WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

aim is to spread. Genetically-engineered varieties could contaminate
the whole planet – a process which would be almost impossible to halt.
3.4 The Water Business – One Source of
Revenue That Will Never Run Dry
Water – or the lack of it – is one man’s fate and misfortune and another
man’s gold-mine, a resource promising to yield ever-spiralling profits
on account of its scarcity: “In the twenty-first century, water will
become what oil was in the twentieth century.” This was the prognosis
of the U.S. financial journal Fortune in the year 2000.
In one of the advertisements in its “magazine for innovative
investment products”, ideas, the German Commerzbank states very
precisely what water privatisation is really all about: “Earn money with
the rich. [...] Water, the oil of the twenty-first century. [...] Every person
in this country uses around 129 litres of water a day while, at the same
time, more than one billion people worldwide have no access to clean
drinking water and half the population in the developing world are
without basic sanitation. Water is scarce and demands are rising. Is
water the megatrend of the coming century For investors at any rate!
[...]
Although we currently still have sufficient water reserves, experts
are already predicting a water crisis. The demand for water is rising at a
rate of 2∙5 per cent annually, considerably faster than world population
growth. [...] Progressive urbanisation, above all in transitional countries
such as China and India, is also taking its toll, as is the increasing
health and hygiene awareness in the western world. Those who know
the water industry are therefore prophesying a global water shortage
by the year 2030, at the latest 2050. [...]
Adhering to EU wastewater guidelines alone will cost about €300
billion in the coming decade. On top of this, the EU has decreed that
member states must introduce water prices according to the actual
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