Turning groundwater reserves into a lever to increase capital returns
Nearly 30 years have passed since the idea of ”Sustainable Development” was proposed and then the UN bodies were formed for the “reasonable” capitalist development of the world!! What global capital experts have repeated and continue to repeat, by putting their minds together in the form of the Brundtland Commission report entitled “Our Common Future” (in 1987) and then as the basis of the work of the UN conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and thereafter from time to time, is supposed to be a petition to save the world from the environmental disasters caused by capitalist production relations!
The United Nations report on the state of water in the world in the next 15 years
(World Water Development Report 2015 WWDR 2015).
The leaders of the “sustainable growth of capitalism” claimed that by formulating laws based on balanced economic growth, including paragraphs and principles for environmental protection in the economic development plans of countries and such nonsense, they would subordinate the statutes of the United Nations bodies on capitalist models to the ecological model. But the trend that capital has and has continued in the last 40 years, as it has done for centuries, actually proves the opposite of these concepts and myths.
Now we want to see what this solidarity of capitalist societies in sustainable growth!! has brought to the world’s water resources during this period. In this report, water shortage is estimated at 40% in the next 15 years and the amount of this shortage is calculated as a percentage based on the difference between the demand for water on one side and the speed of filling the reservoirs (compensation). According to calculations, China, India, parts of America and the Middle East are using underground water reservoirs uncontrollably. It is important to note that water does not suffer any shortage in its circulation on the ground, in the air, and underground because it does not disappear altogether. What happens is that its cycle is disrupted by capital, which, like all natural resources, converts it into a commodity and uses it as an auxiliary material in various processes of producing goods. This disruption manifests itself in the form of an imbalance in the distribution of water in various basins. In previous articles, we explained that in capitalist agriculture, maintaining the consumer value of the product in the production and management process is subject to many risks, plant pests being the most important and influential part of these risks. In order to avoid bearing the costs of reproducing a product infested with pests, the capitalist farmer takes the path of using pesticides. By doing so, he not only avoids the costs of reproducing but also minimizes the amount of waste and damage. In short, resorting to the uncontrolled use of the aforementioned pesticides is an integral part of the process of capital appreciation in the agricultural sector and a prerequisite for achieving the highest desired added values or profits. However, what happens to nature and humans in this process is not the capitalists’ problem. In relation to soil, we also know that as a means of production and a source of auxiliary materials, with the development of capitalist mechanized agriculture, methods are used that temporarily increase labour productivity, but what was once considered an important advance in increasing land fertility is today seen as the depletion of the soil of vital reserves. I also explained in the context of deforestation how huge investments with high organic content in this area of capital investment, production of wooden goods, types of paper, glue, as well as cutting down rainforests to plant oil plants, etc., have disrupted and suffocated the earth’s respiratory system. It was also explained that capital’s thirst for cheap raw and auxiliary materials such as oil and gas leads it to depths of 3 kilometers of the earth or the sands of the Canadian coast, the result of all their extraction and use is the degradation of the human and animal environment, air pollution and global warming. I have explained all this before, and everything we said about these resources is exactly true in relation to capital’s treatment of water resources. What capitalism does to the world’s waters is no different from the disasters it commits in other areas.
Figure 19 Growth in consumption of bottled water as a source of drinking water in some countries between 2000 and 2012 49.
Although the amount of water used for domestic and drinking purposes generally constitutes a small proportion compared to water consumption in agriculture and industry, negative climatic and environmental impacts on surface and groundwater have reduced the standard and quality of urban water. Meanwhile, climate change has increased the frequency of events such as floods and storms, which in turn have a negative impact on water quality (WHO, DFID 2009). The increasing use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides in agriculture, industrial wastewater and urban sewage, and their discharge into surface and groundwater have led to public distrust in the quality of urban water. This problem is reflected in the increase in the consumption of bottled water. Although the proportion of urban dwellers who use this type of drinking water is not large (6% according to the report), perhaps some consumers are pursuing a kind of class pride by buying bottled water, but this does not negate the fact that the working masses do not trust the urban water supply system, and this is increasing with the deterioration of water quality (Figure 19 Growth in bottled drinking water consumption in the last 12 years).
