Bill Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove |
 Pierre Bossé |
Wednesday-Night.com
Salon Magazine vol 20July 26, 2000
960 Water Water Water
from The Wall Street Journal
Nortel Networks is in serious talks with Corning about a combination that would involve selling Nortel's optical-parts unit to Corning in a deal that could be valued at more than $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lukewarm response to Stephen King's online publishing foray
CBC RADIO ARTS
Stephen King's first Internet book, Riding the Bullet, sold 400,000 copies in the first 24 hours that it was offered online.
Elizabeth WojtowiczNEW YORK - Sales of Stephen King's latest online book have been disappointing so far.
The author, who is offering two installments of his new book on the Internet for $1 US, said publishing online would shake the foundations of mainstream publishing. But so far the response to The Plant has been little more than a shiver.
Since the first chapter of the book went on sale yesterday, just 41,000 people had downloaded a copy. King's first Internet book, Riding the Bullet, sold 400,000 copies in the first 24 hours that it was offered online.
At its current rate of sale The Plant may not prove to be very profitable. King is using the honour system for payment, asking people to send $1 US after downloading each chapter.
He says he needs 75 per cent of readers to honour their payments if he's to keep posting to the Internet.
A spokesperson for Amazon.com, the Internet retailer of the book, says so far 78 per cent of readers have paid for the chapter up-front.
Tuesday, August 08, 2000
HEADLINE: Wasteful use of water worrisome in Montréal
By: INGRID PHANEUF The Gazette
The Montreal Urban Community is pondering the use of water meters. That's because, three months after the MUC launched its annual $20,000 week-long campaign to reduce water consumption, officials still can't say whether residents have actually cut their water use. MUC wants to spend up to $3 million to install meters on 800 public buildingsDAVID and DIANA NICHOLSON
Wednesday Night #960
July 26, 2000INTRODUCTION
Bill Cosgrove returned to Wednesday Night after a long absence during his tenure in Paris as Director of Vision of the World Water Council. He is now back in Montreal and, as of August 1st will be President of Ecoconsult Inc., a division of Groupe SECOR.WATER WATER WATER
We thought that we had said everything there was to say on the subject of water in previous Wednesday Nights, however, the presence of Bill Cosgrove and his thoughtful - and thought provoking - account of the discoveries and analyses made by the team researching and writing World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody's Business incited much new discussion around the table this evening.
Bill CosgroveWater, though our most vital resource, is renewable and constantly renewed - it evaporates And returns as rain. Except for cases like the Great Lakes where much of the water is what hydrologists call "fossil water". That is, the Lakes did not fill up gradually with rain, etc., but on a one-time basis when the continental ice sheets melted. Globally, water is plentiful but not distributed equitably.
Judith Patterson, Ph.D.
The world population has doubled in the last century while water consumption has increased six-fold. More than a billion people, one-sixth of humanity, do not have safe drinking water and almost 3 billion have no access to sanitation services. A child dies every eight seconds from drinking contaminated water.
"Everybody has a right to life and water is necessary for life." Rivers are diverted to irrigate crops and sustain cities that have no business being where man has placed them - paradoxically poisoning the soil beyond reclaim in the process. Underground aquifers are being drained empty, in the Third World and in the wealthy American West alike.
Global warming must be factored in; sea levels are rising and the impact of climate change increases the farther north one goes. Global warming is bringing more extremes, flash floods, droughts.
The constantly increasing population requires irrigation, achieved at great if undetermined cost, little of which is borne by the agricultural community. With a finite total sum of available, constantly recycled fresh water, the success of human beings will ultimately bring about their own demise as per-capita fresh water supply diminishes.
"..if water doesn't have value, it will be wasted." We in the West appear totally oblivious of the life-threatening drought that faces such less-favoured nations as Somalia and Ethiopia.
The true cost of water is not known to its consumer in the water-wealthy West.
Pierre Bossé
Only one percent of the water we take into our homes is used for drinking. Much of the remainder is used to flush our wastes away, ultimately polluting our streams, threatening the marine life on which we are dependent for food.
Even after a 1.3 billion dollar investment in primary water treatment, much of the waste flushed through Montréal sewers, still ends up in the river. seriousness of the situation.
Water control strategy must be global, but managed locally. Because it must be accessible to all regardless of income or affluence, it cannot be subject to a profit motive. Because, while permanent answers are sought, there is a sufficient supply, it is currently a distribution rather than supply problem. Transporting the water to where it is needed would prove too expensive, while transporting the people inhabiting the drought areas to those countries where water is plentiful would be politically unpalatable. Solutions are possible, the most promising of which is desalination of sea water, but achieving them will take at least a quarter century. Desalination is very expensive and only practical in areas close to a source of sea water.
If a solution is not found, there is a great danger that the have-not nations will seek a military solution, resulting in great upheaval and chaos.
Bill Cosgrove
Canada is sitting on a gold mine and with its water resources could be a major force for peace.
Work must be begun to:
- look for a scientific solution
- make certain that water in all nations is controlled.
- enter into agreements ensuring fundamental human rights, including the right to life.
- Start a campaign of education, ensuring there is no positive connotation to such words as free enterprise and marketing in relation to the distribution of potable water.
