In 2079, worldwide drought and nuclear plant meltdowns have diminished the earth’s water supply by 88 per cent. The only hope for survival is to send war criminal Grant Clarke to Jupiter’s distant moon, Europa. Clarke must obtain a sulphur-based bacteria and get it back to earth in time to decontaminate the nuclear waste and save the world’s water supply.
That’s the plot of Europa, a 17 minute thesis film directed by David Gidali and produced by Avi Quijada for the American Film Institute (AFI). Post production of the AFI student film was completed in December 2011 and we can’t wait for its release.
We are also still eagerly awaiting the release of another sci-fi water film, Shekhar Kapur’s Paani. Elizabeth director Kapur announced the plans for his big budget film (the cost has apparently increased from US$ 30 million to US$ 50 million) at Cannes in 2010, but so far there is no confirmation that filming has actually started.
Related news: Global water crisis gets Bollywood Sci-Fi treatment, WASH News International, 18 May 2010
Filming for a major motion picture addressing the global water crisis will start in November 2010. Award-winning director Shekhar Kapur presented his new project Paani (Hindi for water) at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival.
Kapur has teamed up with global water activist Maude Barlow, whose book “Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water” inspired the film. Swarovski Entertainment and Walkwater Media are providing the required US$ 30 million funding for Paani.
Alexander Koll (Swarovski Entertainment), Maude Barlow with Shekhar Kapur, David Farr (screenwiter) and Manmohan Shetty (Walkwater Media) at the Paani press conference in Cannes, 13 May 2010. Photo: Getty Images
Paani (Water) [is a] a love story set in a futuristic city [Mumbai] where water appears almost to have run out and corporations war over its control.
Kapur spoke of his broader environmental motive in making the film, which features a city divided into conflicting halves in which the upper echelons hoard the water and drip-feed the slums of the lower city.
“We want and have to get this story out there as widely as we can … One of the key drivers behind the project is an aim to bring the growing global issue of a world without clean drinking water, and the threat to humanity it represents, to the top of the global political agenda,” he said.
Kapur linked-up with activist Maude Barlow after meeting documentary maker Irena Salina and seeing her film Flow.
“I have been wanting to make this movie for a long time,” Kapur said. “Irena said ‘you have to read Maude’s book.’ Blue Covenant was the spark that coalesced the idea.”
Barlow says she’s thrilled at the prospect of working on the movie and Kapur has asked her to be an adviser — to help him keep the serious message from getting lost.
“I introduced him to what’s happening with the privatization and corporate control of water and the struggle to keep it public,” she said. “He told me that I had given him a big piece in the puzzle. He wants Paani to be more than a science fiction film but one that is about the true place we’re headed to if we don’t change course.”
For Barlow and other water activists the prospect of a mainstream movie devoted to their cause is major boost.
“It’s a whole other vehicle and whole new venue for telling the story,” said Barlow
“We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience with Paani — people who think water comes from a tap or a plastic bottle. Lots of people are blissfully unaware of this as an issue. So getting a movie made by the best of the best is really exciting for us.”
In the film, the daughter of the chairman of the world’s largest water corporation descends into the deprived lower city level where she gets kidnapped by a young water warrior. As the film progresses the two fall in love.
The leading male role in Paani will be played by Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan. The Oscar winning team behind Slumdog Millionaire are also involved. Director Danny Boyle will be the producer, while AR Rahman is composing the music. Jill Bilcock (Moulin Rouge) will be the film’s editor, and John Myhre (Chicago, Memoires of a Geisha) will be responsible for production design.
Sets will be created in India, and there will be location filming in Singapore and Dubai (for the upper city scenes) and in Mumbai (for the slum scenes).
Shekhar Kapur first thought about making Paani ten years ago when he met a rural politician who told him that the amount of water used to flush a toilet in the city is what an entire family in a village can use for three days.
That got me thinking. Then, a few months later, I went visiting this really rich guy who lives at Malabar Hill. He was showering while I waited for him outside, and I could hear the constant flow of water inside and he didn’t emerge for a good half hour.
Later, on my way home, I saw this long queue of women and girls — there were hardly any boys — waiting with buckets to fill from a water tanker. That’s when the idea of Paani struck me. The film is not so much about the scarcity of water — that is something we know about already — but about the fact that water is what will eventually distinguish between two classes: one which gets it freely and one which doesn’t.
Kapur envisages a world where water scarcity and commercialisation, especially as a result of urbanisation, will spark conflicts.
Control over groundwater needs huge funding and control over the local government — it’s all about power. Those who have the power control the water and drip-feed the rest of the population. Paani will basically be about water wars between these two classes.
At the press conference at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, Kapur challenges his backers to drink slum water from Mumbai.
“I’ve got this water from the slums of Dharavi, and if you are committed to the film, you’ll drink this”. He said that not all the bottles contained slum water, only a few did. But they were mixed up with regular water, and they all looked alike – full of brownish water labeled Valentine’s.
“It’s like playing Russian Roulette,” said Kapur, and he took a swig from his bottle, as did the others joining him at the press event [Alexander Koll, Maude Barlow, Manmohan Shetty and David Farr].
