Water: A Human Right or a (Paid) Privilege?

Water. It’s essential for human growth, maintenance, and life. It’s at the very base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs along with food, warmth, and rest. Though nature supplies a bounty and most of us would agree that having access to clean water is, or at least should be, a human right…Peter Brabeck, the former CEO of Nestle seems to consider this an extreme idea.

If you haven’t seen the video already, take a look. Around the 1:30 minute timeframe, first he lambasts the idea of organic foods being ‘best’, saying, “after 15 years of eating GM food products in the USA, not one single case of illness from eating them has occurred to date. And in spite of this we’re all so uneasy about it in Europe that something might happen to us.” This is not true as quite a few studies have found GMOs and associated chemicals can cause a myriad of health issues including cancer, digestive problems, and other serious health issues.

Back to the water discussion taking place around the globe. Try 2:30 minutes in and you’ll hear some truly astounding statements straight from the horse’s mouth:

Brabeck admits water “is of course the most important raw material we have today in the world,” then adds, “it’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right.”

He elaborates “That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.” The other “less extreme” view he espouses is that “water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value.”

Of course he’d be in favor of privatization of water. It would make him and his company wealthier and more powerful.

“Personally I believe it’s better to give a foodstuff a value so that we’re all aware that it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there.”

It almost sounds philanthropic…but wait (!!):

In a interview for BigThink in 2010, Brabeck says,“if Nestlé and myself have become very vocal in the area of water, it was not because of any philanthropic idea, it was very simple: by analyzing – what is the single most important factor for the sustainability of Nestlé [emphasis added], water came as [the] number one subject.”

“I think this is part of a company’s responsibility,” – maintaining and ensuring the success of Nestle’s corporation -“now, if I was in a different industry, I would have a different subject, certainly, that I would be focusing on.”

Perhaps you’d like to read how Nestle responds.

We are not here to tell you what to think, merely to bring awareness to these important issues and the ‘values’ of some of these corporations who stock our groceries full of their products. Let’s be clear: the value is not in offering a safe and necessary product, but about making money.

Recently, Nestle has been raping drought-stricken California.

Should you like to avoid Nestle products, here are a few of their (my gosh, there are so) many, many water brands: Arrowhead, Aqua Spring, Calistoga, Contrex, Deer Park, Deep Spring, Ice Mountain, Glaciar, Klosterquelle, Nestle Wellness, Nestle Pure Life, Ozarka, Poland Spring, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, S. Barnardo, Water Line, and Zephyrhills as a starting point. Remember that Nestle also has a plethora of foodstuffs too.

Choose for yourselves what you will support, but for our households we will not serve water or (GMO) foods from Nestle.

What do you think?