Blue+Gold

Audrey Newcomb April 5, 2010 Sustainability Problems **Film Annotation: “Blue Gold”** “Blue Gold: World Water Wars,” directed by Sam Bozzo, and released in 2008

“Blue Gold” discusses the current increase in water pollution and water privatization around the world. “Blue Gold” started very dramatically, describing the pain of dehydration. It goes on to declare that currently more children die of cholera, a water disease, than of malaria, HIV, or wars.

“Blue Gold” does not require a very active imagination among viewers as it presents many examples of water becoming privatized and the ineffectiveness of its privatization. Viewers must simply open their eyes to the problems around them and question the source of their own water. “Blue Gold” is different from some of the other sustainability movies in that the people who fight the problem are average people; there is not a high level of knowledge that one must obtain in order to understand the water problems. The biggest hurdle in understanding our water problem is comprehending why there is a shortage of water. “Blue Gold” concedes that theoretically we should not be running out of water since the water //cycle is// cyclic. However, heavily polluted water, impermeable surfaces (asphalt roads), the destruction of wetlands, and excessive rates of mining ground water have all interrupted the water cycle. For example, we are taking 15 times more water from the ground than can be replenished.

At the end of the movie it was suggested that everyone should know the name of their watershed, who owns it, and reclaim public ownership of it as necessary. Therefore this was the information I was most compelled to seek out after watching “Blue Gold.” The name of the watershed in Troy is Middle Hudson and there are 23 citizens’ groups that work to protect this watershed. The watershed in Houston is Buffalo-San Jacinto and there are 4 citizens’ groups that work to protect the watershed. I am not able to call the water utility that provides me water because I have never seen a water bill before because either my parents or landlord take care of it. I visited the Food and Water Watch’s website and found that funding from the federal government for maintenance and improvement of water infrastructure is severely below Massachusetts’ recommended water budget. For the past ten years the federal government’s funding of Massachusetts has steadily declined as the following graph attests. I would only feel comfortable organizing my community against the privatization of water if I was to do so in my home town in Massachusetts. “Blue Gold” increased my understanding of why community is so important in solving sustainability issues. If I had to organize community action or convince my town government then the fact that I grew up in Massachusetts would give me confidence to share my convictions about water privatization. There are three people on the Board of Water and I could find the contact information for the engineer in charge of the “Public Works” water division. The need to organize community action in order to stop water privatization increases my appreciation of growing up in a small town where it can feel like everyone knows you. Many people have wells here and the thought of a well in your backyard becoming dry is not an attractive one. Although clean water is a global issue its affects on a community are tangible. Water is a unique environmental issue in that I think it can generate more interest and concern than any other sustainability issue we discussed. If a community is successful in fighting against water privatization it is more prepared to unite itself against other environmental issues. Unfortunately “Blue Gold” has shown that the road to success can be very long. For the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation it took about eight years, from 2001-2009, to stop Nestle from bottling and selling their water. For the Bolivian and Uruguay citizens it took violent riots and protests to stop the privatization of their water. (“Massachusetts”)

One man even stabbed himself in the heart at a protest! Lee Kyung Hae killed himself in Mexico outside of a World Trade Organization conference. This was one of the most compelling scenes of the movie. I was able to see how desperate the water situation is for some people. Before this movie I didn’t recognize water privatization as an urgent problem, but this image triggers an emotional response and makes it easier for me to feel compelled to do something different about my water usage. Another compelling anecdote is the fact that the Bush family has bought 98,840 acres of land in Paraguay. Brazil and Paraguay do have the covetous water reserves, so it is alarming that the Bush family was compelled to buy so much land there. We also have a military base in on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and around the Great Lakes. These are scary details and imply preparation for the militarized taking of water . The action I am currently open to pursuing in order to change my water consumption is to not buy bottled water. “Blue Gold” expands my perception of what is “bottled water” to include any bottled drink. The soft drink companies also own brand name bottled water. The movie also suggested buying a low flow shower head; when I own a home I will consider doing this but I’m not going to take a shorter shower. The connection between my water use and the dearth of water in parts of the globe is still abstract and I cannot shorten the length of my shower or not fill my humidifier on the basis that some people don’t have water. This is unsound logic and would lead to a state of further insanity if all my actions are motivated by whether or not everyone else has identical access to the same resources. I would dig A hole in order to help keep rainwater in the ground.

I was not convinced, however, that I should sign up for a “Holes”-movie summer as featured in the movie. A further look at “Blue Gold’s” website informed me that digging holes in Slovakia was an idea from Dr. Michal Kravcik in order to prevent the building of a large dam and prevent “ destroying the natural environment and forcing the evacuation of four 700-year old villages” (“Blue Alternative”). This genius idea was not completely conveyed in “Blue Gold.” Instead Kravcik was featured waving colored transparencies around and I had no idea what he was talking about. I understand that only so much can be shown in a movie, but I left the movie with a confused understanding of who Kravcik is and what the hole digging was for. Another shortcoming of the film is that avoiding bottled water was not one of their points of action. Currently the most prominent reason for not using bottles water is because the plastic bottle is wasteful. However, avoiding bottled water should also be associated with the senselessness of diverting water from its source transporting it via fossil fuels somewhere else. Presenting Kravcik better and listing “avoid bottled water” as an action point could have improved “Blue Gold’s” education value.

The most unconvincing scenes were the interviews with people from beverage companies. Their arguments were based on lies. For example, Coca Cola argued that Dasani was more expensive than soda because the water was placed in plastic bottles (by customer demand) while soda remained in glass bottles, and the difference in material accounts for the increased price of water compared to soda. Then a clip was shown of a 1 liter plastic bottle of soda and then a 1 liter plastic bottle of water; the soda was still cheaper! The beverage companies are bad at justifying taking and selling water at high (and for poor countries, unaffordable) prices. An investigation of Ric Davidge, the “water Czar of Alaska” and founder of Aqueous International, lead me to the following letter from the CEO of Aqueous to a representative in Alaska’s state legislature. The main reason that the CEO gives as to why Aqueous (and therefore water privatization) should be supported is because company is owned by a veteran. Trading the benefits of increased employment of veterans for publically “owned’ water is absurd! These companies were not able to offer a compelling reason as to how water privatization can help a community.

The World Trade Organization, the World Bank, beverage corporations, and our fetish for bottled water, are all presented as a sustainability problems in this movie. The WTO and World Bank mandate specific economic activities in countries which can cause the exportation of water. The water of Lake Kaivasha, Kenya is being used to grow roses for export to European countries. Beverage corporations take water at unhealthy rates from the land and steal the water from the local citizens. Their advertisements have convinced people that bottled water or any bottled drink can contribute to a healthy exuberance. A more subtle sustainability problem is the absence of clean water as a top priority in the U.N. Millennium Goals. There also seems to be legal disagreement over whether or not water can be bottles and sold. The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation ultimately exiled Nestle but there was a point in the legal proceedings that Nestle was allowed to pump the water at a specified rate. America’s “military, economic, and predatory view” will not help create a peaceful transition to an equitable distribution of water. Although even without this view a peaceful transition is difficult as some of our cities have been built in areas that require the purposeful movement and divergence of water. Building cities where water supplies have to be imported in is not sustainable. The forces behind the world's water problems are colossal, so it is miraculous that communities have succeeded in regaining control of their water. References:

"Blue Alternative." //Blue Gold: World Water Wars//. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2010. .

"Lee Kyung Hae." //Wikipedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2010. .

"Massachusetts." //Food and Water Watch//. Food and Water Watch, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2010. .