has come here. he's a great friend of mine. he and the governor of arkansas were the only two on election day in november with approval ratings of 70% or more and voters voted against everything they did. but they loved them for it because no one onces how health care works, health care economics, policies and you ought to get it if you talk about it a little bit, but it will encourage you to skrit what they suggest. the only way to get level of knowledge about the health care system on a general citizenry is to empower them first to do something they can understand, which is their health, the family's, the family's health, what they pay for it what they get, how they're going to do this, and i think you guys are

great. we have an impact announcement and i'd like to ask you -- let's give the panelists a hand, and i'll have the announcement. join us tuesday when we're live with a hearing on immigration issues with the head of immigration and customs enforcement. testifying before the house judiciary committee starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. the senate committee relations chairments congress to review any iranian nuclear deal and introduced a bill to make it reality. working on it with fellow committee members tomorrow live at 2:15 p.m. eastern. more foreign policy on wednesday when the u.s. ambassador to the united nations samantha power, testifies on the 2016 state-foreign operations budgets wednesday, 2:00 eastern and we'll have that here on c-span3. this weekend the c-span cities tour partnered with

comcast to learn of the history and literary life of st. augustine, florida. >> they may or may not have been searching for the fountain of eternal youth. people said he was out for additional property for the king of spain and colonization attempts and goals this is undecidedly true. we do know once ponce de leon came assure took on water and wood. this area presents one of the few fresh water springs in the area around 30 degrees 8 minutes, and it's also the location of the 1565 first settlement of st. augustine, 42 years before the settlement of jamestown was founded and 55 years before the pilgrims landed on plymouth rock. >> this was built by henry morrison flagler.

little is known about him, but he was one of the wealthiest men in america. he essentially had been a cofounder of standard oil company with john d. rockefeller rockefeller. he was a man who always wanted to undertake a great enterprise, and as it turned out florida was it. he realized he needed to own the railroad to ensure that gusts could get to the hotel conveniently, and so clearly the dream was beginning to grow on flagler. he was a man with big dreams. he was a visionary. >> watch all events from st. augustine, saturday, noon eastern on c-span's booktv and c-span3 on sunday afternoon.

the l.a. times reported in march that california would run out of water in one year. governor brown announced mandatory water restrictions for the first time in state history. next, remarks from a canadian author who was a key player five years ago when the u.n. declared water as a basic human right. food and water watch chair recently addressed the kpamp university in cincinnati on the global water crisis and how to solve it. this is an hour and 20 minutes. this is the water right's activist. in fact, if you google the phrase "water rights activist," these the first and only person specifically named in the results. she chairs the board or is a member of the council of

canadians food and water watch, international forum on globalization and the world future council. she holds 12 honorary doctorates, and holds the earth care award highest international honor of the sierra club. she's highly published and latest is "blue future" protecting water for the future and planet forever. honored to have here here at xavier. please help me in welcoming her. [ applause ] >> wow. thank you very much. i'm absolutely delighted to be here. thank you, mark for your beautiful words. i'm quite embarrassed if that's true. that that's -- if i come up first, i am going to look. thank you so much to nancy and

elizabeth for stainability community, and thank you, james buchanan and cynthia for the work you do, and i just a shoutout to edward the founder and i just want to say it is a true pleasure speaking at a university where your stated goals have to do with actually up front who you are. it's not that common, actually and so it's just really a treat to be here. i'm going to talk to you a little bit about the global water crisis and welcome, by the way, to the high school students, happy you guys came here. it's special that you are here. and then i'm going to talk about what we can do and are doing and i want to say to you that i hate it when people my age come to talk to younger people and say it's doom and gloom and you should, you know forget about it, nothing you can do.

