Earth... the only planet in our solar system
covered in water. Water was born 4.5 billion years ago among the cloud of gas and dust that collapsed
to form our solar system. Icy particles collided
and stuck together, creating pebbles and boulders and eventually planets
the size of Earth. Volcanic eruptions released
this water into the air, and, with help from
icy comets and asteroids, created a freshwater ocean
that turned the planet blue. Falling rain washed salt
into the ocean, leaving fresh water mostly trapped
in ice caps and glaciers. And as those glaciers receded, humans flooded into river valleys, built civilizations near water, and began to change it
on a global scale. We’ve polluted it
with toxins from industry and runoff from agriculture. We’ve taken more than our fair share by draining aquifers and entire seas. And we’ve disrupted the rains
by dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. We can only live
a few days without water. And only by changing
our relationship to it can we hope to avoid
the coming crisis. [PLANET A] [Let’s unleash our collective power
to save the planet.] [What can go right?
Planet A. Supported by Zurich.] [WATER] From an indigenous perspective, water is understood
as being a living force and as being equated to life itself. So, water isn’t thought
about as separate from people. It's more understood to be who we are and in relationship to us. Deborah McGregor teaches
at York University in Toronto and is Anishinaabe
from the White River First Nation. She’s devoted her career
to researching water, its place in the environment,
and environmental justice. I just grew up right there,
by the water. And you kind of knew it so well. We had to, you know, cut a hole
in the ice to get the water. Pretty well,
we had to do this everyday. McGregor’s an expert on how
Canada’s original inhabitants managed the land. And how their knowledge
can help reform a system that treats water like
just another commodity. I think even if people don’t know
very much about water, everyone still has a very intimate
relationship with water. Everyone still needs water everyday
in some form, in some form to live. All civilizations have needed
access to clean water to survive. And we have always built
those civilizations near water and spent centuries building systems to deliver water
over hundreds of miles. For billions of years, water has been
the lifeblood of the planet, as it flowed from the oceans to the air, and then down to Earth. But in just the
geological blink of an eye, humans are fundamentally
and irreversibly disrupting this natural cycle. And one impact is causing
the most obvious damage. Climate change exasperates
everything that’s happening in relation to water. And we can see this
actually playing out in the United States right now. You have one part of the country
having major wildfires, and they would desperately
like to have water. Meanwhile,
opposite end of the country, they’re dealing with major flood-like
situations involving hurricanes. So what you have is
some places have way too much water, and other places who desperately
need the water aren’t getting it. This increasing imbalance
is being felt around the world. In the last four decades, drought has devastated
more people worldwide than any other natural disaster. [SHRINKING SUPPLY] Somalia is used to frequent droughts. But not ones that last
as long as this one. It’s been going on since 2015. How does this experience compare to what happened
with the drought in 2011? The previous drought
wasn’t a big deal. It isn't worth mentioning. But this one happening now, do you know what they are calling it? “The Elder Giant.” Because it hit most of Somalia. Over ten years of nearly
continuous drought here has killed much of the livestock and driven nearly 50 percent of
the country to the brink of famine. We have been traveling
along this road for miles. I left some of my herd by the side
of the road that couldn’t go on. That’s what’s happening,
there’s no fresh water available. Climate change is also
melting ice caps and glaciers, which is reducing
the world’s supply of fresh water. Melting snow and glaciers
from the Andes and Himalayas provide water for
drinking and for agriculture to one fifth of humanity. And in North America, the receding snowpack
in the Eastern Sierras is affecting tens of
millions of Californians. NASA estimates that
seven areas across the globe are losing nearly 300 billion
tonnes of ice every year. Dwindling access to water is triggering migrations
in many countries. When people don’t
have access to water because there actually isn’t any because they’re dealing with
drought-like conditions, people will have to move. They’re basically
climate change refugees. [GUARITA, HONDURAS] In Central America’s Golden Triangle,
crop yields are dropping. Audelio Mejia and his family have
been farming these lands for decades. Now he's dealing with
crippling droughts year after year. For us, the way the climate's
been changing is a threat. When water was needed
most, we didn't have it. That’s why the production from
this harvest was low. Sometimes when I see
examples of friends or neighbors
or people I know [leaving], it's tempting to migrate but... It’s difficult for a farmer and worse
if there’s nobody to give guidance. But while it’s easy
to blame climate change for the global water crisis, there’s a far more powerful
force at work. Farming uses 70 percent of all
available fresh water on the planet. And it’s a huge source of
greenhouse gas emissions, second only to energy production. Industrial agriculture
sucks up huge amounts of water in places like Colorado. It drains rivers and streams
to irrigate corn to feed cattle in massive feedlots. The water use is astounding. It takes 2,500 gallons of water
to produce one bushel of corn, and each head of cattle eats
50 bushels of corn over its lifetime. That adds up to 125,000 gallons
of water for every animal. And because these farms
get water for free, the cost to the planet for cheap meat
is rapidly disappearing groundwater. [SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CA] This has far-reaching impacts
on farmers and our entire food system. California’s San Joaquin Valley is one of the most fertile places
on the planet. And it too is running out of water. Farmers are being forced
to dig deeper and deeper in order to find less
and less groundwater. We’re the bread basket
