Paste your essay in here…Find the Fountain of Youth: Where is the future of water?
The journey of finding the Fountain of Youth
In March 1513, Juan Ponce de León, taking three ships and sixty-five sailors, started from Puerto Rico. Twenty years ago, he was only a seventeen-year-old sailor in the Columbus’ fleet. Yet now he became the first Governor of Puerto Rico appointed by the Spanish crown, who owned large possessions and wealth. The only way to make him start sailing again is not more land or money, but a legend he had heard from the local Indian. According to the legend, on the other side of the sea, journeying north along the way, there is a fantastic Fountain of Youth, in which the bath can help people rejuvenate their youthful good looks. As long as you find this magical fountain, then you can achieve immortality.
It was as though the destiny, in that year's Easter, the Caribbean northward ocean currents brought him and his fleet to a brand new continent. He named the newly discovered place Pascua de Florida (Florida). In the Spanish language, this is the meaning of “flowery Easter”. At that time, he might not realize that he was the first European to arrive in the North American continent, this is an achievement closer to his predecessor Columbus’ shoulder. In this expedition, he desperately looked for the legendary "Fountain of Youth", but did not find it. Without easily giving up, he landed in Florida again after a few years, continuing to search. This time he was injured in the battle with the local tribe, and later he died in Havana. Juan Ponce de León did not find the fantastic water of his dream, but his relentless search accumulated a lot of hydrological data of the Caribbean, which later became the explorers’ guide. Though the legendary eternal water exploration did not extend his life, this adventure has become a popular legend spread so far. The film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, is exactly based on this story.
From nature product to commodity
Water is so important in everyone's life that it is not surprising that it is given some mythological significance. In all parts of the world, among the cultures, there are ritual worship for water and rivers. The water of these places is also considered to have different extraordinary effects. These different extraordinary water, can be directly sold as a commodity. In the 19th century or even earlier, some locals of European spa town started selling spring water in the earthenware bottles to the passengers1. In the water-poor Qing Beijing, it was quite common for the urban residents to buy water. And the water with different levels had different prices. The itinerant water hawkers would sell water by the bucket with a wheelbarrow wandering around the streets2. However, bottled water had become an industry in the western countries in the 1980s3. In China, the rapid development of bottled water was after 20004. And now the bottled water may even replace tap water, becoming the largest source of urban drinking water.
In a short span of last two or three decades, bottled water has developed into a staggering huge industry in the world. Although people didn’t find the Fountain of Youth, may never find it, but there is not doubt that clean water is becoming the source of wealth. By the estimates, in 2015 the global bottled water wholesale dollar sales exceeded $ 106 billion5. This figure is about 8 times the global production value of rough diamonds of the same year6. Adam Smith once explained to the readers why the seemingly useless diamonds were so much more expensive than the indispensable water:
The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water; but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it7.
The market price of an item is not determined by its value to the people, but the supply-demand relationship of the market. Water and diamonds both have large demands. But in Adam Smith’s view, diamonds are rare, and water is infinite. His judgment seems to need to be adjusted slightly nowadays. In the megatrend of industrial pollution and global warming, the drinkable water is not infinite. Just on last Thursday, every student of Lund University received an email that the municipality of Lund had informed the public that the water in Lund was not drinkable at that moment. They were doing tests and would publish updates when they have further information. They recommended everybody to boil the water before drinking it. Then I found lots of complaints from the daily chit-chat, Facebook, etc. Even one friend of mine told me that the bottled water in ICA was sold out. The tap water supply under the government regulation is known as a trustworthy source of water, but sometimes the scandals appeared repeatedly. In this case, the helpless and panic people choose to consume more bottled water. Moreover, the bottled water companies continue to launch big advertising that drinking bottled water is a healthier, more modern and more urban lifestyle. This is also an important factor of the contribution to the consumption transition. Globally, 40-60% of bottled water consists of packaged tap water8. This kind of so-called bottled water is actually tap water filling in a nice bottle. In one second, 1,500 plastic water bottles are consumed in the U.S.9, which is under the circumstance of most of the American public facilities have set up the free drinking fountain. Drinking bottled water is not only safe, but also bourgeois. There is no wonder that the vice chairman of PepsiCo, Robert S. Morrison, said in 2000, “The biggest enemy is tap water.10”
In some people’s view, the full commercialization of drinking water is nothing more than the result of changes in the supply-demand relationship of the market. But in others’ view, this transition may mean an "alienation" process. If a modern society cannot even provide clean water, then what can be provided? This time is the water, will the next become the air? The sale of air may be a public joke now, will it not become a reality after a decade? On 28 July 2010, the United Nations adopted Resolution 64/292 to recognize the water rights are essential to the basic human rights11. According to this resolution, every person living on earth should have equitable access to safe and clean drinking water. Like most other resolutions of the United Nations, this resolution to a large extent is an ideal vision, but not a realistic developing direction. On this gradually dry and thirsty planet, it is not easy to meet everyone’s need for water. In addition, turning water right into a basic human right does not help solve the water crisis on a global scale. Because water deficiency is not just a matter of idea or consciousness, but a comprehensive result of population explosion, uneven distribution of resources and industrialization.
