Women Walk

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water shortage, women, water carriers

Every day women around the world spend 200 mil­lion hours col­lect­ing water for their fam­i­lies. While they walk, pri­vate own­er­ship of water, exces­sive use of water for vast mono-cul­tur­al agribusi­ness­es, deforestation/desertification prac­tices, and cli­mate change go unchecked, cre­at­ing and wors­en­ing this sit­u­a­tion. Their paths are not roman­tic, safe or easy. They can walk for hours then trip, fall and lose their days work. Their backs, inter­nal organs break down from the inces­sant, cum­ber­some weights they car­ry, some­times three times/day at all hours. Sure­ly, this is some­thing that must be attend­ed to.

Glistening Brooks

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water scarcity, water rights, water democracy

When I was a kid, my friends and I could hop on our bikes, ped­al a mile or so and cup our hands to fetch and drink deli­cious, clean, ice-cold, fresh spring water. We knew the water was safe and nev­er dreamed that it would dis­ap­pear or that oth­ers could not have what we did. When I hear of the phe­nom­e­nal num­bers of peo­ple in the world with­out access to clean water, I am stunned. When I find myself not trust­ing the water flow­ing out of my tap or hear about impend­ing and already occur­ring scarci­ty, I am stunned. Water and humans go togeth­er. There should be no assign­ing of priv­i­lege with access to this basic ele­men­tal right. Nor should there be cor­po­rate prac­tices that hoard, mis­use, or defile our water. If you’d like some facts on water, check out this Unit­ed Nations fact sheet. Stag­ger­ing.

Corporate Seeds

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FARMERSBLEED

Here’s anoth­er poster on the pri­vate con­trol of seeds. Such a heavy cost on farm­ers, and con­se­quent­ly on us all. If you’d like to see a short video on this top­ic, check out Seed: The Untold Sto­ry. It’s a quick, elo­quent overview of our sit­u­a­tion with a par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant moment as a woman describes the impact forced depen­dence on cor­po­rate seeds has on her abil­i­ty to pro­vide for her family.

Water Democracy

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H20Right

Water. Fun­da­men­tal. Lav­ished on large-scale, cost­ly, inef­fi­cient, mono-cul­tur­al, cor­po­rate agribusi­ness­es. Squan­dered on, den­i­grat­ed by fos­sil fuel extrac­tions. Poi­soned by care­less indus­tri­al prac­tices. Sent into hid­ing, dis­ap­peared by the rough treat­ment of frag­ile ecolo­gies. Siphoned off for pref­er­en­tial liv­ing arrange­ments. Hoard­ed by pri­vate busi­ness­es for prof­it. Water. Clean water. 1.7 bil­lion with­out access to clean water. 2.3 bil­lion peo­ple suf­fer from water-borne ill­ness­es each year. How we han­dle water is a demo­c­ra­t­ic, human rights issue.

Share Seeds

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ShareSeeds

For thou­sands of years farmers/peasants have worked the soil with nature’s gift. Seeds. Every har­vest peo­ple of the land gath­ered the seed of pre­vi­ous crops to con­tin­ue this vital cycle. Now, cor­po­ra­tions, with a mind-bog­gling bun­dle of tricks, claim to hold a more fun­da­men­tal right —the patent! This  forces strug­gling farmers/peasants to buy expen­sive and trou­ble­some ter­mi­na­tor seeds — seeds which can­not bring on the next gen­er­a­tion of crop. Mas­sive farmer sui­cides around the world attest to the dam­age done by this pri­vate, self­ish own­er­ship of seed. To see work aim­ing to put seeds back into peo­ple’s hands, check out  NAVDANYA, a project of Van­dana Shi­va and oth­ers in India.

Protect

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PROTECT

Tar sands. Pipelines. Vio­lent­ly extract­ed fos­sil fuels. Their per­ilous trans­port through frag­ile envi­ron­ments. Banks filled. Pock­ets lined. Habi­tats destroyed. Air scummed. Water spent. Is this real­ly the way to go?

Agribusiness Kills Farmers

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AgribusinessKillsFarmers

Every 30 min­utes a farmer in India com­mits sui­cide. That means in the 2 decades since large seed cor­po­ra­tions have plant­ed them­selves in India, almost a quar­ter mil­lion farm­ers have killed them­selves, leav­ing behind fam­i­lies in impos­si­ble debt, loss and despair. Export focused, non-food mono-cul­tur­al crops, forced use of ter­mi­na­tor seeds, pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers requir­ing recur­ring loans cre­ate stag­ger­ing finan­cial bur­dens, rob peo­ple of their capac­i­ty to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies. But don’t think this is Indi­a’s prob­lem alone. The rate of farmer sui­cide in the U.S. is more than dou­ble that of any oth­er occupation.