The crisis of water and the courage to stop its commercialization



Shearman and
 Smith explore
 the dilemmas
of climate change.

Warnings about the threats to the world’s water supplies arrived in my inbox about the time authors, David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith had explained near identical issues in the book, “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy”.

The Guardian, writing in its story headed: “China and India ‘watergrab’ dams put ecology of Himalayas in danger”, said that more than 400 hydroelectric schemes are planned for the mountain region, which could be an environmental disaster.

Shearman and Smith explain that a significant dam displaces thousands of people; seriously disrupts the whole ecology of the area; because of natural silting, the dams become somewhat ineffective; and beyond that they regularly need significant structural repair work.

About the same time The Guardian reported on the “A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water”, pointing out that a fracking boom was sucking away precious water from beneath the ground, leaving cattle dead, farms bone dry and people thirsty.

Fracking is a matter to which we should pay attention for it is happening in Australia and as we are a liberal democracy, Shearman and Smith argues our present regime is powerless to stop it and so the ravaging of our water supplies, something Australia has little enough of, will continue unabated unless we have the courage to stop it.