MayesFilmAnnotation1

Meredith Mayes Annotation #1 10/14/2011 Blue Gold 1,609

__Blue Gold__ was directed by Sam Bozzo in 2008 and argues that the world is running out of water. The film uses a variety of methods to move the narrative. The most impactful is the young girl describing the water cycle as we understand it, a closed loop. There is some play at the emotions using human plight and exposing the conditions that some people live and work in. One example of this was the man who killed himself over the loss of local water for farmland; another was the death of Joan Root. Perhaps the most poignant attempt pertained to the water wars in Bolivia, and the documentary showed the wounds incurred by the young boy who died in the protests against the privatization of water. The film additionally used a good number of diagrams for the processes they were describing.

The matrix defined in __Blue Gold__ primarily focused on agriculture and politics. The globalization of trade has lulled the planet into believing that such globalization is good for the earth as well. This is not true for water supplies. Things as simple as the growth of crops drains local water resources and is not replaced when these crops are shipped to other regions of the world. The economical portion of this fact requires poor nations to rely on the money from cash crops for the world rather than growing food for themselves, creating a two-fold problem for the home nation. A loss of land for food in these already starving countries leads to even higher rate of famine and the loss of water used for these crops leads to no water for people or food. The political system has further defined water as a good, meaning it is not a right and can be bought and traded at the leisure of companies wealthy enough to own the water rights in an area. This further cripples poor areas that may not be able to afford water in their homes, and water is a necessity to live. This privatization is often made possible due to corruption in the political system, with city and national officials being wined and dined to sell their water rights to the highest bidder, as was the case for the mayor of Georgia and Vincente Fox. The other major problem is people. As people move into cities, more and more land is converted into roads and housing for them. This reduces the amount of soil area available for runoff to seep into, decreasing the water table, which then does not replenish fast enough for our needs, causing shortages and a need for new sources. Urban families also rarely think about where exactly their water is coming from when turning on the tap. Many times the water is diverted by dams along a route better served for people, causing and ecological disaster. Deforestation further contributes to the issue by preventing the water being taken up by the soil, causing more extreme runoff towards the ocean, where it becomes essentially unusable by humans. Finally, in the United States, the legal issue of SLAPP suits prevents activists from making a rational case, as many cannot afford the legal fees the way that corporations can.

The film drew on a large amount of compelling evidence. There were photos of sink holes and the quantities of water needed to create things not associated with water. The documentary also listed the owners of each nation’s water supply, including parts of the United States’ water supply. An interesting and compelling fact is that Kenyans pay more for a bottle of water than a bottle of Coca Cola, despite there being no difference in the packaging. Additionally, there are technologies which force the weather to rain, which uses dry ice and messes with local climates. Another sobering fact presented by the documentary is the estimated carrying capacities of cities such as Los Angeles, which has enough local water to supply 3 million – and has a population of 11 million. Furthermore the narrative included the story of the Indian movie star who was kidnapped and ransomed for clean water supply from the town across the river. There were more compelling anecdotes as well, such as Lee Kyong Hae, who committed suicide in his quest for farmers’ rights and Joan Root, a conservationist who was murdered for her crusades. There was some weaker evidence in this movie as well. The documentary focused a lot on Coca Cola, and very specific companies and their evils, but it would have been more convincing if there was more evidence of corruption from other companies as well. The extrapolation of collapse of the water supply was also a little unconvincing without explaining how the statisticians came to that date. Overall, though, the film was very convincing.

The film was definitely designed to be a wakeup call for the American people, as we are amongst the most egregious and ignorant wasters of water, especially in the parts of the country that tend to experience lots of rain. __Blue Gold__ could have been made more impactful by showing more effects of losing water with before and after photos of the area around the Aral Sea and other dried up areas. Another potentially more impactful is the effects of dams on American soil, such as the large Hoover Dam. Additionally, it would be more of a wakeup call if the film had addressed all the unsustainable cities in the United States. I’m certain Phoenix and Santa Fe are also past the sustainability point, but neither of these cities is mentioned. The film also could have addressed current American policies on the water crisis, as well as addressing the media coverage for water, droughts and the fact that Americans are kept ignorant of water crises in other nations. Finally, how Americans should prepare themselves for the upcoming crisis would have called even louder, because it shows that a lot of thought has gone into this inevitable event. __Blue Gold__ did an excellent job of suggesting corrective action. The filmmakers proposed that the world deprivatized the water supply, using renewable energy for desalination processes due to its high fuel consumption, urging communities to stop giving away their water to water companies and paying to get it back, dig holes to trap rainfall and send it back into the water table, creating closed agricultural systems, eliminate the dependency on global trade and cognizance of the American people on their water usage. The two most interesting ideas are the holes and the closed agricultural systems. The holes neatly solve the high runoff problem as it creates tiny watering holes until the water is naturally absorbed into the soils and the water table. This solution is low cost, low energy and low impact. The other interesting solution was the closed agricultural system, where a fish farm creates the fertilizer for a farm which does not lose its water in a hydroponic system where some of the plants help to feed the fish. The closed loop nature of this solution makes it very appealing as it also implies lower upkeeps of full scale, open loop farms.

I conducted some further research into this topic, most specifically the potential water conflicts mentioned by the film. On the side of the argument that violence will likely occur is a UN and Environmental Security Brief, found here: []. The article goes on to state that “the likelihood of conflict rises as the rate of change within the basin exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb that change.” This comes down to several scenarios. The first is at the beginning of tensions, arguments over the distribution of water amongst residential, agricultural and urban areas can lead to discord. Another is the rapidly dwindling water supply due to pollution. One further scenario is mass migration to find more water causing political instability. A final issue is discontent with current water management policies, since many areas feel they are entitled to the most water rights. While this article admits that water disputes can help lead to peace, but the need for water may eventually outweigh the need for peace. Thus the article proposes UN policies such as unifying their water experts, developing a water diplomacy program for dealing with international waters, developing a program for realigning water policy frameworks, and creates an aide for developing cooperation on water issues from conflicting countries. It further describes the need to overcome the gaps such as increasing neutral parties for water dispute facilitators, increase long-term support for projects that may not have short-term solutions, and increase funding for water initiatives. This article shows how seriously the United Nations is considering the upcoming water conflicts, as early as 2004. One article, found at [], disagrees with this impending war scenario. The article, written by Aaron Wolf, Annika Kramer, Alexander Carius and Geoffrey Dabelko, argues that history does not support the upcoming water wars. The last war over water was documented to be 4500 years ago. Water disputes are generally resolved peacefully in modern times, even among long-standing enemies. The power of water is that it is so valuable countries cannot afford to fight over it and risk losing even more. Conflicts over water happen within nations, but not between them. A study at Oregon State University found that in the past 50 years, 5 violent events occurred over water outside of the Middle East (which had 32, and 30 involved Israel), while 157 treaties were worked out. The article closes with the statement that the past may not be an indicator of the future; however, as society changes, but the past does indicate that large scale violence is unlikely.