of the United States. Fifty percent of your fruits,
nuts, vegetables come from the San Joaquin Valley or California in general,
California agriculture. Tony Azevedo is a third-generation
farmer in the San Joaquin Valley. He grows tomatoes,
pistachios, and other crops on 8,000 acres of farmland. You know, for years we didn’t use
the wells at all, the groundwater. We always had surface water
to farm with. The problem now
is that we are in a drought. So we’re relying on groundwater
to do all of our irrigating. What’s the process of planning ahead
for what could happen? Well, now, the last five years, we’ve been pumping
a lot of groundwater to keep this ranch going. And eventually,
we’re going to run out. We have 85 employees. Some of them are third generation,
counting on us to stay solvent, so that’s always
in the back of my mind, how long we can go here. What’s the plan if this continues
and there’s no rain, no runoff? I guess we're done. Disappearing groundwater isn’t
just a problem in the United States. This NASA satellite map shows just how bad
things have gotten. The red you see on the map shows the places where groundwater
is being steadily depleted. As early as 2025, experts say that
half the world’s population will be living in places
where there isn’t enough water. And it's estimated that by 2040, most of the world
won’t have enough water to keep up with demand all year long. And when wells run dry, existing tensions flare up. In Basra, Iraq, severe water shortages helped
spark anti-government protests. My throat is dry, but I would never
take [water] from them! We had three basic demands: water, electricity, and employment. Now they bring water. We don’t want it. Shame on you criminals! The danger posed by
our looming water crisis is listed by the World Economic Forum as among the top ten
global risks to humanity, just below
weapons of mass destruction, but above natural disasters like
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Yet the main cause of the water
crisis isn’t just climate change. It’s rooted in
our relationship to water. So when water becomes a resource, it then has to be “managed”
as a natural resource. So, then laws are created, authority and jurisdiction
is given to what can happen to water and then who can have access to it. It could be allocated to
forestry operations, it could be allocated to agriculture, so people will then compete because it creates that kind of
capitalist competition scenario. Who wins and who loses
in that competition has direct consequences
not just for people but also for ecosystems. [APALACHICOLA, FL] When the state of Georgia
allows the city of Atlanta and South Georgia farmers to pull hundreds of millions
of gallons of water a day from the Chattahoochee river
in the middle of a drought, it actually affects
the oysters in Florida. I was kind of working at the bottom. Hurting oystermen
like Aberham Hartsfield and his son Shannon. We never had sea urchins
in our oyster bars before. This fresh water comes
and pushes all these predators away. And right now,
the salinity has changed drastically. Less fresh water in Apalachicola Bay means more predators, and that means fewer oysters
for the Hartsfields to harvest. Because of decisions
being made in Georgia, Shannon Hartsfield says oystering is
nothing like it’s been in the past. You caught and threw them
into the bottom of the boat and it would pile up. So many species are disappearing, and we need them
for ecosystem health. And you need to have ecosystem health
in order for people to be healthy. [WATER JUSTICE] Even though we wouldn’t survive
more than a few days without water, it wasn’t until 2010
that the UN passed a resolution recognizing that access to it
is a human right. And even when they
do have access to it, poor water quality means
that access can be deadly. Nearly 3.5 million people,
mostly children, die every year
from water-borne disease. Two billion people don’t have
access to clean, safe water. In India, the Ganges river is sacred
to the nation’s 1 billion Hindus. But it’s also one of the worlds
most polluted waterways. The Ganges is
the main source of water for more than 500 million people, but it’s contaminated
with viruses and bacteria that cause life-threatening diseases
like cholera, typhoid, and viral diarrhea. Today, Ganga is more polluted
than it was 30 years ago. I have seen the situation
worsening only. No improvement at all. 1.6 billion gallons
of raw sewage and industrial waste pour into the Ganges every day. How much sewage is
coming out there right now? 150 million liters per day. Why aren’t there processing centers or water treatment facilities
or infrastructure, basically, to-- This is the inability
and inefficiency of the government. Even though you could
be living right beside a river you can’t drink the water there, and that’s because of
contamination of it through industrial development. So, it’s an inequitable burden
placed on the people downstream, who then have to live with
the contaminated water. In the city of Kanpur, for example, hundreds of tanneries release
toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the water. Those who contribute
least to the pollution are the ones who suffer the most. Water's responsibility as an entity or having agency is to support life. And we interfere with that
by polluting it, by damming it,
stopping it from flowing and doing what it should be doing. So, we interfere with
water doing its job, basically. And we don’t have
the right to do that. And every time we do that,
that’s an injustice. Industrial contamination, basically release of chemicals
and contaminants into fresh water has had devastating impacts
on the natural world because of the impact
on aquatic life. These impacts on plants
and animals trickle down and can affect humans as well,
sometimes for generations. Some heavy metals can stay in
the sediment of rivers and lakes for hundreds of years. [SYRACUSE, NY] Lake Onondaga
in northern New York State was once called
the most polluted lake in America. Decades of industrial pollution turned the lake
into a toxic waste site. Even though the
pollution stop decades ago, children and women
of child-bearing age can't eat the fish in the lake
because of high levels of mercury. The company that’s responsible
for dealing with the pollution says the lake has been cleaned up. But the Onondaga Nation,
the traditional stewards of the lake, disagree. We’ve cleaned up the lake.
