"Transforming broken skateboards into drinkable water:" Barcelona meets Africa

Video focusing on the volunteer work of John French, an Australian artist (and friend of mine) living in Barcelona. MOSS, the skating group organisation he leads is helping to create new water resources for townspeople in Swaziland/Eswatini, Africa.

"Running dry – Protecting the right to water in Europe"

 

[Greenwich Park parched by the heat and lack of rain on 12 August 2022. Photo by Alisdare Hickson. Source: Wikimedia Commons.]

"Water privatization has catastrophic results, as shown by France and the United Kingdom. Citizens across Europe are increasingly opposed to the liberalization of essential services. But with climate change worsening droughts and heatwaves, public ownership is only the first step towards just and effective water management.

European policy has traditionally treated water as an abundant commodity to be extracted for profit. The severe droughts recently experienced in Europe indicate that this era of abundance is over and have brought home the true value of water as a precious and scarce resource. It is time to look at water in a new light.

This new situation requires a radical change in our approach to water policy and management. Former attempts to integrate water resources into the European single market now appear short-sighted at best and potentially disastrous. In order to build the resilience necessary to overcome the climate-related challenges ahead, we can no longer allow water to be exploited by market forces for private gain. The neoliberal water policies in place in many European countries need to be reversed, and water must be subject to public or commons-based governance. Only in this way can we build resilient water systems and keep water universally available and affordable.

Privatization and resistance

The current era of water privatization first began to emerge in the 1980s when, under the conservative rule of Margaret Thatcher, the UK government oversaw the transformation of water facilities into private assets. Water was privatized in England and Wales in 1989 as part of a wider liberalization agenda for public services and resources. Ten regional water authorities and their proprietary infrastructure were completely transferred to privately owned companies. As a result, water companies became ‘permanent regulated monopolies’, facing ‘public sector levels of competition and risk’ with ‘private sector levels of profit and return’.1

The result was a complete collapse in investment in water infrastructure with serious consequences for water losses. Private company Thames Water, which provides water to the London metropolitan area, has been criticized for its inability to deal with huge leaks from its pipes. The estimated water loss is 600 million litres per day – almost a quarter of all the water it supplies. This quickly becomes a severe problem in the context of drought-induced water scarcity. Thames Water and Southern Water, another large water and wastewater company, have also been criticized for unacceptable levels of sewage pollution and spills, which seriously affect both valuable ecosystems and public health."

Read more (especially about Italy and remunicipalisation of water in France) from source at Eurozine here.

MOSS Deck Art Show MELBOURNE with BARCELONA

Turning Art Into Water for MOSS Foundation

Melbourne: 6pm – 9:30pm Friday 25TH Nov 2022
Barcelona: 6pm – 9:30pm Thurs 24th Nov 2022

Silent Auction closes 9:30pm Friday Melbourne time & 11:30am Friday Barcelona time
(Same bidding app, same time, different time zones!)
In person and online charity auctions.
Take your decks home on the night (pick up or shipping options too).
(Also check out MOSS shows at Gold Coast in June ‘22 & Sydney/Hawaii in Sept ‘22)
::
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS - AND YOURSELF!
Top artists from around this planet are donating their original one off art works for clean water in Eswatini / Swaziland.
100% TO THE CAUSE!
::
100% of the sale price of every piece goes to funding a life changing MOSS Foundation permanent clean water scheme in southern east Africa.
(No commissions, no admin costs, no gallery commission or artist fees, no food or wine costs. It’s all sponsored.)
Every dollar you spend goes to clean water in Swaziland / eSwatini.
::
Where:
1) Magnet Gallery. SC G19 Wharf St, The District, Docklands, VIC 3008. Australia
2) Base Elements Gallery, Carrer d'Avinyó, 31, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
::
Free entry.

What is MOSS?
https://vimeo.com/295326949
www.mosswater.org
- MOSS Foundation Inc is a 100% volunteer registered charity founded by skateboarders, musicians, artists and surfers.
- MOSS Foundation has been building life changing permanent water schemes in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), southern east Africa since 2006.
MOSS Foundation - Clean Water Saving Lives
www.facebook.com/MossFoundationSkaters
www.instagram.com/MossFoundationSkaters
www.MossWaterProject.com
#MossJam
#MossDeckArtShow
#MossFoundationSkaters
@MossFoundationSkaters 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNPRBw93R2g&list=LL&index=2

4th century Roman aqueduct and footbridge: Sant Jaume dels Domenys in Tarragona, Catalonia

 My photos from today's walk...