Indian film director and producer Shekhar Kapur is most well known for his films Bandit Queen, Elizabeth and its sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Follow updates about the film Paani on Shekhar Kapur’s blog and on Twitter.
Jane Catherine Shaw, co-director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, takes on world drought in “Thirst: Memory of Water,” her newest puppet theatre work. Shaw’s work concentrates on themes of women and water because. “Around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water”, Shaw wrote. The play ran in New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theater Club from 25 March to 11 April 2010.
The play’s narrative is compiled from first-person writings about Ethiopia, China, Bangladesh, Korea, Japan and testimonials from Haiti, Tanzania, and the Jenin Camp on the West Bank. There will also be newspaper accounts from Saudi Arabia, excerpts from the Rig-Veda, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Treatise on Water, and Book Six of The Aenead. Texts have been assembled through The Common Language Project, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, 1h2o.org, WaterAid America, All China Women’s Federation, Voices for Creative Nonviolence (Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator), and from personal recollections of the all women cast.
Manu and the Fish from the sacred books of the Rig Veda-Hindu Deluge Story. Photo: Jane Catherine Shaw
Imagery is created using such “theater magic” as elevated rod puppets with dancing puppeteers, shadow puppets, three-person puppets, a small baby puppet and a duplicate giant inflatable baby puppet, a small hand held vignette (performed in the palm of a puppeteer’s hand), and a quasi-toy theater piece depicting the NYC Sand Hogs.
Shaw finds the world’s water crisis, arising in part from global climate change as well as water mismanagement, too compelling to ignore. She says, “It has to do with scarcity and conflict–and whether or not water is accepted as a ‘right,’ therefore everyone should have access to it–or as a resource. As a resource it is a commodity that can be withheld or sold at high prices.”
Her script uses the example of the Mesopotamian Marshes, which were drained by Saddam Hussein in retaliation against the Marsh Arabs, the Ma’dan, after the Gulf War. After Saddam was toppled, Iraqis began to tear down the dikes and canals that had diverted the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and many areas of the marshes were re-flooded, but the next drought put the region in peril again. “Today there are many dams upstream of the marshes which restrict the flow of the Rivers and impact the lives of everyone and every animal downstream.” Shaw muses. “Imagine if our treaties with Canada about the equitable use of rivers crossing our borders become difficult to maintain. We already have an existing treaty with Mexico about the quantity of water that is allotted to them from the Colorado River. But, for instance in the 1950′s the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation project pumped out large quantities of water and returned highly saline drainage that was unfit for Mexico’s farmers to use. In 1972 we resolved that water quality issue with a ‘permanent and definitive solution,’ but what happens if we have many years of drought? Will we honor the treaty, or withhold water to sustain ourselves and our lifestyle? It could happen-and it could happen around the world.”
She continues, “The water crisis is too much material for one play, so I chose to focus on women and water because around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking many miles daily to collect water for their families. The more severe the problems become, the heavier the burden on women-and children.” She found a little known style of puppetry from China in which a three foot rod puppet is held over the head of the puppeteer who is costumed and visible as a performer; “I became intrigued with the image of women performers carrying women puppets who are carrying water.” She adds, “I’m interested in this image and hopeful that it will heighten the drama of the story about women and water.” Shaw also delves into mythologies which relate common understandings of water across cultures. Water as the world’s best solvent or as the best spiritual cleanser is a common theme. She notes that deluge stories are found in many cultures and ritual washing is also a universal practice.
The production has music composed by David Patterson. Choreography is by Hillary Spector. Lighting design is by Jeff Nash. Set design is by Gian Marco Lo Forte. Puppets, costume design and construction, script and concept are by Jane Catherine Shaw in collaboration with the all woman cast of Sophia Remolde, Ora Fruchter, Spica Wobbe, Margot Fitzsimmons, Kristine Haruna Lee and Cybele Kaufmann.
As the world’s population grows, competition for food, water and energy will increase. Food prices will rise, more people will go hungry, and migrants will flee the worst-affected regions.
That’s the simple idea at the heart of the warning from John Beddington, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, of a possible crisis in 2030.
Specifically, he points to research indicating that by 2030 “a whole series of events come together”:
The world’s population will rise from 6bn to 8bn (33%)
Demand for food will increase by 50%
Demand for water will increase by 30%
Demand for energy will increase by 50%
He foresees each problem combining to create a “perfect storm” in which the whole is bigger, and more serious, than the sum of its parts.
[In a March 2009, Beddington told the BBC that there was a growing awareness about climate change and the impending food and energy crises, but not that the water crisis was still not being taken seriously enough]. [In particular he stressed that] the growth of cities will accelerate the depletion of water resources, which in turn may drive more country dwellers to leave the land.
[One of the experts the BBC consulted to react to Beddington's prediction was Prof Jules Pretty of Essex University]. [He said']: “The general premise, that we have a number of critical drivers coming together, is correct. The date 2030 is rhetorical. We don’t know whether things will become critical in 2027 or 2047, no-one has any idea, but within the next generation these things are going to come to pass unless we start doing things differently. That is the urgency of this set of ideas. When governments talk about reducing emissions by X% by 2050, I despair. We need to do it by next week. Humankind has not faced this set of combined challenges ever before.”