We’ve done the dredging and capping. We’re doing the habitat restoration,
which is turning out wonderfully. Honeywell, which bought out
one of the original polluters, and taxpayers have spent
around a billion dollars to clean up the bottom of the lake. And the company is still restoring
other sites around the shore. Sid Hill, a member of
the Onondaga Nation, says Honeywell and New York state
need to be doing more. What’s your biggest critique
when it comes to the way this whole remediation project
has been going with the lake? It’s just the idea of not
disclosing everything and having this propaganda issue
that it’s clean, it’s a clean lake. “Oh, we cleaned the lake.” It’s still a superfund site. There’s still toxins in there. I don’t see the next generation
ever seeing a clean lake. The legacy of
industrial contamination isn’t just confined to Onondaga Lake. So, I also grew up that if you were
a woman of child-bearing age, you shouldn’t be eating
a certain number of fish from the Great Lakes
because they were contaminated. You know, people have
this relationship with water, but that relationship
is starting to be disrupted through contamination of water. For Jeanne and Sid,
the larger issue is the system that led to the contamination
in the first place. Who do you blame for the pollution? Whoever runs those
multinational corporations that trample over and harm the environment or whatever else is ever in their way
for their profits. I think about that a lot. What was anybody thinking
of when they were just... free dumping into the water,
just dumping, dumping. When no one takes responsibility
for the health of the planet's water, it's easy to pollute. But trying to own it
can be just as disastrous. Water is thought of
as being a commodity, something to be bought and sold. Water can also be property. So water is also understood
to be private property, so you have unequal access,
and as a result people suffer. So having access to fresh water is really important
in order to just live. [FLINT, MI] Flint lives matter!
Flint lives matter! In Flint, Michigan, the government treated water
like just another cost to be cut. It switched the city’s
supply to the Flint River but failed to prevent lead
from leaching into the water. Kaitlyn Tobin's son drank the water. I barely let him
take a bath in the water. I buy bottled water and try washing him down
as much as I can, and then he was
getting bumps all over. They said because of
the lead in his own blood, he couldn’t get rid of it. They know a long time ago
that they were poisoning people. They could care less, so... Lead is toxic in even
the smallest amounts and can cause
irreversible brain damage and even death in children. And parents here
worry about their kids’ future. -What do we want?
-Clean water! -When do we want it?
-Now! This water is from my tap. This right here shows it. They are saying this is safe for us. This is what happens when profit
take precedence over people. And we’re just here to stand as one
to say that we won’t stand for this. -What do we want?
-Clean water! -When do we want it?
-Now! If we don’t get it, shut it down! At the core of
our global water crisis is how we manage and allocate water. Experts say that if our depletion, pollution, and misuse of fresh water
continues unchecked, it could affect not only
our entire food system but also push
ecosystems and societies to a point of no return. Experts say one solution
to the looming water crisis is a radical shift in how we
choose to see and value water— not as a resource or a commodity but rather as
a life-sustaining force essential for human
and planetary health and an entity in its own right. In the Anishinaabe concept, we think about water
as being part of four elements that make up the planet. And water is always
in relation to these other elements. To me, one of the primary things that people can learn
from indigenous peoples is that you need to have this
relationship with the natural world. When you’re outside or near water,
in the presence of water, to me, it conveys a sense of respect. It's a sense of awe
that despite everything, water is still flowing, water’s still trying to do
what it’s supposed to be doing despite everything
that you throw at it. It’s just such an awesome power. In this new era,
humans are responsible for the greatest impacts
on the planet’s water. But McGregor believes
we still have the power to change the course we’re on. People are the ones who
have the power and the will and the intelligence to mess up. We’re so intelligent
that we can be so beautiful and innovative and creative, but we can also be so destructive, so there’s that side of us. So, we’ve been destructive
collectively as humanity, some way more so than others, and we have to then
use our intelligence and our will and our power to solve this huge thing
that we’ve created. So, we’re the ones who
actually have to change.