there is a lot we can do about the crisis i'll talk to you about, and i deeply believe hope is a moral imperative and if i share with you the bad news, it's also because i'm going to then share with you what i think we need to do about it. but i do think we need to face the actual dimension of the crisis. we've seen enormous increase in the amount of water we're using as a human species in the last couple decades. basically, a 50% increase in withdrawals in a very very short time. we are seeing what some of us call running dry, massive pollution of the surface water and even pollution of the ground water. in the united states, it's legal to dump toxic waste into the ground water sources and massive amounts are dumped out of sight out of mind i guess

is the thought but i was sharing they found an audiocassette fer under mexico city, which is in real trouble and water-wise, and they took out all the water under the city but they found another, and when they pulled the first glass, cup of the new fresh water up, the engineer said and drank it and said it's delicious, and said, this is why you don't destroy ground water because you'll need it. we're damming rivers, pulling up ground water, ground water mining faster than these ground water sources can be replenished, and we're damming rivers so most of the major rivers in the world no longer reach the ocean and where fresh river meets salt water is an important spawning ground for aquatic life. the moster underdemand is for

the global economy, and it's important to start off with knowledge of something called virtual water, the water that's embedded in things we eat or computers we news whatever. until not long ago, the united nations said each person on earth uses x amount of water, and now we understand that that's one-tenth of the water that we really use nine tenths of the water we use is not something we see or touch, but embedded in our dinners and so on. if you sit down as a family of four to a small steak each, you're consuming the equivalent of an olympic size swimming pool with that steak. this is -- we're beginning now to bring this into equation to understand what this means. what's happening is like a bathtub. it's like a bunch of us sitting around a great big tub with water in it and blindfolds and straws drinking up that water

really fast, and we think it's fine because there's lots of water, and there's a lot of water for everybody, and then all the sudden, there's no water for anyone. that's exponential overuse of something. you can't see it coming. it's not like one and one makes two and two and two makes four. it's the exponential overuse of something that's finite. last month, there was the world economic forum held for leaders around the world held in switzerland, which always is, and always every year they do research ahead of time on what are major issues? they talked to 900 experts around the world, and to a person they said it's the coming water crisis. it's here in terms of impact. another meeting with u.n. of ban ki moon, secretary general, brought 500 scientists together and said what we're doing now is what they called planet to water, that's what they called planetary transformation, as great a change to the planet and

world as the melting of the ice age. and they also, in a separate different study, the -- again, this done through the world bank the statistic that stunned the world at the time was two years ago was that by 2030 the demand in our world for water will outstrip supply by 40%. this is almost impossible to try to understand, and, of course, you stop and think about who is going to do without, it's going to be the poor. it's going to be the marginalized, the people around the edges. it's the people in slums. the massive slums of the global south or people in poor communities here in north america. it's also going to be the animals. it's going to be the species that can't survive easily without water. i just want to give you a few examples of what we're talking about the india is in terrible trouble. 630 -- 60% of all of their water for farming comes from irrigation, and so they are pulling up their

ground water and damming rivers seriously. dpleting water in some places by five feet a year. in some states, running dry. china, 75% of the surface water is polluted. here's a stunning new report that since 1990, half of the rivers in china have disappeared. what do you mean, disappear? they are gone. they disappeared. that's partly from hydroelectric coal and mining for hydroelectric power and because they use water and air and soil to produce so much of the stuff they get sent around to the rest of the world. there were two things i want to tell you about, one is the aero c, so big a lake it was called a sea. the other was lake chad. once the fourth and sixth largest lakes in the world, and now almost nothing, down to a

bear trickle. it was not climate change as we come to understand it. it was absolute over extraction. the story that most disturbs me now is brazil. brazil has been until recently considered the country with the most water. the most water rich country in the world. they never had droughts. tons of water, right? they have the aquifer, the rain forests that hold tremendous amounts of water. suddenly, the second biggest city in brazil with about 20 million people living there has gone dry. i mean, when i tell you in the last two years, there was no problem two year three years ago, it is going dry incredibly fast with massive draught over the last few years across brazil. turns out it's because they cut down the amazon. what we now know is when you cut down forests or rain forests or vegetation, that changes the pattern, and these rain forests

give off massive amounts of humidity and vapors forming flying rivers. think of it as a river in the sky, and being held up by air, by air currents but it can travel thousands of miles and then it delivers rain to the cities and places. they are cutting down the amazon because they are growing massive amounts of sugar cane and soybeans for exports. not only cutting down trees but taking up massive amounts of water in the form of virtual water. and basically sending this water away. the great lakes are a big issue for those of us living, you guys live about as far away from the great lakes as i do. i live in ottawa, canada, we are about equal distant from the great lakes, not far. the great lakes are in serious trouble. we have invasive species massive pollution, but we also

