People and farmers are consuming underground fresh water at alarming rates, in some cases, such as around Beijing, to cause the surface level of the ground to fall. The World Bank is predicting that there will be an overall shortage of fresh water by 2030, shortages which will likely lead to conflicts. These aquifers only replenish themselves in geologic time so once they are dried up, they are no longer available for use.
David Harvey is one of the more astute analysts of the ideology that we call neoliberalism. He has given an interview to Jacobin, one of the most intelligent and insightful journals of the left.
“I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labor.”
If you want to understand the ideology of neoliberalism, I highly recommend this essay.
If you are feeling depressed about the turn of events in both the US and the rest of the world, one way to cheer up would be to think about other years that may have been much worse. Slate magazine has an article with some candidates for the worst year ever. Some of them may make you positively ecstatic to be alive today.
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