California orders bottled water firm to stop drawing from natural springs
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
this is a job they are failing at. I was recently shocked to see how many places in the US were under boil-water advisories. At this point I'd really like a national map of where the water is unsafe because they are everywhere and some of them go on for years while others are short term (water main breaks for example).
I found one advisory for a nearby town I frequent that had recently ended and I hadn't even been aware of it. Unless you're obsessively following the department of water/natural resources on social media for every city/state you visit you'd never know! There are bound to be many homes, businesses, even restaurants totally unaware that their water is unsafe and many more visitors to areas who don't have any clue.
It's one of those things I forget about each time I visit and drink from the tap only to remember that I can't do that most places here after the first sip.
Human need ≠ human right. By definition, a limited resource cannot be a natural right.
Rights aren’t natural, that’s a quasi-religious fiction invoked as a thought-terminating cliché to avoid debate over political ideology, and the bounds you state are simply the dogma of a particular political sect fond of the “natural rights” evasion.
Human rights are a matter determined by the conscience of humans, and (while not explicitly called out there), water seems to fall squarely within the broad international consensus on what constitutes “human rights” expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Article 25.
…and the laws of physics. If there is physically not enough water around to satisfy everyone's needs, then no amount of agitation about ‘rights’ will change that. A true universal right is not contingent on a particular material situation.
No, laws of physics do not determine rights. Pragmatics and rights are orthogonal.
> If there is physically not enough water around to satisfy everyone's needs, then no amount of agitation about ‘rights’ will change that.
This is, ironically, more relevant to property rights in water (which are usually entitlements to take a particular amount) than to any common construction of water as a human right, which rather than an entitlement to a particular quantity is fenerally constructed as a right to equitable priority in distribution of what does exist.
The point of rights is that they are things that we have widely agreed governments will not try to stop you from doing. That doesn't mean that they have to ensure that you have the means to exercise those rights.
For example in much of the world (including the US) freedom of movement is a right. If I want to travel from my home in the Pacific Northwest of the US across the country to Florida on the public roads the government cannot simply forbid me from doing so because of my freedom of movement rights. However if I can't afford transportation, or the food and lodging I would need if I tried to walk to Florida, the government does not have to provide some means for me to get to Florida that fits my budget.
You're arguing about "true universal right" not water. This is a political issue not a philosophical one.
A bit odd to claim both physics and philosophy in an argument while ignoring all that in between stuff, that's where humanity happens.
First, they make goods available: bottled water.
Second, they buy the land and/or water rights to use them.
There's some rather sweetheart deals at play there. In some places, those water rights cost as little as a single digit number of dollars per million gallons.
every human need must by necessity be a right. ignoring human needs is in itself a human rights violation. since water is needed to survive, unless you want to deny people the right to live, water must be a human right.
In contrast, limited resources require active effort to obtain, and even that might not be enough. If you are stuck on the desert island, with no food or fresh water available, no amount of agitation about your ‘rights’ will override the laws of physics to make them appear. Even in a more advanced society, producing enough food and water to ensure everyone's survival may be physically impossible (especially if you insist on a certain level of quality). Therefore, ‘rights’ to limited resources are not universal, they are subordinate to (at minimum) the laws of nature.
human rights applies to the relationship between people.
stuck on an island i can do all sorts of things, even illegal ones, because noone is there to stop me. so that's not really useful in determining my right to free expression or due process. both only work if there are others to listen or to charge me with a crime.
however, if i am among other people then those people have the obligation to do everything in their power to keep me alive, because that is my human right. and that would include to share their water, or to cooperate to build a desalination plant, or whatever is needed to survive.
How far do you take this? If you are dying of a disease, and the only way to prolong your life by one week is a medication that costs $2 trillion in resources to produce one dose, is society obligated to produce the medication to slightly delay your death? What if there is enough to satisfy only 50% of people, how does your ‘rights’-based framework decide who lives and who dies?
if the resource is so limited that it really isn't enough for everyone, then it obviously can not be given to everyone. but if everyone needs it, then they still have a right to it. we then just have to figure out how to deal with those that miss out.
a more practical example: a sinking ship, and the rescue boat can not fit everyone. while it is a human right for everyone to be rescued, some will have to stay behind.
but, that doesn't change that there was a human right violated. in either cases we really do need to do everything in our power to rescue these people or find ways to extend the use of the water.
lack of resources does not abolish our obligation to do the best we can to change that, find alternatives, etc.
a better medicine example: covid. everyone needs that vaccination (ignoring those who don't want it) so it becomes a human right to get access to it. no matter the cost.
