looking for public donations to help cover the costs, follow the link if you’d like to make a donation.

South Africa and Bolivia may seem a long way away to some of us, but there are other stories in the film that may be closer to your home. One story features Michigan residents, who have fought a long-running battle to stop Nestle from pumping their rivers and streams dry. Nestle were originally pumping water at 400 gallons (1500 litres) per minute to bottle and sell. They were not required to pay anything for it, either, so you can imagine how keen they were to get as much as they could. It’s a license to pump money.

The UN estimates it would take $30 billion per year to provide safe clean drinking water to the entire planet. That’s less than $5 per person per year. Consumers in the US spend $100 billion annually on bottled water, which is about a dollar a day for every American. That’s about 70 times as much as they should need to spend.

Clearly water is a lucrative business if it can be provided so cheaply, yet sold so profitably.

Of course, it helps the industry that most of us can’t tell if the water that comes out of a bottle is any good or not. This point is brought home by a hidden-camera scene in a restaurant, where customers happily approve of the bottle of ‘Chateau Robinet’ they are offerred. That’s literally tap-water, to you and me. If we can’t tell the difference, how do we know we’re getting a good product?

Nations go to war to protect access to resources, and water is certainly valuable enough to fight for. Conflict in Africa has been linked to climate-change, and shortage of water is just one of the factors that will make these conflicts worse over time.

Water is a precious thing. Access to clean, safe water should be considered a basic human right, not something to be bought and sold. That’s just wrong.