have over pumping, over exploitation of the water system itself. not to give too many studies but another study oun ground water taken said if the great lakes were pumped as mercilessly around the great lakes the great lakes could be bone dry in 80 years. if you stood on the bank of the big lakes, superior, and michigan, you can't imagine. that's why i told you about the sea. it is possible to take a massive amount of water and destroy it. we are dealing with the blue-green algae you read about it in toledo last summer and expecting it to come back this summer. this comes from industrial farming, the chemical based agriculture business where there's not proper regulations and these nutrients are running off into our water systems and there are 67000 square miles of

business around the great lakes basin, and it is poisoning them. the patch that we thought we got rid of in lake erie is back, and it is a serious issue. you probably know that your own ohio river is named the most polluted body of water in the united states for seven years running, and i know there's a tremendous amount of work done in cincinnati and in the state on renewable energy and on this being a kind of a very exciting area of high-tech solutions to the water problems but we are not stopping the water pollution at its source, and we need to understand this. there's 23 million pounds of chemicals dumped into the ohio river last year. we have to find a way to stop this. martin luther king said many wonderful thing, but one, he said legislation may not change the heart but restrain the heartless. sometimes i see people doing wonderful things, but the government will not stop the people doing bad things from

doing those bad things like, you can't catch up because you can't keep up with the destruction taking place, so we absolutely need to regulate and say nobody's allowed to do that to the lakes and recent concern that i have is that the great lakes are increasingly used as what i call a carbon corridor to move the dirtiest energy on earth by train, by pipeline, around and underthe great lakes and recently shipped on barges and ships on the great lakes. this is from the tar sands, alberta, and fighting hard in our country and it's an oil substance, and to get it through, they use chemical laced substances, and when they leak they create terrible pollution. now the coast guard and the united states gave the okay to ship on ships on american waterways waste water from

fracking. that's amongst the most volatile substances that we can, and to my mind when we know what we know about the water system the water situation, the water crisis in our world how ke with do this is continues to be just stunning to me, and colorado the colorado basin, lake mead, the reservoir that was created when the hoover dam was built, all of these are down. there's a new nasa study saying they have taek p down enough water ground water out of the colorado basin to provide all the water that's needed for all american households for eight years. i mean, that's just -- we just put bore wells down, and we drink this stuff up. there's 200,000 bore wells in the ogallala aquifer that goes down the spine of the u.s. down to the texas panhandle. again, building massive industrial farms to grow corn for corn ethanol and pumping up

that ground water with pumps that were not designed until the late 1950s, so before that, they had no ability to pull up that ground water. it's only in you know, 70 years or so that we have been able to greep the desert in that way but there's a terrible price. the terrible price is the department of agriculture here in the united states said two years ago that the aquifer will be gone in our lifetime, and you try to say that to people who farm there or who live there, and, you know it's going to be gone. and people say i don't know what you mean. yesterday, the los angeles times, if this is not a headline that gets you, i don't know what will but it was their major headline, major editorial said california has one year left of water. will are we ready to ration yet? look it up don't believe me, look it audiotape. how can we get up every morning and say it's business as usual. it's not business as usual. just go back to the people in

brazil. i visited some communities, an they get their water now -- this is from water rich area two years ago, three years ago. they have water from five to six in the morning, just a trickle, and then it's turned off. they have water again from 10:00 to 11:00 at night. do whatever you need to do that needs water or collect it in those two hours because that's the water that you get. you don't have to go that far away. i've been working with the people in detroit, michigan who have had their water cut off, many thousands of them. we got a moratorium, the u.n. experts involved to look at what's happening. this is an area where a lot of money left the inner city, people left behind are poor mostly african-american, older people single mothers, very high unemployment. they don't have the funds and so the city near bankruptcy then, now in bankruptcy doubled the price of water. people cannot afford it. they are coming in.

they literally go house to house and turn the water off. try raising kids or caring for the ill with no water. it's not just happening far away. it's happening in the so-called rich parts of our world in north america as well. these are real issues, and another nasa report that just came out last month reported unprecedented megadraught coming in the midwest in the united states and parts of canada the great plains and southwest over the next few decades, and they say it will last decades, that it will be unlike anything in living history or living memory. now, here's a prediction i have for you. you got a presidential election coming up. i predict this issue will not be on the table. i predict they will not speak about it. they will not write about it. they will not be asked about it in debates.