we can not abolish a right to something that everyone needs just because there is not enough of it.
as far as i understand it, the definition of human rights includes both but that's an extended discussion.
however on your last point, i would argue that despite the difference, free expression or fair trials do also create a duty or responsibility to provide these.
for every right that is given, there exists a duty to provide or enable that right.
it also works the other way around. if it is a duty to send my kids to school, then i have a right to a school within reasonable distance. if it is a duty to work, then i have a right to childcare. etc.
so no matter how you look at it, right and duty are intertwined and can not be separated.
housing, jobs, healthcare, education, water ... strange how classically liberal rights, such as speech and fair trial, which if anything are antagonist to the state, have transitioned, in popular discourse, to physical and materialistic needs that require top down control of resources/institutions. not very liberal to me. nestle sucks, and shouldn't exist, but this 'human right' rhetoric is just stupid
Your comment seems like it takes on the problem from a platonic ideal of a reality which doesn't seem to exist.
I personally thing bottled water is generally pretty unnecessary and really wasteful to transport but I can’t help think the actual amount of water given people are drinking it not watering plants or showering with it is relatively small?
If you are bottling water, you are effectively removing it from the local “water system” with no chance of it ever replenishing the source.
Irrigation wells are not ideal either, and may be comparable in terms of ground water impact as bottling plants.
These draw tremendous amounts of water. The water table drops quickly in this scenario with a slow rate of replenishment. There’s also the possibility of contaminants leaching into the aquifer when there is no hydraulic pressure to push back.
My province is an island in the middle of an ocean, so infiltration of personal wells (ie for houses) with salt water is an issue when the water table is low. There is no quick fix for this either. Personal use should trump industrial use.
Sounds like the perfect solution to sea level rise caused by melting glaciers. Just bottle it all up.
I can see it now "Every bottle of water sold fights you dealing with climate change!"
/s
For all the ice on land that melts into the ocean raising the sea level, take an appropriate amount of seawater and freeze it back onto land.
That might be too difficult though; maybe instead we can replace all of the oil underground with water. It's all underneath us anyways so just leave the hole open and water will naturally pool down there.
You do have pump the water in under pressure though, just letting it pour down the hole will not work since rock is more dense the water. Imagine you were standing on a sponge in the shower, the sponge will not absorb much water since you are squishing all the pore spaces closed.
[0] https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threateni...
Water table https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table
Watershed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_management
There's not a whole lot of risk that the Seine will start flowing through the US
The "local" clouds also usually follow a pattern, this is why my local mountains get snow replacing every year, which is the source of my local rivers
However a bottling company could easily ship bottled water to a location that is likely never going to return to the local water table. Ever heard of Fiji brand water?
Where did the rain cloud get the water? It evaporated, likely from the ocean.
How did the water get into the ocean? It flowed down from lakes into rivers etc.
The local water table might fall, but the water itself is hardly local unless you're drilling for it.
There’s an equilibrium that’s achieved in a given watershed with local weather patterns. There might be ebbs or flows over the course of a year, but it’s reliable and predictable, and can be used sustainably.
If local weather patterns change and there’s a significant strain on a watershed, the water table will drain to a level that’s not recoverable within a human lifespan.
The question isn't if farming is technically worse on a global scale, it's whether each individual aquifer can sustain its output.
It opens with a mother talking about how she uses bottled water to bathe her child, because the tap water is polluted.Then it goes on to say that residents don't like that Nestle gets to bottle water in the area while their tap water sucks.
I don't see how these two points are related.
This sounds like a problem of incompetent politicians and officials that can't maintain water infrastructure. If anything they should be thankful companies like Nestle exist so that there's at least some source of clean drinking water for them since the city seems incapable of providing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
N.B. Nestlé sold their bottling operations in these USA, and no longer owns Arrowhead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowhead_Water
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-wo...
What would happen if a central authority (like say the regulators here) ignored the claim of the bottling company and then also defied the courts to protect some greater good? Is the only remedy for lawmakers to pass laws explicitly disallowing them from using the water?
Generally feels like the right legislation will take forever to get crafted and then will never catch up and if it gets through, it will get (intentionally) jammed up in courts...
As with any genuine reform efforts, that too would take forever to work its way through legislature and also get blocked up in the courts for god knows how long. What can be done?
117,530 Billion Gallons Per Year.
Total bottled water usage in the U.S.
15 Billion Gallons Per Year.
https://waterdesk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/where-calif...
With that said, "take away something that's clean and free and then sell it back to you wrapped in plastic" is pretty much late stage capitalism's primary MO.