Ambiente

Water privatization: Is water the new oil?
Since the 1950s oils importance has grown bigger for countries, farmers, industries and even individuals, but will this continue this way for the years tocome? What is it that makes oil so important to the world? Oil and water are considered to be the world’s most important resources, but is it possible that water becomes such an issue as oil is?Experts suggest that the problem with oil has always being a problem of demand and supply, an increasing demand from the world and not such a big supply, but lately it seems that oil is not the only oneto confront this kind of problem. It is estimated that by 2030 water will suffer the same excess of demand problem. Now days only 2.5% of all water is fit for human consumption and around two-thirdsof that is locked away in icecaps and glaciers, also over 1 billion people don't have access to clean drinking water, more than 2 billion lack access to adequate sanitation, and millions die everyyear due to preventable water-related diseases.
Globally, water consumption is doubling every 20 years, more than twice population growth, and it is estimated that by 2025 1 800 million people will beliving in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions. And, as the population keeps growing and getting richer, andglobal warming changes the climate, experts are warning that unless something is done, billions more will suffer lack of water, precipitating hunger, disease, migration and ultimately conflict.
Onesolution has being the desalination, which is already popular in the Middle East. But it is an expensive solution (100m gallons of seawater produce just 50m gallons of desalinated water), and requires theintervention of big enterprises. But is the intervention the best solution? The intention is that more people have access to more quantities of water in the future, but the real fact is that it is...