The modernization of water
In order to ensure everyone can drink enough and clean water, what is needed is conscious collective action. The Romans were the pioneers and heroes of this collective action. They designed and built a series of hydraulic projects that allowed the citizens of Rome to use enough water for one day and to discharge the sewage out of the city12. By the scientific and technological conditions at that time, the cost of system maintenance and service was quite expensive. Meanwhile, it required huge manpower input. But the ancient Roman politicians still considered it as one pride of Rome, a symbol of civilization which is distinguished from barbarism. So far, the water supply system and underground drainage system of a modern city still follow the design concept of Rome: channeling the clean water from outside the city into every home, then discharging the sewage out of the city. Then the engineers and politicians who lived in Victorian British Empire, put the concept of sanitation and public health into the management of water13. The important figures are Edwin Chadwick, John Snow, and Joseph Bazalgette. They realized that sewage was one of the most important media for the spread of the disease. For the health of London citizens (and keeping the Thames from too stinking to the parliamentary conferences). They persuaded Parliament to allot substantial sums for the sewer system of London, which saved hundreds of thousands of lives of children. Though, even in that golden age of water, the water was not completely de-commodified. Consumers still had to pay for water, but these systems to the maximum extent to ensure the safety and fairness of water supply, making water no longer a privilege to pay or win.
In traditional China, the successive governments regarding Confucianism as orthodoxy also tend to the water allocation scheme which regards justice higher than benefit. Karl August Wittfogel, a German-American sinologist, has written a book, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. Wittfogel described traditional China as a “Hydraulic Empire”, claiming that the Chinese Empire used the important hydraulic projects to complete the absolute monopoly of water resources. And then control the political life of the nation by controlling the water resources organizations14. This is an imaginative and enlightening book, but China has never existed as a hydraulic empire ever before. From lots of local chronicles, judicial documents and other source materials, the Confucian governments were very opposed to the occupation of water resources whether in rural or urban areas. They believed in the moral economic judgement of “Inequality rather than want is the cause of trouble.” In this orthodox thought, the governments could not completely monopolize the water resources. While it comes to the civil disputes, they would like to use a harmonious mediation rather than contract or law. Of course, there existed some resistances of local forces and folks, counteracting the implementation. Some of these resistances were slack work, and some resorted to violence. In general, the official and the local power would reach a compromise15. The final state is often that local forces own the right to the use of water resources, but no right to possess, which is also a special government-supervised and merchant-managed system.
In 1690, a discourse by John Locke, a British political philosopher, can provide a theoretical support to this kind of public-private system.
By making an explicit consent of every commoner necessary to any one’s appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common. Children or servants could not cut the meat which their father or master had provided for them in common without assigning to everyone his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one’s, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself16.
Under the theoretical framework of Locke, the government should encourage consumers to pay for the processing, purification and distribution of water, while eliminating the use of water for rent-seeking behavior. It seems more efficient than a full allocation of water resources by the government. If the water supply companies were completing in the water processing and purification, then the consumers will naturally choose the quality and cheap water companies. However, the nature of capitalism is seeking profits. When there exists appropriate profits, then capital is up. Water is no exception. The oligopoly by the real controllers of water had continued till modern China15.
Tap water companies and modern sewage systems appeared in China in the middle of the nineteenth century17. At first, they were settled in the trading ports and military fortresses, which were not developed until the Republican period. By the middle of the twentieth century, yet did major Chinese cities complete the modernization of water. Until 1980s, because of the insufficient infrastructure investment, Chinese water factories still need to cut off the water supply periodically. Like other daily consumer products, although water is modernized in socialist China, it is supplied by rationing. However, the residents of the western densely settled metropolises were also plagued by water supply. It took over a century for the water modernization in the western world. What is different from the West, China’s rapid modernization made China skip the good age of drinking water. It seems that once we had the convenient tap water, and the water quality became inferior. In this position, the bottled water industry developed rapidly in China.
Conclusion
Where is the future of water? More than fifty years ago, as John F. Kennedy called for, “if we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from salt water…it would be in the long-range interests of humanity which would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishments.18” For the technological determinists, all we need for solving the water crisis is the technological breakthrough. However, before human find this fantastic technology, a “Fountain of Youth”, what should we do? Obviously, the era regarding water as an infinite resource has passed. But the capitalist mode of production cannot bring the cheap and clean water to everyone. On the contrary, the rapid development of industrial enterprises polluted large amounts of rivers, lakes and groundwater source. Only tiny minority of the blameworthy would be punished. As for the bottled water industry, which is based on the inadequate infrastructure construction and the degradation of urban water quality, it cannot solve the macro problem of water shortage in addition to its own large amount of waste. We are now in a dilemma, but it is also an opportunity for us to rethink the new relationship with water, and the whole nature. We should learn from the last twentieth century and make good use of this century to reflect and remodel human behavior. In this increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, there are climate change, ecological crisis, political crisis, etc. Every challenge seems so urgent and serious, but none of them is “Mission Impossible”. The same is true of water. Maybe the Fountain of Youth should exist somewhere all the time, while we just have not found it.