Pushing the Limits Interview with Maude Barlow

“Canada is probably safer except that the US is probably going to come calling for our water when it realizes it is out, and that makes me nervous…We’re in a situation where our water could become what our oil and gas has become and that is a North American shared resource which we have no control over. In fact, if we try to reclaim control over it, we will find ourselves in violation of NAFTA. That’s why I am also opposed to the commercial export of water.”

Maude Barlow is a warrior who has taken on everything from NAFTA to the privatization of water in Canada and around the world. She is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as “The Alternative Nobel Prize.” Not surprisingly, Maude has much to say about our precious fresh water, the role of corporations, and the WTO when it comes to the limits we face.

JG:
In your book Blue Gold, you say that China faces severe grain shortages in the near future. How likely is it that we will have difficulty securing food supplies?

MB:
I think there is both a food and water crisis coming and it is already here in certain parts of the world. Tragically, China has [a year ago] declared that it is going to take Tibet’s water to make up for the way that it has devastated its own water resources. This is really a tragedy because we have no international legal framework for water that would say that water belongs locally and it should not be stolen. In the near future, we are going to have water wars around the world. This will affect the growing of food.
   
What’s happening in the United States is unsustainable, for instance: in the Midwest and the Southwest, where they are growing cotton and alfalfa in the dessert, where they are building so fast, where they are creating these huge mega-farms using massive amounts of flood irrigation when they could be using drip irrigation. They are using chemicals, fertilizers, nitrates, and so on. Not only using too much water but damaging tremendous amounts of water. Corporate unsustainable industrial agriculture based on chemicals is the leading cause of water destruction in the world today.
   
Canada is probably safer except that the US is probably going to come calling for our water when it realizes it is out, and that makes me nervous. There will be huge demand for our water, water that we need now for our own production, whether it is for agriculture or for oil production. We’re in a situation where our water could become what our oil and gas has become and that is a North American shared resource which we have no control over. In fact, if we try to reclaim control over it, we will find ourselves in violation of NAFTA. That’s why I am also opposed to the commercial export of water.

JG:
What could the federal government realistically do?
 
MB:
We need a National Water Act that would do several things (starting with creating a knowledge base of our water resources). We have no idea where our groundwater resources are, so we don’t know if we are sustainably using them. In the tar sands for instance, I can’t prove we’re over-mining, because nobody knows.
   
Second, the Act would protect water quality, and set drinking water standards across the country. That would force industry and agriculture and all the rest of us to conform. I look to northern Germany, which has such strong drinking water legislation. Their standard is that it has to be clean enough for a baby when it comes out of the tap. That would mean that we have to stop polluting our systems and start reclaiming polluted systems. That would also mean funding for infrastructure to repair rusty pipes and so on because a lot of water gets lost in cities, even in the so-called “First World,” through aging infrastructure.
   
The third component would be to protect that water politically. We need a ban on the bulk export of water for commercial purposes and a ban on the corporate control of water in Canada.

JG:
What is the role of the private sector in creating a sustainable society?

MB:
I’m not naïve. I know that most people in the private sector are doing it to make money. I think that is fine if the profit is limited to some kind of realistic relationship to the work that we have put into it. Water is a perfect example. I don’t think there is anything wrong with paying a company to come in and lay the pipes. But when that same company stays for 35, 45, or 90 years with a contract and makes money from poor people for simply having turned on the tap years and years ago, that is wrong.
   
I think that the private sector was very important in building up this country. In the past in Canada, we have found a way to balance public and private. I think we found that in this country, and I think we are losing it and we need to return to it.
   
Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say, “Legislation will not change the heart, but it will restrain the heartless.” You need strong laws to make the private sector behave in a way that is not contradictory to the public good. Corporations are not immoral; they are not moral. They are amoral. So rules restrain the heartless. We have allowed trade agreements, and deregulation hurt governments’ ability to set limits and conditions. The WTO is the wrong model. That is why I’m glad the talks collapsed yet again. And they will continue to collapse until they start to build something that is based on a different model.

JG:
If you could know the answer to any question in the world, what might it be?

MB:
Oh, my heavens. I guess the origin of the world. Truly understanding it and whether there is life in other places. I worry that if we destroy the Earth, we destroy everything. We destroy Shakespeare, Bach, and jokes, and language, and food. All of the wonderful things that we do. Not just all of the awful things that we have done. I think about the end of fresh water, and I always warn people we could become extinct. Certainly if the Earth were smart it would kick us off. Probably the wrong species evolved. I wonder if there is intelligent life in other places to help us out of this conundrum.

JG:
Are you hopeful we can figure it out ourselves?

MB:
I am, you know. I really believe in it. There is a whole part of my movement that loves to just do the gloom-and-doom. I think you have to have hope. I don’t think we have any idea of the myriad ways in which the human spirit is capable of changing the planet, changing our lives. I think it is a moral imperative.
 
Jordy Gold is a sustainability expert and columnist for Corporate Knights. You will find his work online at www.jordygold.com