now, why is this? well i just have four thoughts on why. the first is the myth abundance. we all learned back in grades six or whatever there's a finite amount of water. it can never be destroyed. it's the same not only the same amount of water, but the exact same water that was here at the beginning of the planet, and it goes around, and we all have a diagram in our heads, like a river around the earth, stick all the straws you want in it, and so we learned we could not run out. i think that in the gloenl north or west whatever you call us we tend to think there's a technology that will fix it, but that is -- that myth is deep and rooted and hard to get rid of. we see water as a resource, pleasure, and profit and convenient. we do not see it as element necessary for life. we don't respect water. we don't think about it.

we don't care about it. it exists to serve us, period full time. one of the advisers to president hoover when building the hoover dam and the other big megadams said america will be great when she learns to conquer her rivers. this notion that water is here to be conquered for our economic model is really a powerful run. >> i also think that we have misdiagnosed the water crisis. if you talk to environmentalists involved in climate change they say water is a victim of climate change induced by greenhouse gas emissions. that's true. the healthing glaciers and ice packs is true. what's missing from the diagnose is that when we take water and move to where we want, as they move water all over the place to produce 85% of the almonds for

the entire world right in a state running out of water so as they say, water runs uphill to money right? we have a situation where we are mis misdiagnosing what the situation is. our placement our abuse of water is the cause of climate change. it's really very much past time that we put this in the mix and start talking about water and undo what we've done as one of the answers to climate change. i say to you in terms of reasons, politicians not talking about it and artists don't either not suggesting it's just here in the united states. it's common other than in a few countries where they are just facing water shortage like the water is running out now, but it's the dominant model of economic development that says more growth unlimited growth

keep going forever. more trade more stuff, more market economy. i want my strawberries in january. i don't care where they come from, who it costs. we have a notion to have all things at all times and we created a global economy that started, i argue, not just enormous wealth gaps between the rich and poor, and in the year 2000 there were 11 billionaires in the world, and now there's 2500 billionaires in the world. 15 years, what does that tell you for policies of the 1%, for the 1%, by the 1% right? i argue the way we grow food for a global market is like putting a pipeline in the water system and sucking water up and taking that away. remember when you grow food -- when you use water to grow food,

you're consuming that water that water is not returned to the water shed. so what do we need? i call for a new water ethic p, and that says water is not just a resource. as i say, for our pleasure and profiting veengs inging convenience, but the element that gives us life to be respected, revered, and we need a new relationship with water. we also and if i were clear of the world and make every leader in the world do what i say and save the world's water all policy, and this has to happen at all levels, municipal, state federal, international. all policy asks the question what is the impact on water? our energy, using fossil fuels is not just bad for air. everybody knows that. it's terrible for water. fracking uses destroys abuses huge amounts of water.

growing corn for ethanol it takes 1700 gallons of water to make one gallon of corn ethanol so, yes, okay, maybe that's a better use for the car but it's the water foot print is not worth it. i argue that ethanol is worse than fossil fuels, and we must not set up air versus water kind of reality. what does it look like about the impact on water of food production? well, i'll tell you. we have to stop using chemicals. we wouldn't have anymore toledo green water if we stop putting and stop having factory farms stop putting pesticides and narcotics in animal feed. if we go back to growing food, local, sustainable, family farms, or ganganic, and food for

local consumption, that cuts the water consumption of the world in half. what would be the question is always what's the impact on water of the trade policies? what if we took into account, okay, all trade is not the same. there's a white shirt coming from this country, and a white shirt -- excuse me -- coming from this country, and they both took the exact amount of water to produce but the water -- but the water in this country is almost gone so that shirt is coming at the price of the local people's water rights and in this country, they still have water, so it's not quite the same, so we don't ask that question. we never ask the question in the doppler radar agreements, are we protecting our natural resources? are we protecting our people? we have to declare water to be a public trust, and public trust is an old concept in the united states, entrenched particularly

in the north eastern states, less so in the southwestern states where nay have more of a first to come here, got the rights to water sort of thing. public trust says water is a commons. it belongs to us all, and governments must protect it in the name of the people for all and for future generations. that does not mean you can do whatever you want. it's not a commons that you can, you know say, well, i can abuse it. it does not belong to anybody. we fiercely have to protect the commons and say, what is the priorities for people having access to the water? you just can't have it for anything anybodiments it for. i give you an example of vermont. i worked on the legislation and vermont has beautiful water, a lot of ground water, and a few years ago, there was bottled water companies coming in,

