Without water there cannot be life. People are willing to fight over water, such as in California the north and south are fighting over who gets the majority of California’s water. Secondly, there is plenty of water for everyone to have but people are not conserving and are wasting it. “However, the problem is poor management
Imagine having to pay for water to shower, drink, wash your hands with etc. Bolivia was a country that was subjected to the privatization of water and they responded negatively. The citizens of Bolivia weren't avid about handing their fresh clean drinking water over to foreign corporations. “On January 10 the citizens of El Alto took to the streets en masse to demand that their water system, privatized in 1997 under World Bank pressure, be returned to public hands.” Three days later the president cancelled the water concession.
In Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman shed light on the water crisis that is affecting billions of people across the world, an issue that has been far too common for far too long. “Water scarcity, already a crisis in much of the world, is a coming reality in the United States” (Snitow and Kaufman, pg. 2). Recently studies have shown that this crisis has spread to America at the hands of our government and big corporations, thus becoming a topic worth arguing. Water is not only a necessity for life, but a gift from god and a human
Around the globe every minute a child dies because of water-related disease, Women spend hours walking to collect water, it has been estimated 1 in 9 people lack access to safe water, hospital bed spaces are occupied majorly people related to water-borne diseases. Clean water is essential for both mental and physical development. Lead in tap water causes many birth defects. Thousands of contaminants are present in tap water which are even poisonous. For every spent on water and sanitation there is a double return to the economic.
The movement toward privatization began in the 1980s and has grown at a rapid pace. By 2009, privately operated correctional facilities serving as prisons and jails held over 128,000 state and federal prisons across 33 states. State run prison systems have always contracted with private industries for food, psychological testing, training and recreational services. Companies such as Cornell Corrections, Corrections Corporation of America, Correctional Services Corporation, Wackenhunt Corrections Corporations and several other smaller companies operates private prisons. Most states corrections administrators utilize private companies to reduce overcrowding, lower operating expenses, and avoid lawsuits aimed at state officials and employees.
In Bottlemania Elizabeth Roye examines the controversy surrounding the privatization of water and the opinions of Americans in relation to the public water supply. Throughout Bottlemania, Roye refers to the privatization of water as an environmental justice issue for populations residing near the source. Roye prominently addresses this issue stating,“Clean Water is one of the most fundamental necessities, and no one can be allowed to privatize it, commodify it, and try to sell it back to us,” (Roye, 5). The success of the water industry has attributed to several environmental and legal problems for residents in towns such as, Fryeburg, Maine. Additionally, successful marketing strategies of the major water companies and the rise in hyper-individualism
putting the security of these civilians a risk, defeats the whole purpose of social security, which is why the privatization of Social Security would be foolish. A major risk of privatization is that the transition from a “pay as you go” system to a fully funded system would be very difficult to manage, for many reasons. Currently, the taxes paid by each generation of workers fund the retirement benefits of the previous generation of workers. While each generation of workers has been confident that its retirement would be financed by the next, this confidence is eroding (Pollard 1).
This article acts as a continuation of the research done by the author while conducting fieldwork in South Africa pertaining to the ways that water privatization has affected poor, South African women. The piece examines the transition from the apartheid regime to the election of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994. Women and girls living in poverty are intimately linked to water, as the article notes, and this relationship is explored as the author considers the ways in which privatization has impacted their lives physically, mentally, and emotionally. The article allows the reader to examine the role that international institutions, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, played in South
The combination between having both private and public health care systems in Ontario will not only benefit the citizens of Canada, but the economy as well. The privatization aspect initiates a well-structured approach, which all in all could work with the public sector to ensure efficiency and sustainability within the system. By incorporating the privatization of heath care it would ensure shorter wait times, improved doctor and patient communication and ensure a smoother process. In terms of support, the government could invest towards private hospitals and ensure they function in an efficient manner for those attracted towards that concept. For instance, in the article The Costs and Benefits of Privatization: An Incomplete Contracts Approach,
“The question of water ownership has been debated since at least ancient Rome, and today, some 2,000 years later, government, big business and Earth’s 7.125 billion (Google) and growing inhabitants are no closer to a consensus on who owns the tiny percentage of drinkable water on the planet”(ECORI). According to the Journal of Water Resources Management, private ownership of water utilities has been growing worldwide at alarming rates. “Most Americans are served by publicly owned water and sewer utilities. Eleven percent of Americans receive water from private (so-called "investor-owned") utilities. In rural areas, cooperatives often provide drinking water.
Privatization leads to increases in prices- Rate hikes have been used in Canada and other countries as a way for private water companies to maximize profits. The main thing these companies care about is profit, which translates into higher prices and worse service for consumers. The companies aren’t required to provide water or service when water is a marketable object rather than a human right. So, when consumers can no longer afford the price increases, water delivery is simply shut off. Privatization ruins Water Quality-A big example comes from the small town of Walkerton in Ontario where seven people died and 2,300 others became ill as a result of E. coli contamination in the drinking water.6 A&L Laboratories, the private company required
Water privatization can foster corruption and result in rate hikes inadequate customer service and loss of local control and accountability. Williams, M. (2007). PRIVATIZATION AND THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER: CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW CENTURY. Michigan Journal of International Law, 28(2), 469-505.
In general, privatization has many pros and cons. Some pros of privatization are that it allows both citizens and government managers to achieve certain goals. For example, through privatization, cost savings increases, gives contracting government access to expertise because it is cheaper to hire architects, engineers or lawyers on an as needed basis rather than full time employment. Competitors provides buyer and bidders with better quality services and incentives to compete with other vendors. Additionally, through privatization, ideally everything is intended to be completed on a timely manner because “time is money” and therefore can face penalties for delays.
Once outlawed in the beginning of the 20th Century Vickers (1991), private corporations have made a come back with possessing and operating prisons for profit. Privatization is a controversial issue that can be dated all the way back to the days of the civil war. The corrections industry analyzes its re-appearance today amidst globalization and the most impressive growth of prisons in all of modern history, painting an analyzable portrait of what few are calling the "prison industrial complex. " Whenever a state wanted to build a new prison, they traditionally would ask the voters to approve the cost through a bond issue. But, voters throughout the country began to say no.
Climate change refers to the long-term change in the earth’s climate due to the increasing average global temperature which is so-called global warming. It is estimated that climate change results in 600000 deaths worldwide every year, 95% of them occurs in the developing countries ( Conserve-Energy-Future, 2013). As catastrophic impact has been substantially created due to climate change, determining the leading causes to this phenomenon becomes a burning issue globally. Although some people suppose natural factors are to blame for negative alterations to the climate, I hold a strong belief that anthropogenic activities through industrialization and agriculture development are the dominant drivers of climate change.
