So this semester is coming to a close, and it is time to wrap up my blog posts! To summarize all my blogs into one paragraph may be difficult because water is such a huge part of everyone's and everything's life. First, is something that we have talked about in class a lot - people only care about climate change when it is something they can see first-hand. We saw this in many cases in readings and in class. It pops up in government debates, and people just cannot seem to agree on whether our economic processes or the Earth is more important right now. This brings me to my second point, water has become a huge industry in the world. Something that the world has so much of is controlled by only a few, and then sold to the rest of the people at an exponential price. This causes huge problems because water is a basic need for human life and the fact that they are trying to sell this to people is disastrous. If people cannot afford to pay for water, how are they expected to live? Finally, as water shortages become more prominent, people are engineering ways in which to get more drinkable and usable water from new sources. This comes in the form of desalination plants, new water conserving irrigation techniques, new GMO (yes GMO) plants that are designed to not use as much water (i.e. GMO rice in Egypt to help conserve water in the time of the Ethiopian Dam concerns), and ideas such as the Sahara Forest Project.
The most influential thing that I learned through my research on water concerns throughout the world was something that I also stated in my film's essay. When a necessity to human life, such as water, becomes a luxury good rather than a public good, conflict will arise. This is seen in many parts of the world, such as Egypt and Jordan in which water is mostly sectioned off to the highest bidder (Tourism) or taken over by governments who cannot sustainably divide the good (Jordan and refugees).When people don't get access to something like water, people become sick, people will fight, people will die. In comparing the environmental and social impacts of water shortages, it is hard to understand why it isn't protected at a larger scale, but then you have to remember that water is money and money is power.

I was struggling to think of something to write this week, but as I was researching topics I came across something very interesting. As climate change starts to cause melting in the Arctic, the native communities there, such as the Inuit, have been noticing more illnesses. This is happening to many of the worlds tribal communities, not just the Inuit. This is because most of them live in areas where the effects are seen first and they spend more time with the environment which is being affected. These communities feel at one with the land and its resources, so even if they did have the technology that the rest of the world has to deal with these changes, they would choose to live their tradition way if possible (such as drinking brook water rather that treated water). This is causing waterborne diseases within these communities to skyrocket. So, when the topic of climate change arises, it is our duty to think not only about us (those who have the technology to get around the effects of the heating of the earth), but to also take into account these groups who traditionally live off the land and are being the most affected. They were not the ones who caused these problems, we did. Yet they are the ones bearing them for us already. Scientists often state that when we see a "4°C change" in temperatures, climate change disasters will start taking place. We don't realize, though, that these communities in the Arctic have already seen that 4° drop.

Brazil houses one-third of the world's rainforests, yet somehow parts of Brazil are in the middle of a terrible drought. One example of this drought arises in Sao Paulo, the country's largest city which is located near the coastline. It has been continuously raining in the city for a few days now, but if you visited you would never know. It has even been said that in order to make any difference the rain would need to stay for a few months. The city's reservoirs are dangerously low. Many of the residents are worried that things will get too bad to be fixed, but officials in the area are still slow to act. Part of the problem is the growth rate of the city. As the city grows, the government doesn't see the need to establish a growth in infrastructure. So, the question is, how did a place that produced around 15% of the world's water get into a water crisis and what will have to happen for the government to see this as a threat to the health, economy, and lifestyles of the citizens living in Sao Paulo.