While the average person is focused on land acquisition billionaires since 2018 were rushing to purchase the water rights of the globe!
A recent article from Forbes Magazine written by Chloe Sorvino highlights the growing trend among the oligarch class to purchase land that holds the access to all important aquifers! The saturated area beneath the water table is called an aquifer, and aquifers are huge storehouses of water. Whoever controls water controls access to life!
Aquifers play a crucial role in the Earth’s climate system. Here are a few ways they impact climate:
Groundwater Recharge and Discharge:
Aquifers store water underground, acting as natural reservoirs. When it rains, water infiltrates the soil and replenishes these aquifers. During dry periods, aquifers release water through springs and seepage, maintaining streamflow and supporting ecosystems.
In California, the intensifying West Coast megadrought has brought one agricultural company under scrutiny for its substantial impact on the region's water resources.
Wonderful, owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, possesses the financial means to buy large amounts of water as necessary. The bulk of the water they use comes from long-term contracts, with additional water rights tied to their farmland. About 9% of Wonderful's total water consumption is bought on the open water market. While this is a small portion of their total use, the company's buying power can greatly affect regional water prices.
A concerning trend is escalating globally within the water industry. The rise of entities known as "water barons" — encompassing leading Wall Street banks and wealthy billionaires — is causing a significant increase in the control of water resources worldwide. Major financial institutions and notable investment firms, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, are expanding their presence in the water sector. Similarly, affluent individuals like T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Li Ka-shing from Hong Kong, Manuel V. Pangilinan from the Philippines, and other Filipino billionaires, are investing heavily in large tracts of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology firms worldwide.
However, there is a flaw in their proverbial ointment that renders the billions invested in an apparent scheme to dominate the world's water supply foolish. This is due to Atmospheric Water Generation (AWG), which is currently being reverse-engineered by numerous companies worldwide. The invention, created by Moses West, utilizes simple principles over a century old, akin to those found in any humidifier, elevating the technology to new heights. Machines housed in modified shipping containers are capable of producing hundreds or thousands of liters of water daily, providing thirsty communities with water at no cost.
The invention is now aiding Flint, Michigan, where the government struggled to address the contaminated water crisis caused by industrial pollutants in old pipes. Companies are marketing new home devices that enable homeowners to achieve net zero status, providing not only free energy and electric vehicle mobility but also clean water. This innovation counters the deteriorating power infrastructure compromised by corporate greed and political collusion.
Oil-rich countries have been criticized for not adequately addressing the inevitable consequences of climate change. The severe heat in many Middle Eastern nations has rendered living conditions extremely difficult, prompting affluent individuals and countries to seek out sub-Saharan African aquifers. These aquifers hold 20 times more water than all the lakes in Africa combined and are coveted by nations anxious about their populations migrating to Europe.
Another large aquifer on the continent, containing only ancient, trapped water, is the Nubian Sandstone in North Africa. It covers about 2 million km², and spans Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Chad. It contains more than 150,000 km of groundwater – more water than the Nile River discharges in 500 years. The countries it spans are tapping into the aquifer and have agreed on its fair use.
Libya had previously undertaken the Great Man-Made River project to pipe water hundreds of miles from the Nubian sandstone to the coast by means of gravity flow. Under its former leader Ghadafi who pledged to share the resources. Libya has no natural water reserves, such as rivers, and thus depends heavily on groundwater aquifers. Given the growing impact of climate change, and its political destabilization while foreign nations steal its mineral and oil wealth it will be quite difficult for the country to continue to rely solely on natural resources for its water supplies.
The discovery of oil in the 1950s, known as Libya’s black gold, also led to the discovery of large water aquifers. The development of the oil industry created a massive opportunity for the country — and its growing population — to profit from the export of hydrocarbons resources. This led to use of natural resources that the former Libyan regime under Moammar Gadhafi justified by educating his people about resource abundance and the potential to unify all African nations fiscally erasing foreign debt and ushering in a new African golden age, suggesting the country's groundwater aquifers would provide a continuous supply of water far into the future. Removing the underlying causes that promoted terrorism.
Mega-projects like the GMMRP frequently bring about significant environmental and social changes and often come with substantial economic and ecological costs that Libya can no longer afford. It is essential, therefore, to understand the long-term impacts of such mega-projects on developing communities. Although the project may have been intended to prevent a water shortage, the history of the GMMRP’s development has been marred by crony capitalism and nationalist policymaking. The project reflected a particular ideology of the former regime, one that strongly opposed colonialism and imperialism, and it billed the project as an effort that would be fully constructed, controlled, and financed by the Libyan government.
Ironically, contracts for the project's construction were awarded to foreign companies after Ghadafi's assassination, and maintenance work has also been carried out by foreign firms. Under Gadhafi, the GMMRP had a distinctive position in Libya, but it lost this status after the regime fell in 2011 to foreign mercenaries posing as rebel terrorists, two of whom fled to Europe and even gave interviews about their involvement. Despite the GMMRA's efforts to distance itself from the country's political turmoil by highlighting its role as a service provider, the project has been subjected to numerous property attacks and acts of vandalism over the past decade.
Since 2013, Bill Gates has been channeling his billions into agriculture via Cascade Investment, drawn by its consistent value appreciation and low volatility. Mother Jones reports that the average price of farmland sextupled from 1940 to 2015, a pattern expected to persist as climate change reduces the U.S.'s arable land. Thus, for tycoons like Gates, climate change represents an investment opportunity.
Despite being the owner of the land, Gates typically behaves more like a landlord by permitting professional farmers to continue their practices, even if they are harmful to the environment. Just as private equity firms disrupt the housing market, wealthy individuals investing in farmland are causing their own problems by driving up prices and pushing out young farmers who wish to purchase land. This trend is leading to corporate entities owning the land and increasing the production of GMO foods.
Gates has distinguished his land investments from his sustainability efforts. In the same discussion, he highlighted the significance of "productive seeds" in preventing deforestation and the reliance on corn for biofuel production. Currently, Gates's growing farmland ownership appears to be a case of "rich guy doing rich guy things," prioritizing profits over the planet.
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