WilsonFilmAnnotation3

Blue Gold: World Water Wars, Sam Bozzo, 2008.
 * Adrienne Wilson** **Film Annotation** **Blue Gold: World Water Wars**
 * 1. Title, director and release year?**

The film Blue Gold: World Water Wars is about how the amount of potable water on the planet is diminishing while the global demand for clean water increases due to increasing population, industry expansion, geographic scarcity, and pollution. Additionally, private water companies have taken control of most water sources in third world regions, levying high prices and limiting access to those people. Water in these regions is so expensive that many of the people cannot afford it and must drink whatever water they can find, often with high risk of disease.
 *  2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? **

The narrative is sustained through examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools. Scientific information is provided through interviews with experts in their respective fields and statistics. However, many provocative statements are made, like "Much of the world's fresh water is polluted beyond human use," or "Every single drop of fresh water will be privately owned and controlled," which were presented without documentation and without rebuttal. In cramming so much information in, in jumping from country to country, threads of several arguments are lost. When many statistics are presented they are given without qualification--are we talking about the U.S., Kenya, India, or the globe? There's often no timeframe presented--are the figures for water usage monthly, annual? However, the film does have emotional appeal in that it portrays heartbreaking images and stories of people who don’t have access to water overlays it with sad instrumental music, catering to people’s empathy and guilt.
 * 3. How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal?**

This film, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, touches on a multitude of topics broadly and concentrates on a few specifically. The main sustainability problems it brings up are those associated with politics, the economy, technology, legality, behaviour, and ecology. Ecologically our civilization is polluting otherwise drinkable water through industrial and farming practices and even residential (through means of runoff from our cleaning products and other similar practices). We are mining as much as 15 times more groundwater than what is being replenished, at the rate of 30 billion gallons a day. The amount of toxins and unhealthy chemicals found in water sources that used to be potable is alarming, and it is forcing people to go to other sources for their drinking water, requiring already overworked water systems to produce even more water, like in the example of the Aral Sea. In addition, we are also destroying wetlands that used to act as natural filters and blocking rivers that used to carry nutrients away and would have kept the water healthy and lands fertile.
 * 4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**
 * Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational? Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological?**

On a political note, i nternational organizations like the WTO have been privatizing the developing countries’ water. The WTO puts extreme trade pressure on nations to privatize their water, and it is always one of the three largest multinationals that gets the deal. After they move in, water quality often goes down and price goes up. This causes economic problems and health problems for the people there. Health issues become more prominent with lower water quality and people are forced to find other sources if they cannot afford the water or live in extreme poverty because they must purchase the water. In the legal spectrum, the water companies wield so much power they can even make things like collecting rain water illegal for the citizens of the nations in which they operate, as was the case in Bolivia and even several states in the United States. Behaviour-wise we have let these corporations take advantage of our water sources by encouraging them through our demands of convenience (bottled water) and for products that require the heavy use of water in production.

I found the story of Ryan’s Well Foundation the most inspiring as it showed someone who was passionate and dedicated enough to do something about the problem – something I wish I could do and hence admire. I was also amused by the scene that featured the Michigan Alliance, who poured back Nestle’s water bottles into the aquifer the water came from. It demonstrated that there are times where big corporations do lose out to local interests, which is a little uplifting. On a very different level, a very powerful scene in the movie was when Lee Kyung Hae killed himself in Mexico outside of a World Trade Organization conference, sky-rocketing the issue into media attention.
 * 5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

I am not sure what other way they could have approached this issue I have with the film overall, but they touched on too many topics in too short of a time, making the message a little long-winded. This made the documentary appear a little sloppy. I also wished more hard facts were presented, in much the same way that the Inconvenient Truth did. Specific parts of the film that I was not convinced by were the parts that featured provocative statements (as mentioned before) they weren’t backed up by scientific data, and when the film implied that Nestle was actually going to buy the Great Lakes (“potential buyer”).
 * 6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**

Blue Gold: World Water Wars is intended for individuals and communities in first world countries to incite them into action. As water is collectively known as a basic human right there should be no reason as to why we are even facing these problems (specifically the privatization of water, which shouldn’t even be considered a commodity).
 * 7. What audiences does the film best address? Why?**

Sources of where their information was collected from, and a clarification of general-sounding proclamations that seem to make an emotional impact but have no scientific basis whatsoever could have been added to the film to enhance its environmental educational value and its legitimacy (for a few statements).
 * 8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**

On an individual scale the film prompts the viewers to be aware of where their own water comes from (what watershed you live in, who owns the water, and if they are taking care of it). If the water you live in is privately owned the film urges you to organize your community to stop it and to write your local government to protect the public water and maintain control of it for the public. For a global impact the film suggests supporting organizations that are fighting global battles and would appreciate financial support, petition signing, or volunteer time.
 * 9. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.**

Additional information the film has inspired me to seek out include how successful Ryan’s Well Foundation has become – they are currently celebrating their 10year anniversary. The non-profit organization has since completed over 600 projects bringing access to clean water and sanitation to over 685,000 people in 16 developing countries, which is most impressive. Additionally, I have found out through reading the Blue Gold: World Water Wars website and it’s “learn more” links that although New York’s public water systems have provided reliable access to drinking water and safe disposal of wastewater for decades (with water systems that were built in the early 20th century), a crisis looms. Since the 1980’s, the federal government has been cutting back funding to NY communities for water infrastructure, now approaching the end of their life spans. This means that communities cannot afford to make the necessary repairs to pipes and water systems and this poses a danger to the environment and the safety of New York water.
 * 10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.)**

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