The paper details how climate change is expected to impact water scarcity, water quality, and water demand. It also brings to the fore how interconnected water and energy are, particularly in terms of the vast amounts of energy used to treat, distribute, and use water, and the serious shortsightedness and risks of managing water and energy/climate change in isolation of one another.
The Pacific Institute and UN Global Compact present the need for the business sector to take action on both climate and water, detailing how disruptions in water supply can increase water prices and trigger increased socio-political risks. Without forward-thinking management, such disruptions can undermine industrial operations, increase competition for clean water, exacerbate the subsequent tensions that arise between businesses and local communities, and cause ecological impacts from water withdrawal and discharge that require more regulatory action.
The Pacific Institute, based in Oakland, California, provides independent research and policy analysis on environment and development issues, including water shortages. The UN Global Compact is a policy platform for companies that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices. The Compact set up the CEO Water Mandate in 2007, as one of its specialised workstreams.
Google Labs [has] launched Fusion Tables, a powerful new online research and data organizing tool that makes it much easier to share and navigate the world’s digital science and technical archives. Fusion Tables, which was developed by Google engineers using sample research data about the global fresh water crisis provided by the Pacific Institute and Circle of Blue, is specifically designed to unlock a treasure trove of facts, trends, and scientific findings that until now have been sequestered in databases and spreadsheets not easily shared.
The new Google technology provides users a rare opportunity to share critical data, probe them, organize pertinent information and generate design elements — charts and graphs — that translate complex information into much more digestible trends. The intent is to enable online collaborators to study and understand in new dimensions the world’s complex problems — the fresh water crisis among them — discern the salient details and organize those scientifically confirmed facts. They can be used to tell stories, offer insights, and propose solutions that heretofore were largely the purview of scholars and scientific experts.
[...] Journalists from Circle of Blue wanted to understand the influence of per capita income and the availability of tap water on the incidence of child mortality worldwide from diarrhea. Circle of Blue merged Pacific Institute data in the Fusion Table Gallery with data sets from the Internet. Fusion Tables created a scatter plot that revealed a noticeable and predictable correlation of death by water-related illness, wealth and safe drinking water availability. As the gross domestic product per capita increased, the percentage of a country’s population connected to tap water increased, and child deaths related to diarrhea decreased.
Growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030, the UK government chief scientist has warned. By 2030 the demand for resources will create a crisis with dire consequences, Prof John Beddington said.
Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the population tops 8.3 billion, he told [the Sustainable Development UK 09] conference in London. Climate change will exacerbate matters in unpredictable ways, he added. “It’s a perfect storm,” Prof Beddington told the conference.
Prof Beddington said the looming crisis would match the current one in the banking sector. “My main concern is what will happen internationally, there will be food and water shortages,” he said.
[...] The United Nations Environment Programme predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025. The amount of fresh water available per head of the population is expected to decline sharply in that time.
[...] Better water storage and cleaner energy supplies are also essential, he added.
Source: By Christine McGourty, BBC News, 19 Mar 2009
It’s the world’s most precious commodity, yet many of us take it for granted. But that’s all about to change…
It’s hard to imagine why humans would have chosen the achingly arid stone desert of Wadi Faynan [Jordan] for their first settlement. But water would have been one important reason, says archaeologist Steven Mithen. [..] At least twice, historians believe, Wadi Faynan was abandoned. The first time possibly because of a sharp change in the climate, and later because it became too polluted. Today, Bedouin who survive in the valley have laid pipes down the dry stream bed to suck what is left of the spring in order to irrigate fields of tomatoes they have scratched out of the dry soil. But it’s getting harder. According to local water lore, good rains now come in less than every other year.
The farmers in Wadi Faynan are not alone. Like communities around the world, they are paying the price for thousands of years of exploitation of our environment.
[...] Looking back at the history of mankind’s struggle for enough water, experience suggests the initiative which enabled humans to settle, farm and dominate the planet will provide many solutions. But sometimes we might have to accept defeat. ‘On the one hand you can see this amazing technological ingenuity of humans, which throughout prehistory and history continually invented new ways to manage water supply,’ says Mithen. ‘On the other, the story of the past tells us that sometimes, however brilliant your technological inventions, they are just not good enough, and you get periods of abandonment of landscapes. We have got to be prepared to invest in technology, but also to recognise in some parts of the world there are going to be areas where we’re going to have to say “enough’s enough”.’
Read more: Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 02 Nov 2008
Everyone knows industry needs oil. Now people are worrying about water, too.
“WATER is the oil of the 21st century,” declares Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow, a chemical company. Like oil, water is a critical lubricant of the global economy. And as with oil, supplies of water-at least, the clean, easily accessible sort-are coming under enormous strain because of the growing global population and an emerging middle-class in Asia that hankers for the water-intensive life enjoyed by people in the West.
Oil prices have fallen from their recent peaks, but concerns about the availability of freshwater show no sign of abating. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an “unsustainable” rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute. Climate change is altering the patterns of freshwater availability in complex ways that can lead to more frequent and severe droughts.