setting up a plant to drink the local water source until it was gone, and they were concerned. they brought in legislation that their ground water is a public trust, and they actually said to protect it, we're going to giver priority to water for people's daily needs water for protection of the ecosystem and water for local food production, not for agriculture business sending our water and food far away. there was a high artyerarchy of access and they were able to use their public trust doctrine because of the nuclear facility that was leaking into the local water source, and the local company, the nuclear power company, said, yes, it's our water, we have the rights. the stated said, no, the fact that we made it a public trust trumps your private right to dump this into the water. we're taking it back. it's a very exciting concept

that we need to go back to and i have been working with the great lakes to get them declared a commons, protected buyer region so we stop seeing it your piece of this and that piece and we see it as a water shed. we need common laws and protections and common enforce. . you get enforcement totally different on different parts of the lakes, and we need together, to say no more shipping of this extreme energy. we cannot put the water up at this risk, and it's a new way of thinking, thinking in terms of water shed governance which they are doing in europe. since 2000 all of their water sheds must be governed by committees and legislatures from all of the countries that surround the water sources. it's not my water but i'll try to get this amount and it's our water collectively.

at a global level, i'm calling what i name a martial plan and it was the major plan led by the united states to rebuild europe after the second world war and i mean, europe was in tatters. everything from rescuing orphan children to rebuilding schools and hospitals to putting in an economy back together, it was an absolutely incredible endeavor and we need a plan for water. we need our leaders to come together and say this is a crisis. when you read in the newspaper, when you read that california has one year left of water, i don't know what people in california think when they read that but i think a lot will move here, i guess, we might see, you know, american refugees moving from one part of the country to the other. what do we think of when we read that? we have to take this very very seriously. and the united nations needs to set up a separate process for

water. water is linked into and comes under the end brel la of climate change. you go to the climate summits, i go to every one, they just talk about greenhouse gas emissions. those are important. i'm not negating that, but they do not talk about water but anything other than a victim. they do not hear the stories if you rebuild water retentive landscapes, if you created a desert, bring in the technologies and the techniques that we know, and if you put people to work rebuilding and refurbishing water sheds, rain comes back. it's mir rack cue lus. there's so many wonderful examples of where we have done this. we have to stop destroying our water systems. we have to repair those hurt. projects to replenish water, retentive landscapes, working with a wonderful scientist? who

had land hurt by bad industrial practices, and dumping and so on, and he convinced many municipalities then the federal government, to allow a project to put thousands of people to work rebuilding, the kinds of small berms and dams, water retention, water collection, rain water clerksollection and greened an amazing amount of the lands. in india there's many projects where the rainmaker brought back water to a massive amount of land, a wonderful engineer in southern australia, and we'll gather the rain water, the sewage water put it through lagoons planted with the plants

that eat bacteria, and the poison and greened the desert, the birds came back and animals came back. it's a miracle because we have to remember nature comes back if we stop hurting nature. nature wants to come back to us once again. we need food policies. we have to move away from the form of agriculture we have that we are now engaged in. all of our country,ers ported land three times in great britain, and africa, alone, where foreign interests and foreign investors have come in and bought up massive amounts of land and water, and they are fixing it to grow up crops to sell over the community, and they use all the bore well technology that's ruining the aquifers here. they use that there and pumping

it there. we have to learn people who communities, and south america they know how to live with the fluxuations of rain and dry seasons, and they know how to conserve and how to farm properly. we're fighting the pipelines you know the keystone xl pipeline, which is still a hot issue, and it's going to remain contentious through the next election fighting other issues like tar sands in alberta to export markets, and fracking is a really dangerous form of energy in terms of water. we have to say we can do better. if we ask the question for energy, what's the impact on

water, we get different solutions. i also call for, in my book the notion of using water as the source of peace, and rather than a source of conflict, and the demand for water 1 going straight up and the supply is going down. it does not take a genius to figure out maybe there's going to be conflict. maybe there already has been. the deep germ of many of the conflicts in the world have at least partially to do with water from syria to egypt to israel, palestine, many, many disputes in africa, disputes in asia are around water or water as a part of it, and water is being used now around the world as a weapon of war. the government in syria cut water sources off in alepo