- Find alternatives to current means of treating human waste.
Sandra Postel (Director of the Global Water Policy Project and a senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute. She is the author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? ) - "Water & Security: Challenges for the 21st Century" Water. It is essential to all plant and animal life. In developed countries, turn on a faucet and water flows with seemingly unending abundance. For those who have adequate access, water is so basic it's easy to forget its importance. As world populations increase, tensions between nations which share rivers is growing. How to equitably share such a vital yet finite resource? Sandra Postel predicts that the increasing competition for water will prove a major influence in global affairs in this century. November 15, 1999.
Don't waste
YUGOSLAVIA
A number of highly educated, intelligent individuals in Yugoslavia today are convinced that the United States is, for its own strategic purposes, maintaining Slobodan Milosevic in power. While this appears highly unlikely to us in North America, they point to a series of actions, all of which have served to bolster Milosevic's standing at home, and which they cannot believe are the results of simple bungling by The Greatest Power. Sadly, it is difficult to argue with this view.Milosevic maintains power in Yugoslavia by carefully creating and managing crises which confound his enemies and the United States has reliably reacted in precisely the manner that has ensured continued American presence in Europe, thus solidifying support for Milosevic at home, even by those most opposed to him under normal circumstances. Economic sanctions, the air campaign, all solidified support around Milosevic. Although the army officer corps is distrustful of Milosevic, the support of his generals has been ensured by the West having had them declared as war criminals.
"sanctions are the most important element in keeping Milosevic in power." There is virtually no danger of Montenegro declaring itself an independent republic in the forthcoming elections. It can safely ignore Milosevic without leaving the Federation. The majority of its citizens are Serb. The older people, brought up in the traditions of the WW II Partisans, support Milosevic and being a patriarchal society, the families tend to vote en bloc (even to the extent of having the patriarch vote on their behalf!).
The ultimate end is likely to come only in a bloody revolution.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS
Mayor Peter F. Trent Stories and Pan Photos in the park
Marilyn Cox
The clock is running out on a negotiated settlement between Israel and Jordan. With the rapid growth of the Sephardic population and the orthodox religious segment, Israel is moving to the right faster than most western countries. There appears to be a belief in these communities that Israel enjoys the unqualified support of the United States. This makes compromise difficult on all sides. There does not appear to be any improvement on the horizon unless and until the American policy makers are prepared to confront the Jewish vote at home by taking a firm stand on the excesses of Israeli foreign policy - a highly unlikely event in a presidential election year. (Note Hillary Clinton's pronouncement in New York on the Palestinian position. Charged with being too close to Yasser Arafat and his wife.When will the love affair end? Scooter-riding, water-rafting PM defies political gravity in poll-vaulting TOMMY SCHNURMACHER Jean Chretien [please stop playing and ..well may it is better this way DTN] .. Even the latest Angus Reid poll shows that 57 per cent of Canadians approve of the way the prime minister performs his job. Imagine how popular the man would be had he managed to say anything coherent in the Middle East.
David NicholsonQUOTES OF THE EVENING:
- "Everybody has a right to life and water is necessary for life."
- "We don't know the cost of water, but we don't know the value of it here (either). It is not only a water crisis, it will be a threat of war."
- "No one at the M.U.C. would be elected, who said 'we will charge you for the water you use'."
- "The message is, that if water doesn't have value, it will be wasted."
- "It becomes impossible at one point to sustain the population."
- There is a certain attraction for people of thirty (years of age) to go to the States. They don't get sick, they like low taxes, they don't have kids to pay education (costs) for. Then at forty-five, they come back."
- "The sanctions are the most important element in keeping Milosevic in power."
William J. Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove
President Ecoconsult Inc.
Groupe SECOR
555 Boul. René-Levesque Ouest 9e étage
Montréal (Québec) H2Z 1B1
Canada
Tél 1 (514) 861-9031
Fax 1 (514) 861-0281
wjcosgrove@compuserve.com
Diana Nicholson
Notes by Herb Bercovitz Sculptor
Edited by Diana Thébaud Nicholson
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 Elizabeth Wojtowicz |
Tuesday, July 25, 2000 European stocks were mildly weaker overnight. This weakness was led by car makers on concerns that sales and profits are slowing. The oils were also lighter following yesterday's $5.00 drop in gasoline futures and 2% drop in crude prices. Mobile phone company shares were also weaker as Ericsson warned last week that third quarter pretax profit would fall below that of the previous two quarters. Crude oil prices were little changed from their lowest levels in two months as concern eased regarding a U.S. gasoline shortage. Although gasoline inventories are not high, demand for gasoline during the year 2000 driving season has, so far, come in less than expected. Crude oil supply may rise as Saudi Arabia continues to indicate it may raise production by 500,000 barrels per day. However, as the key oil basket price (closed yesterday at US$25.70 per barrel) approaches OPEC's target of US$25, support from the cartel would not be expected. The Canadian dollar fell to US$.6813 or C$1.468 from US$0.6824/C$1.464 ahead of this morning's Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, suggesting higher interest rate fears are not fully abated yet.
Elbow Beach 11 June 2000 Photos by David T. Nicholson wn Do visit our Bermuda Site
Elizabeth Wojtowicz
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