Figure 20 International water demand from 2000 to 2050: agricultural irrigation (light green), domestic consumption (green), livestock (dark green), industry (blue), electricity generation (yellow). OECD includes the 34 largest industrialized countries in the world, BRIICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa, ROW rest of the world 49. The growth of capitalism, which coincides with the mass production of goods and the growth of cities, will increase the need for water by 55% by 2050 (Figure 20). The main needs are not personal consumption (about 10%) but absolutely industrial, electricity generation, agriculture and livestock. And among them, the sector that suffers the most (and is currently under severe attack) is the working-class masses and their drinking water and sanitation. Capitalism’s increasing demand for water is putting overwhelming pressure on surface and groundwater, and the signs of nature’s imbalance are already clearly visible. Despite the use of new techniques to extract water from deeper underground, desalinize saltwater, or reuse used water in certain areas, capital has still not been able to meet the demand for clean water. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of workers without access to safe drinking water increased from 111 million to 145 million (WHO, UNICEF 2014). In 1990, about 1.9 billion (37% of the world’s working population) used water contaminated by untreated sewage. This figure has now (2015) increased to 2.08 billion (27% of the world’s working masses). It is true that in terms of proportion it shows a smaller percentage (which is why the officials of the capitalist governments prefer percentage figures!!). But in terms of numbers, the number of workers using polluted water has increased by about 180 million in the past 25 years 50. This clearly shows that when the agents of capitalist governments talk about new goals in their glittering conference halls, it is only because their previous false and misleading promises have failed. They weave new, pleasant visions to hide the platitudes, illusions, and demagoguery of previous plans from the eyes and minds of the workers. The growth of cities and mass production in the regions where this growth has been greatest has caused the greatest damage to the water resources of the working masses. The situation in African countries is much worse than in any other region in the world, so much so that the rapid growth of cities in this continent has reduced access to clean water from 43% to 34%. A continent that in its long history (as long as humanity has lived) had never experienced a shortage of water before the arrival of capitalism. The growth of cities and slums and the increasing number of working poor who cannot even afford a bottle of water to quench their thirst from their daily work, according to a United Nations report, will reach 889 million people in 2020 (UN-Habitat 2010). These workers suffer the most from contaminated water, lack of access to water supply and sanitation systems, and finally from natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. For example, in Mombasa (Kenya’s second largest city with a population of over one million), only 15% of workers have access to piped water, and 80% use bottled water to quench their thirst. This coastal city, like all cities that have emerged from the development of slums that have been created by the accumulation of migrant workers in search of work, such as coastal cities in India, Bangladesh, South America, and Africa, is highly vulnerable to climate change, storms, floods, and the like. With the smallest incidents like this, all the sewage and factory water enters the lives of its residents and causes various diseases. These cities, which were created without any accounting, without any water supply and sewage systems, were created only by the gathering of workers. Even with a strong breeze, their entire structure collapses and the environment of their residents becomes a swamp of feces and factory sewage. Environmental pollution caused by the spread of urban and industrial wastewater into the surface and deep waters of these regions not only directly causes illness in their residents, but according to a United Nations report, 90% of wastewater in Latin American, African, and Asian countries enters rivers, lakes, seas, and wetlands without the slightest treatment system, which ultimately enters the irrigation, drinking, and washing systems, and in this way causes skin diseases and a wide variety of environmental disorders (Corcoran et al., 2010). According to World Bank calculations, it is estimated that between 70 and 100 billion dollars are needed annually to prevent damage and losses caused by climate change and related events such as storms and floods (World Bank, 2010). This calculation takes into account the changes and losses that have resulted from climate change in recent decades, such as the increase in greenhouse gases, global warming, etc. The most important part of this capital (80%) should be invested in the water supply system on the outskirts of cities, the creation of flood-protective dams, the construction of roads and highways suitable for these areas, the creation of conditions to protect coastal cities from storms, and similar investments. This part of the investment should be made entirely in areas that have arisen without any supervision or planning, only from the accumulation of seasonal and permanent poor and homeless workers (Haleb Abad, the outskirts of cities, coastal cities in places where no human has ever dared to live). All this remains just talk in the corridors of the World Bank and the United Nations, and it does not even come close to reality, but in one sense it is important for us workers, and that is that the calculations and the high amounts clearly show how capital saves its costs by not doing what it claims, and how it reaps huge profits in this regard. In this regard, the reason why capital turns to low-cost areas such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. with low-cost urban systems, water supply and electricity also becomes clearer than ever.
