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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water ― W. H. Auden
Ever since the early days of existence, man has always fought with each other over resources. Yes! Resources. Wars were disguised with religion, nationalism, even love but in the end, it was always the resources that made wars worthwhile. In world war 2, Japan attacked the US in pearl harbor when they thought that the US would cut off their supply of oil.
Why did the world stay in IRAQ for more than a decade even though they didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) well Iraq didn’t have any WMDs but they sure did have a lot of oil. Afghanistan had its geography which again tempted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Hitler and his Nazis hated the Jews but not their gold. If resources such as passes, oil, gold, crops etc can be fought over then, why not fight over something as important as water? I mean wars have been fought over for much less. It is this question that intrigued me.
Just imagine out of the 7 billion people living in the world 4 to 5 billion of them are without clean water. Now that is a crisis even the UN can’t handle. NASA conducted a satellite study in 2015 and found out that out of the 37 water resources in the world, 21 of them are severely distressed. Already the world faces 40 percent chronic diseases due to water shortages in 80 countries and with a rising population crisis, it’s getting worse.
Every year the global demand for water is 2.6 percent and with increasing population again this is causing a lot of problems. If I put it in simple words, supply can’t keep up with demand. However, the population isn’t the only cause for this water shortage. It also has to do with the mismanagement of water as well. Majority of the sewage is thrown directly into the rivers and oceans around 95 percent of global sewage, top that with the industrial waste. And growing rates of pollution just makes matters worse.
Now you must be wondering there’s always been a water crisis but how does that prove that there would be wars over it. Fair question. Let’s start it with terrorism. Terrorism has been directly linked with water crisis and food shortages (no water no crops to grow). In any part of the world where you find terrorism to be active then usually there is a water scarcity too. A classic example would be Syria where they had a good agricultural system but then Turkey build a dam and things changed. Same was the case with Libya.
It is believed that the middle east will be the gateway for future wars. Since the middle east and Africa are the most severely hit by the water crisis. Egypt, Jordan Syria are already having conflicts over the Euphrates. Pakistan and India to have serious conflicts over the flow of water from India into Pakistan. It still may be debatable whether the water crisis will cause future wars between countries or not, but one thing is for sure, water is the next big global issue. Like oil which is known as black gold. Water too will play a key role in future global policies.
”Many of the wars this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water.” – Ismail Serageldin (World Bank official).
Michael Burry a Wall Street hedge fund manager was one of the very few guys that predicted the crash of Wall Street in 2007. A financial crisis that affected the whole world. He went against the American real estate market which at the time was seen as the most ridiculous thing to do but Barry was right. Wall Street did crash and millions of people lost their jobs, company’s had to be closed down.
Things got so bad that the American government had to intervene and give a bailout to the banks. but Barry managed to make 700 million dollars for his company and 100 million dollars for himself. And Burry has left Wall Street and has invested his money on one commodity “WATER”. If you think burry is being irrational, stupid and making a bad decision then, you are not the first one. The whole of wall street thought the same thing back in 2007.