where the original revolution took place, just cut off the war. to make war on people, take away the water supply, and there's very little people can do in the absence of access to water. the question will be then well, if it's a source of conflict, can water be a source of peace? think about water as nature's gift to humanity to teach us how to live with each other and maybe, you know, my grandfather was taught to hate your grandfather and your father hate to hate my father and vice versa versa, and i have to hate you, other than we both live on the river, and it's dying. rather than the hating each other, let's come together and build something to save the river. we'll live in peace and come together to save the water source. there's a discipline in universities now around water

and nature being forms of peacemaking, forms of negotiating peaceful settlements, coming around the concept of governance watershed govern governance and sharing. rather than it's my portion. whatever the demand, let's conform to it. let's make that happen. one of my favorite examples is the group called friends of the middle east, and they came together years ago with members from all the factions gaza, ill israel, syria, lebanon, all of them, and they came together to say we're not going to talk history. we won't agree. we're not going to talk religion or politics baa we do not agree. we are going to talk about how to save the water systems in our community. it's been so successful there's some parts of the wall taken down where people just got to know each other and realized how

much more in common they have one one another than they might have thought. we have to promote human laws that reflect the law of nature. there's a movement i'm involved in a number of really thoughtful interesting people are creating called the right of nature. they have rights beyond the use to us. yes, there's the public trust. we all have common access, all have equal rights, but water has rights separately. even if water did not serve us, water serves other species. water serves itself. nature has rights. we have to stop thinking of ourselves at the top of this chain of command as if we're so important and how that would be well, we actually have examples around the world where local ordnances are declared and local

wetland or forest has the status of the human being, right? it has rights. people are coming around the concept of protecting the right and somebody said, oh, you can't go fishing, you know, because fish have rights. i said no, of course you can fish, but you can't fish a species to extinction. that's the way the law works. how -- yes, you can take water from the water shed, but not so much from the water shed that you destroy it. you have to leave the integrity of the species or the integrity of the ecosystem in tact. and that's a sea change for us for we human and the were we give and the more powerful and the more we stick together the more we can really accomplish. i'm going to stop so we can take

questions. we have to accept water as a human right. nancy talked about the struggle at the united nations. i was invited in 2008 and 2009 to be an adviser to the president of the u.n. general assembly. that's not ban ki moon, the secretary general. general assembly, which is all the countries together every year, elect a president, and that year was a man of the liberation theologian from nickthat was a wonderful man, and he called, would you come to new york to meet with me because i want to make water a human rightment i said do i have time to go to new york? yes, okay, maybe, like, now, can i get on a plane now? fabulous man. we worked with a lovely man who

was the ambassador of that time in ÷'bolivia, a land locked country, which was locked into a water war and that water war where people were killed because the world bank said you have to take a private water company if you want to go from us and they brought in a company that tripled the price of water and they said, we own the rain much rain. we're going to charge for the water that you catch from the sky, and they said inspectors are around and these are the poorest people on earth. this is 85% indigital nous this is the water from the sky told they had to pay for it. so there was a revolution. army brought out, people were killed. it was a water war. when the new president came in, he assigned this to the u.n. and they worked together to

build a small team there and he put the resolution to the u.n. general assembly in june of 2010. it was a very brave thing to do. it basically said that water and sanitation are fundamental human rights equivalent to all other human rights. water was not included in the 1948 declaration because nobody imagined water being a problem, but for the last number of years, it's been clear that not only is water a huge -- the lack of water a huge threat, but it's the greatest threat particularly to children. and when pablo got up in the general assembly had formidable enemies, your country was opposed at the time, since changed your mind, my country opposed, great britain, water companies opposed. we didn't think we'd win. he got up to present to the general assembly and said there's a new study that says in the global south every three

flaf seconds a child dies of water-borne disease and went like this, held three fingers like this and half a finger. everyone realized a child just died, a child died. you could hear people breathing. it was absolutely amazing. voting started. at the u.n. when they vote they sit in the seats and just press an electronic you know button, and it comes up on a great big board at the front. and i was standing at the back in the bilkny holding hands with a couple of my staff saying we're going to lose but it's okay. we never thought we'd win so soon. back in five years, win then, and i was sure -- i was preparing them because i was sure we'd lose. they are in tears. they vote. i was wrong. 122 countries voted in favor. not one country including the u.s. and canada voted against even though they were opposed. they abstained. 41 countries abstained. and the price erupted in cheers.