Energy, a commodity that is always thirsty for water
Energy plays a crucial role in capitalist production and is closely related to water. This means that almost all forms of energy require water to produce. Electricity generation through heat (steam turbines) and dams (hydro turbines) provide 80% and 15% of the world’s electricity, respectively, which generally require large amounts of water. Energy is also needed to collect, store, and transport water. It is estimated that between 5 and 30% of the global cost of water storage and purification is electricity (World Bank, 2012). However, in some countries such as India, Bangladesh and Iran, these costs can be as high as 40% (Van den Berg and Danileko 2011). This is despite the fact that according to the World Health Organization, 748 million workers worldwide are deprived of access to drinking and washing water (WHO and UNICEF, 2014), and if we take into account all those who are dissatisfied and concerned about the availability of water, this figure reaches 3 billion workers worldwide (Global monitoring of water safety, UNC, 2012). 2.5 billion workers lack adequate sanitation and toilets, and more than 1.3 billion workers lack electricity. 2.6 billion of these masses of capital and commodity producers, whose surplus value from exploitation amounts to billions of dollars per year, use firewood and wood, not electricity, for their daily cooking, in other words, they live in their humble huts like Stone Age people while they are engaged in the production of various goods. (IEA, 2012). About 400 million workers in the world use charcoal to prepare food, which in turn causes lung diseases, allergies, and poisoning from carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and mercury. The close relationship between diseases such as diarrhoea, vomiting, and other intestinal diseases and the unsanitary water consumed by these masses of workers is obvious. The visceral disorders resulting from unhealthy consumption and lack of access to electricity, toilets, baths and safe drinking water create conditions that have caused a huge reduction in the standard and quality of life of billions of working people, and the occurrence of various diseases and premature death are its direct consequences. On the other hand, the demand for energy will increase by one third of the current amount by 2035, and the demand for electricity will increase by 70% during the same period (IEA, 2013). Make no mistake, these increases and the insatiable thirst of capital are not to meet the needs of workers, but only so that the wheel can turn faster so that there is no slightest disruption to the work of capital and its insatiable thirst for profit and further accumulation of capital. Demand for all types of energy will increase. Oil will increase by 13%, coal by 17% (before 2020), gas by 48%, nuclear energy by 66%, and wind and solar energy by 77%. Electricity will continue to be mostly supplied by coal, gas, oil and nuclear power. In other words, the world will be run by capital and environmental degradation will permeate every pore. Electricity generated by wind and solar energy will remain insignificant, but hydroelectric turbines in dams will still provide 30% of it by 2035 (IEA, 2013). Solar and wind energy will be complementary because they cannot be considered the basis for calculating a stable and sustainable energy supply. In the future, this type of energy is still not fully developed and will be supported by government subsidies (WWAP, 2014). These two types of energy currently account for less than 1% of all energy production and, even if they grow rapidly, will not reach the 10% threshold by 2035. Since 90% of thermal power is generated through and in relation to water, the 70% increase in electricity production mentioned above by 2035 means that 20% of fresh water must be used for electricity production, and thus access to drinking and washing water will be even worse than it is now. Water consumption in industry, agriculture and animal husbandry will also increase by 85%. (IEA, 2012). The need for energy by industrial capital will increase the pressure on water reservoirs and fresh drinking water from energy-producing capitalists, so that the access of the working masses to fresh and safe water for drinking and washing will become even worse. Meanwhile, competition for water between other sectors of capital such as agriculture, animal husbandry and industry with the energy sector will increase. Agriculture worldwide uses 70% of the world’s water resources (Figure 20). The production of goods and their transportation also account for 30% of total global energy consumption (WWAP, 2014). All industries worldwide use about 37% of energy, while requiring less direct water (UNIDO, 2008). The capitalist mode of production is consuming the entire resources of the earth and the atmosphere. So that all the sap of the earth from the soil, water and air must be put to the service of the production of surplus value, in order to cure the irrigating of capital and to reduce the further fall of the rate of profit. The Organization of the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2012 (Environmental to 2050) predicted that the global demand for water will increase by 400% by 2050, and this increase will be directed more to agriculture than to any other area of capital investment. The largest part of this increase will occur in the rapidly developing capitalist countries (Figure 20). The billions of workers in Asia and the Pacific face a very dire fate in terms of enduring water-related disasters, especially those related to climate and weather changes. In this regard, the rapid migration of rural and unemployed people to cities will give new dimensions to the quality of surface and groundwater. These three phenomena, namely the mass of workers living in cities, the threat of climate change and the further increase in urbanization and marginalization, the growth of capital accumulation in this region of the world above the usual rate, and the astronomical need for energy for all commodity production, will put immense pressure on the water resources of this region, which are currently not meeting the basic needs of the working masses.
