According to Bloomberg Green, roughly 2 billion people live in countries plagued by water problems, and almost two-thirds of the world could face water shortages in just four years.
In the spirit and nature of commercialism and profit-making CME Group Inc sees dollars signs and a chance to make money by selling, the first of its kind in the U.S., financial water futures contracts.
CME is the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange, and trades in asset classes that include agricultural products, currencies, energy, interest rates, metals, stock indexes and cryptocurrencies futures. Tied to the NASDAQ Veles California Water Index it is their goal to make water a financial commodity like oil and gold.
But water in NOT like oil or goal…… it is life itself…. it is required for the existence of every living thing on earth…. It sustains us… It sustains this very planet. In fact, the UN recognized water’s essential role in the public commons in their resolution 64/292. It declared a “human right to water” and acknowledged “clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.”
And the law generally treats water differently compared to commodities like consumer goods or other natural resources like lumber. With climate change leading to ranging fires, unending droughts and water scarcity belief in, and commitment to, water as a human right seems fragile and increasingly in jeopardy.
Tim McCourt, global head of equity index and alternative investment products at CME, said in an interview. “The idea of managing risks associated to water is certainly increased in importance.” There are just and legitimate fears about putting water on a financial futures exchange. Viewing it as a commodity and dismissing the fact that it is life. It ignores water’s role as a basic human right like the air we breathe. Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, a UN expert on water, worries that the futures market poses a risk to individual water users who cannot compete with large exchanges, investors and companies.
That fact that CME’s California waters future contracts sells were unsuccessful and failed to take hold isn’t the end. Some are saying water is too abundant to concern ourselves with investors and large companies making it a financial commodity as opposed to a human right. Let’s not forget 97% of earth’s water is the salt water of the oceans. And negative climate change impacts are ever evolving and increasing. Environmental and human rights advocates, and all of us, should remember the proverb of the frog and boiling water.
While the premise of the proverb is false the lesson conveyed is worth remembering. That a frog put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil gradually, will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. Be ever diligent otherwise the belief in and commitment to water as a human right can be gradually chipped away.