it was an absolutely fabulous moment and in my opinion in that moment, the human faechl took an evolutionary step forward, and we said it's not okay that your child that hashas to die a horrible death of water-born disease because you couldn't afford to buy expensive water. that's not okay. now, does that mean the day after this was adopted everything was fine? no. in fact, the crisis in detroit has happened since then. well, we have outlawed torture back in 1948 and torture exists in the world, but that does not mean we think it's okay and when we don't think something's okay, we collectively make that statement, and it was really important that as a human family, the united nations said we will strive so no one has to do without. the only way that no one does without is if we take care of our water better, and we share that more justly. this is our task now.

it's a huge and very, very powerful one that lies before us. we've had tremendous success with this law, and a number of countries, mexico being the most recent. have adopted the human right to water in their constitutions or in separate laws, number of countries have plans to move forward, and we have a wonderful success with the group of first nations, indigenous people in botswana, north of south africa. they have the desert and bushmen, hunter-gatherers who lived way their ancestors did, and 15 years ago, the government of the time tried to get them out of the desert because they found diamonds in the deserts. they were beginning to frack in the desert and they wanted people gone. when the people would not go and kept coming back no matter what

they came back they smashed the wells, and said no more water and said anyone bringing water to the bushmen would be put in jail. it was a terrible violation of their human rights, and they went to court with a group named survival international, and they won the right to go back to the desert, but they did not get their right to water. after the u.p. adopted the human right to water sanitation, we went back to the supreme court in botswana, and armed with a new right, the people, the first nations, indyigenous people won the right to have their water reopened and returned to the desert, and it's a really marvellous story of a kind of genocide and people fighting back and saying we know who we are, and we know what we stand for, and we'll take nothing less than these fundamental rights. we don't want the whole world. we don't want to be competitive. we don't want all your stuff. we want to live our lives the way our parents and grandmothers

and their parents lived and we want and need water for this. and so it was, you know -- when i think about my own life, i think of a few highlights that i can tell you that being part of that struggle was a very deeply moving one for me and for everyone involved. so this vision i have a water shed govern nans saying what's the impact, water is a public trust, no one can appropriate it for private property, collect it sell it for profit when other people are dying because they don't have access to it. water is a human right not just for this generation, but generations to come which is

why i called it forever. it's cheeky to write a book saying how to protect water for people on the planet. i put forever in and my husband, andrew, said, oh, that's strong. ied said well, what do you want me to say for a hundred years? like it's got to be forever, right? we have to think about it forever if we -- we better do what indigenous people do and think seven generations ahead. i want to end the formal part of this is two favorite quotes, and then we have time for discussions, i think. i'm going to just -- there's so many wonderful ones, but here's three quotes because i have the time. one is from a writer michael who talks about water sheds saying water sheds come in families, nested levels of intimacy. on the grandest scale the web is like all humanity, ser bs russians, amish, billion souls

and people's republic of china broadly troubled, but it's hard to know how to help. as you work upstream towards home, you are closely related. the big river is like your nation. a little out of hand. the lake is your cousin the creek your sister the pond her child. and for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, you are married to your sink. then there's the late great carl, your wonderful scientist, environmentalist, anyone who used to watch him on television will remember he used to talk about billions and billions of stars. he would make nature and science come alive. he was a wonderful man. he said this. he said anything else you are interested in is not going to happen if you cannot breathe the air and drink the water. don't sit this one out. do something. you are alive in a critical

moment in the history of our planet, and that would be my message to you guys, younger people in the room. it's not like me saying okay, we're handing over the problem to you. this is generation to generation. we do this together. but we are given a gift of a challenge here, and that's how i see it. i do not see it as a problem. i see it as a gift that we can come up with the answer, that is needed, and we can. and the last quote that i love the best, this is from "lord of the rings," this is gandolph sees himself as a water steward, and i share this with you because you are water stewards, or you would not be here but talking about what it means to be a steward of nature a steward of the earth. and this is the night that he is standing there, some of you remember, and the terrible army is coming. this is the deep, you know the one in the second movie, and where they are going to all

