but not to the South Pacific

I'm referring in the title for this post to the entry below - about moving.

Water supplies have run out in Tuvalu and Tokelau. The drought which precipitated (ouch!)this situation is the result of an El Nina effect in the Pacific. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15163543
But the situation is exacerbated by climate change. As sea levels rise, groundwater sources become saline. http://www.theworld.org/2011/10/an-island-nation-with-no-drinking-water/

Welcome to the world some people don't believe in and others think we can still head off.
While not strictly a food issue, the agriculture practiced in island nations is becoming threatened by the lack of fresh water.

Meanwhile, Samoa has begun rationing. And did you know that there are people in Fiji without access to potable water? Think about that when you see those square bottles on market and convenience store shelves.

What's the good news this St. Francis Day?

Bottled Water at the Spiritual Smorgasbord

I'm not sure whether this article in the NY Times (Wednesday, November 28) is worth commenting on or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/dining/28wate.html?ex=1353992400&en=db04f9e1b94b16ab&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Any takers?

commodification gone cuckoo

'Twenty years ago, who would have thought that someone would get money for a bottle of drinking water? Now, in Belgium, a glass of drinking water in a pub is more expensive than a glass of beer! The trend towards the commodification of almost everything has been most exemplified in Ireland with the commodification of drinking water....'

http://www.daramolloy.com/DaraMolloy/Writings/Commodification.html

I'd copy the whole dang article if I could - but check it out for yourself. Dara lives on Inis Mor in the Aran Islands - he grows potatoes the old way, in lazy beds, fertilized with kelp gathered from the sea and brought up from the beach for manure (as is shown in "Man of Aran" 1934 film - on IMDB a viewer ponders, "I wonder if people are still farming Aran or if they have all left for the big city.").

----
The Reverend Billy (yes!) taught me a lot about the commodification of experience.

http://www.revbilly.com/about_us/

'Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, "commons" places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. .... So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real - not mediated through products -- experience. We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least - you like them enough to share a story.'

Green Chefs

I'm having to write a blurb on Episcopalians and Anglicans who made Grist's top 15 religious leaders list, but I got bored with it, so I started webgoofingaround. Rather quickly I found this list
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/07/26/chefs/
and began exploring its links.

And so I discovered my new favorite blog title, even though I don't eat the stuff anymore - Offal Good.
http://www.offalgood.com/
The best news is that Cosentino's restaurant has stopped selling bottled water.

When I blow a dollar on a bottle of water...

From Sunday's New York Times
Ideas & Trends: A Battle Between the Bottle and the Faucet
By BILL MARSH
Published: July 15, 2007

THOSE eight daily glasses of water you’re supposed to drink for good health? They will cost you $0.00135 — about 49 cents a year — if you take it from a New York City tap.

Satisfying the National Thirst ...

New York ads offer tap water as an appealing choice over commercial beverages.

Or, city officials suggest, you could spend 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, by drinking bottled water. For the extra money, they say, you get the added responsibility for piling on to the nation’s waste heap and encouraging more of the industrial emissions that are heating up the planet.

But trends in American thirst quenching favor the 2,900-fold premium, as the overflowing trash cans of Central Park attest. In fact, bottled water is growing at the expense of every other beverage category except sports drinks. It has overtaken coffee and milk, and it is closing in on beer. Tap, if trends continue, would be next. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15marsh.html?_r=1

***

My impression is that bottled water is being consumed as the last safe soft drink - as a consumer alternative to packaged beverages that news reports tell us are bad for you: alcohol, caffeine, sucrose, fructose, sodium,...

There is the consumer validation of buying a product, consuming a healthful beverage, and then throwing the container away. Of course if you chuck it into a recycle bin then you can add virtue to the list of features and benefits.

Tap water, by contrast, takes work: finding a glass, a drinking fountain, a canteen in your knapsack. What a drag.

"When I blow a dollar on a bottle of water, I buy Perrier!"--old Robin Williams routine

NYC dept of environmental protection, info on drinking water
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/watersup.html

"People need water"--Paul Ward, architect of the Pat Brown era California state water plan

I just don't eat out enough at the right places...

So I didn't know that some of the hipper ones are just saying no to bottled water and going tap - or tap filtered on their premises, or homemade seltzer water.

One thing that the NY Times article by Marian Burros does not mention is that bottled water is another way of privatizing as commodity something which should be accessible to all in the community.
But still, this is a step in the right direction.

And frankly, a restaurant which depends on the profit it makes from bottled water should rethink its values. I'm glad some have. See the link in the sites list to the right.