Free the Water!

Water is the 2nd most critical human need there is, after air.  If you don’t get water for a couple of days, you could die.  Definitely, you wouldn’t last a week.  That is why the situation in Detroit is so critical.  By cutting off water to thousands of homes (about 2,000), the city of Detroit is threatening the lives of the people who live within.

So, they took to the streets in protest, as anybody naturally would.  It’s actually a fairly mild response, when your government is trying to kill you.  A lot of the protesters were arrested.  Will they give them water in jail?

Of course they will.  So why not avoid all the expense, the hassle, and the long term ill will, and just leave the damned water turned on.  Of course, the reason for the cutoff is because they hadn’t paid their water bills, but the reason they hadn’t paid their water bills is because they don’t have any money.  Yeah, they’re poor.  That doesn’t mean they deserve to die of dehydration. In a city with a lake.

Once upon a time…

Remember how once upon a time, probably up to somewhere in the mid 70s or even 80s, there were drinking fountains everywhere?  Schools, offices, shops, parks, pretty much everywhere you went, if you were thirsty, you could find a water fountain and have a quick, free drink.  It didn’t destroy the economy.  People still drank alcohol, and soft drinks, and lots of other stuff they paid for.

Then, bottled water started to be trendy.  People started carrying it everywhere.  And the water fountains, here and there, began to be disappeared.  The capitalists had won.  But was it a step too far?

Detroit is the first.  If they get away with this, more cities will try it.  Today, there were protests.  Some day, there will be riots.  Parched, enraged mobs with nothing to lose.  The end of civilization.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Water is plentiful on Earth, and the means to purify that which is polluted and desalinate that which is salty exists.  It’s not even a complicated or expensive process, just a bit energy intensive. Energy is also plentiful on our fair planet.  From the sun, from the wind.  We could easily provide clean water for all the people of the Earth, for drinking, for bathing, for swimming, for watering gardens, and even for industry, which uses a hell of a lot of water, and it would cost far, far less than fighting the battles which will ensue if we don’t.