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A new Nature Climate Change piece, "The global groundwater crisis," by James Famiglietti, a leading hydrologist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warns that "most of the major aquifers in the world's arid and semi-arid zones, that is, in the dry parts of the world that rely most heavily on groundwater, are experiencing rapid rates of groundwater depletion."
The groundwater at some of the world's largest aquifers - in the U.S. High Plains, California's Central Valley, China, India, and elsewhere - is being pumped out "at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished."
The most worrisome fact: "nearly all of these underlie the word's great agricultural regions and are primarily responsible for their high productivity."
Comment: Water is perhaps the single most critical factor to sustaining human life, and no part of any economy can function without it. Water is an essential human right, and attempts to privatize water sources are fundamentally wrong. It is completely irresponsible that no restraints have been put on corporations to keep them from sucking the water from communities and agricultural regions, but it is also unsurprising, as in this psychopathically controlled world, profits trump everything.
Flow: How privatization is accelerating the world's water crisis
Water industry, World Bank pilot new scheme to drive public water into private hands
Coca-Cola and Nestle are sucking us dry without our even knowing, effectively privatizing water supplies