"Australia’s burning questions" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[EFE]

The great tragedy of the Australian bushfires -- that even after several months are still consuming huge parts of the country -- is that so much of the destruction is entirely avoidable.

How can this be? Why have more than 1 billion animals perished? Why have over 2,000 thousand homes been destroyed? Why have 23 people died and how is it possible that a total area of land bigger than Portugal or Hungary has already been burnt out?

The simplest correct answer is that Australia has always suffered from these kinds of wild blazes but that this time around the ‘fire season’ started much earlier and the spread of the fires was much wider than usual, with hundreds of them burning out of control at any one time.

Firefighters (most of whom are unpaid volunteers) have been almost completely powerless to stop the hydra-headed infernos because of continued fierce winds and the extreme high temperatures that the fires themselves have partly made worse.

Another major cause of the devastation can be accurately put down to state and federal governments underfunding emergency services for year after year.

ln an attempt to push any responsibility away from his own ultra-conservative party, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has used all kinds of political trickery and lies across the mainstream media (which fully supports him). He has also been widely condemned for choosing to go on holiday to Hawaii during the crisis, as did the relevant state minister from his party.

As well as that, Morrison has repeatedly argued that the global climate crisis is not a factor in this disaster, despite overwhelming scientific evidence showing it undoubtedly is.

As a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian, he has instead maintained it is all the fault of arsonists or “greenies” who oppose targeted ‘back-burning’ to stop fires spreading. (The Green Party has always supported it, in fact.)

Accusations of climate denial against Morrison have come as thick and fast as the air that has choked the populations of Australia’s big cities of Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney over periods of weeks and months.

Even several former leaders of the PM’s own party have called for rapid action against carbon emissions and emergency policies to combat the years-long drought across the nation.

In many Australians’ experience, these fires have come on top of continuing and severe tap water shortages in many of Australia’s rural towns. Some, such as the small rural village of Murrurundi (located in a once relatively fertile area) have already run out of water and are having to buy in supplies privately. An increasing number of towns are expected to follow this disturbing practice soon.

Of course, water running low in Australian drought periods is nothing new.

What is causing outrage though amongst groups as diverse as farmers and environmentalists, is the massive (and often unmeasured) amounts of natural water from rivers, lakes and underground sources that are being sold off to private companies.

The Indian (multi-national) mining company Adani (which has the absurd, double-speak slogan of “Growth with Goodness”) extracts coal from the earth, among other things. It runs a business that is a major cause of global warming through carbon emissions and it requires large amounts of water in the coal cleaning process.

Adani -- which has paid not one cent of company tax in Australia -- will be allowed to siphon off 12.5 billion litres of local river water up until the year 2077. Another of its mines is being given $4.4 billion in public subsidies from the government. An open secret muddies the waters here: mining industries have been major financial donors to the conservative political parties in Australia for many years.

Corruption? You bet it is. For the governing parties, it’s raining money. This at a time when both rain and money are what’s really needed across a land that is dying of thirst and from fires on a biblical scale that Morrison had only ever read about.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Feb. 2020.]

Townspeople halt attempt to sell-off public water

A promising new current affairs publication and website La Marea features the story of this attempted privatisation gone wrong.

Under the slogan, "Water is a service, not a business," thousands of villagers in Laguna de Duero (Valladolid) have successfully stood up for almost a year to their mayor's plan to privatize the water supply in the municipality.

Read more at La Marea here.

Good news for anyone who drinks or uses water

The tide in Europe is turning back towards water and other essentials being controlled by public institutions, instead of private companies.

"The privatisation of water facilities has proven all over the world to be a major mistake, both in terms of prices and of the quality of services provided to the citizens," said Olivier Hoedemann, a member of the watchdog organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

As this article reports, several German municipalities have recently bought back water rights on behalf of their populations, and in Paris “the municipal administration will this year regain control of all water services for the city, ending a private monopoly that has lasted more than 100 years.”

In Spain, 60% of the population is served by private water companies which operate under concession contracts with municipalities, though this country still has one of the lowest water rates in Europe.