Maude Barlow Interview: Water “Ignored in Climate Change Debate“; Governments can “Provide Water Perfectly Well“; I’m “against Privatization” (Aquadoc, WaterWired)

Feb.20, 2009 in Water Crisis, Water Industry, Water Management, Water Rights

(Feb. 20, 2009, Aquadoc, WaterWired)

I found this interview with Maude Barlow on EurActiv.com (thanks to WaterSISWEB). I was ready to have my head explode but was quite (pleasantly?) surprised; she did not seem misinformed about some basic water facts. No “New Mexico has a 10-year supply of water left.”

There was one thread I found especially puzzling:

We need to get water as a factor in climate change into the climate change debate. Climate change people are so fixated on greenhouse gas emissions and I understand why. I’m in no way diminishing that.

But the other half of the equation – which is that when you take water out of the watershed, you reduce the amount of rain in the cycle, it heats the land up, cities become urban heat islands – we need to restore water to watersheds, we need healthy ecosystems and water is crucial for healthy ecosystems to combat climate change. We also need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it’s not like an ‘either-or’. But you got to get the analysis right if you are going to get the answer right.

For me it is amazing - stunning – that water is being ignored in the climate change debate.

That last sentence especially threw me for a loop. Oh, Maude, where have you been?

Also:

I don’t think we need private companies to run water services, water delivery and waste water, because governments can do that perfectly well on a not-for profit basis.

Government can provide water “perfectly well”? Maybe some governments.

But this is good:

Many people think that because I’m against privatisation and for water as human right. They think I don’t support pricing, but that is not true. The pricing would need to be done in a particular way if you are going to guarantee the right to water and I’d say there are three conditions.

As I said, my head did not explode or even swell after I read this interview. Read it, and you be the judge.

(Original Post Here)