PES Manifesto

1. water: a universal good by pattheact on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 17:19

Water is a universal good, possibly the most important of all the materia mankind needs for its survival. It should be accessible to everyone, rich or poor. The main problem encountered today is that through the massive privatizations of water networks all over the globe it happens more and more often that the poorest and weakest members of our society don't have access to this universal good anymore.
Due to the fact that privatized networks must be profitable to the companies which own them, especially in the developping world, those networks only desserve cities and regions where consumers can pay for it, the other parts should see how they can access clean  and healthy water sources.  And this brings us to the most explosive issue around water access. Water resources, like for example oil resources are diminuishing and countries or regions which are lucky enough to possess water resources in their soil will become more and more powerful and in some of the most arid regions in the world, water has already become source...of conflict. One of the most important conflicts the world has known and where the access to the water sources have been one of the major reasons for the conflict was the arabo-israelian war in 1967. And if one considers that one of the first ideals of sionism was to make the desert flourish, one can easily imagine that the access to water will become more and more crucial for many people, especially when certain ideologies are used to justify the access to this resource. Furthermore global heating will certainly contribute to make this issue one of the most important issues mankind will have to face in this century.

I wish the PES will include in its manifesto clear proposals to make water a resource accessible to everyone and to stop, or refrain the ongoing privatizations of the most important water networks. 

2. A less-consuming agriculture by deldongo on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 14:15