living things all good things all things of nature could be possibly destroyed and i don't know about you but for me, the books are about the assault on nature and nature fighting bark, the trees fight back, and it's nature fighting back. i leave you the formal part of this thought. he says the rule of no realm is mine, but all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. and for my part, i shall not holy fail in my task if anyone passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flour again. in the days to come. for i, too am a sty ward. did you not know? thank you very much. [ applause ]

so now we have time to chat. we have two wonderful people who are going to bring the mic around. don't be shy. questions, arguments, yes, right here. >> okay. thank you for your presentation. you outline a very comprehensive and interesting approach to things that need to be done. my question relates to setting priorities about where to start, and what i'm thinking is some of the -- many of the issues are broad, very deep comprehensive how would you go about looking at priorities or criteria to determine where you can get the political consensus what set of goals where you can get the political consensus and the

financing to do it? i'll just give one example that everyone recognizes in this state and in most urban areas. and that has to do with storm water sewers and what's going on, and yet the proposed budget in our state that the governor came up with is basically $10 billion short. there's not any funding for infrastructure and in general everyone wants to shrink government and no one wants to pay taxes. so against that backdrop, any thoughts you have about how to identify the priority where consensus is low hanging fruit where you can actually make some progress? i'd appreciate thoughts on that. >> well it's a really really thoughtful and very tough

question, as a matter of fact. i wish that there were not the apathy that there were -- that exists now. i'll start with the smaller local. i think that people can say what can -- well, first of all learn as much as you can. read, read read. get your heads around this. i'd send you here in the u.s. if you lived in canada send you to canadians canadians canadians.org, but go to foodandwaterwatch doirgt foodandwaterwatch.org. that's good information on keeping water in public hands and leading the fight on fracking in the u.s., or one of the groups. but, so it was starting with getting as much knowledge as you can. for those students or those very involved in the institution high school, or university, you can start a discussion around bottled water on your campus. there are many, many campuses around the united states and canada that have actually stoppedstop ed providing bottled water. not that they banned it. if you want to bring bottle

water on to campus, that's your business, but the campus is no longer going to provide it because we have great drinking you know -- the fresh water -- yes, thank you. it's been a long day. my brain's gone. and so that sometimes is a way to start that then leads to much greater sensitivity. i was in one university where students collected the small plastic bottles from just one week from the vepding machines, from the caves, from the cafeteria, from all sources that existed, and they put them end-to-end, and they went all through the school outside all around the university and people was just like stunning as a visual image. this is what we're doing, and, by the way, last year, if we were to take all the individual single plastic bottles just of water that people drank in the world and put them end to end,

it reaches to the moon and back 65 times. try to imagine the plastic we're talking about when it's not necessary. right? so sometimes it's what's very particular to you. it could be a local fracking fight, and those are really worth getting involved in because we are winning a number of those. we have, in my country we got moratoriums in quebec nova scotia new brunswick ontario, and maybe one in the prairie provinces. there's been an outbacklash against it. we put up with the tar sands pollution and people just saying, we don't want another form of this. sometimes it can be that kind of a fight. it can be, then when you get to the larger question you raise, which is how do we get people to pay taxes to be prepared to say we have to have the kind of government that's going to put this front and center. do we have to wait until

everybody's california with the signs saying, okay, folks, one year, how about you ready to talk rations now? let's talk about -- i noticed they did not say, are you ready for regulation. we need regulation. i -- i quoted martin luther king. i'll quote again. we need rule of law. this does not restrain the heart, but the heartless. we need to get to the place where we elect leaders who do what's necessary to do, and i don't know the easy way to do that. i think, however, if you start at a level that is instructed for you that feels within your grasp, that creates a movement. i spoke at one university in new england, five years ago and a group of the first year students were so moved and excited by the challenge that they decided to form a club to get rid of bottled water on the campus and invited me last year as they were now graduating, their last

year, had succeeded, and they wanted to celebrate and have me there. every single one of them has gone on to other environmental challenges, and some went into sciences. one is going into environmental law like all of them from that one experience became dedicated with a larger vision and it's very very exciting process, but it's hard, and i don't have an easy answer for you. if i did, i'd be queen of the world. >> please stand up when you ask. >> this is a bogus question, but technology is one of the solutions, you know, qatar opening a 550 million gallon a day reverse osmosis plan.