Figure 21 Groundwater use in agriculture in some countries between 1940 and 2010. 49 Nearly 1.7 billion of the region’s working poor lack access to the water they need for washing and cleaning (WHO and UNICEF, 2014). Asia and the Pacific region have been exposed to the world’s worst weather-related disasters for years. In 2013, more than 17,000 people died in storms and floods, accounting for 90% of all deaths worldwide that year. Climate change will bring much more severe events with more victims in the future. Monsoon winds and rainfall in Asia, the largest of their kind in the world and which have fuelled the growth of agriculture and rainforests in the region for thousands of years, have in recent decades brought storms, floods and incessant rains on the one hand, and droughts and water shortages on the other. In other words, this natural atmospheric phenomenon that once brought “mercy” to these areas has now become a great hardship for the poor masses of the region with the negative impact of weather and climate changes, because the expansion of cities in the path of these rains, which were built without protection against running water, without a proper urban water system and without a sewage system, has left them with no security. The melting of polar ice has had and continues to have very large negative effects on the quality and quantity of water. This means that the reduction of ice will have a negative impact on the amount of water from snow and ice in the future, for example, causing changes in the salt concentration of the world’s waters (World Bank, 2013). In the future, frequent droughts will be a serious problem in this densely populated region of the world (IPCC, 2013). The growth of the urban population of this region, at 2.4% per year, is the highest in the whole world. A growth rate that ensures an abundance of cheap labour for capitalism, but the result for the working masses is nothing but poverty, water scarcity, and the increase in slums on the outskirts of cities. In 2012, about 47.5% (two billion working people) of the total population of this region lived in the city centers (UNDESA, 2014) and 30% of the region’s urban residents lived in the outskirts of the cities (slums). (UN-Habital, 2013). In 2015, this figure was estimated at 2.7 billion. All these figures are reported in conditions where the astronomical growth of capital and the surplus value resulting from the exploitation of the labour force of these masses is swallowing water, the most vital need of human life and the auxiliary and primary material of industries, energy and agriculture, more and more than the previous moment, and what it spits out is nothing but a concoction of chemical waste and contaminated industrial and household waste, all of which is destined for billions of workers on earth. The growth of energy production, industry, agriculture and livestock is putting enormous pressure on running waters, lakes and dams, and the region is heading towards unpredictable events. Events that will manifest themselves in the form of floods, droughts and cyclones. India, China, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, with their huge industries, extensive agriculture and energy and electricity production, consume half of the world’s groundwater. Figure 21: Groundwater use in India has increased from 1 million wells in 1960 to 19 million in 2000. In China, groundwater is extensively used for industrial agriculture. The pressure from industry and agriculture on groundwater is so great that the water table is 47 meters lower than it was in 1960 (Foster, Garduno, 2004). The Ministry of Water of the capitalist Chinese government announced in 2007 that 97% of groundwater in 118 Chinese cities was polluted and 64% of the country’s cities were drinking polluted water (World Bank, 2007). Seven years later (April 2014), the country’s Department of Environment announced that 43% of all lakes and reservoirs in China surveyed in 2011 were so polluted that even contact with their water was unsuitable. At the same time, the country’s rivers, such as the Yellow River, have become so polluted with heavy metals and other chemicals that their water is unfit for drinking by residents of the 186 major cities along the banks of this long river, home to 400 million people. Greenpeace, in its 2010 report Swimming in Chemicals, says that tests on fish in the Yellow River have shown high levels of heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFAS) and other fluorinated compounds used in the production of textiles and clothing. The report talks about workers who live in the riverbed and are unable to buy water and food in stores due to low wages, so they feed on the water and fish caught in the river. It also talks about workers in textile and clothing factories who move and use a lot of chemicals every day without any protection. Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan, with their large-scale industrial agriculture, together account for half of the world’s groundwater consumption. Coastal cities with populations of millions such as Kolkata, Dhaka, Jakarta and Shanghai are witnessing an increasing infiltration of ocean salt into their groundwater. The infiltration of sea salt into groundwater is occurring for two reasons. First, the water level of the world’s oceans and seas has risen with climate change and global warming, and this trend will intensify in the future (IPCC, 2014) and, on the other hand, the land surface is subsiding due to excessive extraction of groundwater. This is clearly visible in Bangkok. Groundwater quality is deteriorating due to salinization and acid rain (anthropogenic contaminants) and natural factors. Figure 22 shows how arsenic (As) released from the ground due to acid rain, as well as arsenic from coal-fired and wood-fired industries, is poisoning groundwater (EFSA European Food Safety Authority 6 March 2015). This phenomenon is the main cause of high arsenic in rice cultivated in these areas of China, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. It is important to point out that rice has been the main supplier of energy-rich food (carbohydrates) for the majority of the world’s population for nearly two decades and the mentioned countries are its main producers, and for this reason, arsenic, which is a toxic and carcinogenic substance, threatens the health of a large part of the consumer masses. Other substances that contaminate and poison groundwater, such as fluorine, iron, heavy metals, organic substances, originate from fertilizers, pesticides, factory wastewater and garbage.
Figure 22 Map of the toxic element arsenic (As) in groundwater in Asia 49. Arsenic contamination causes 9,100 deaths and 125,000 disabilities worldwide each year, and 20 million skeletal deformities in 17 countries between 1953 and 2000 51.
The capitalist sky is the same colour everywhere. Billions of tons of garbage are dumped into the waters of the world every year. Every year, 6.4 million tons of garbage are dumped into the waters of the world’s seas, of which 70% settles, 15% floats, and the remaining 15% reaches the coasts. 52 This was a corner of the “sustainable development of capitalism” case for nearly a decade. Every year, more than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals die due to the poisoning of the waters of these seas by factories and centers of capital profit production. The death rate of the working poor who live along rivers and seas is 20% higher than that of other residents elsewhere. The Mississippi River, one of the largest rivers in America, annually discharges 1.5 million tons of harmful substances into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the death of a part of this bay the size of New Jersey each year. About 40% of America’s lakes are so polluted that they are dangerous to fish, aquatic life, and swimming. 1.2 billion tons of industrial and municipal wastewater enters American waters every year. 52 About 80% of India’s garbage is dumped into the Ganges River.
In Iran
The Environmental Protection Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran admits that 100 percent of the sewage from coastal homes enters the Caspian Sea without treatment. This has caused microbial contamination of the fish in the sea and has also had a severe negative impact on the food chain. According to the deputy head of the Environmental Protection Organization, the loss of ecosystems is one of the consequences of the entry of domestic sewage into the Caspian Sea, while sea urchins also grow significantly in polluted waters and feed on sewage. Excessive growth of algae prevents other aquatic animals and fish from getting the necessary oxygen, and ultimately increases the mortality of aquatic animals and other organisms. This causes a change in the food chain in nature. On the other hand, and following the entry of sewage, coastal waters are not suitable for swimming due to pollution. In March 2013, the Director General of Veterinary Medicine of Mazandaran Province asked people to seriously refrain from consuming mullet due to its pollution. Although a significant percentage of Iranian families with low or even moderate incomes find it difficult to obtain fish due to its high price, it is affordable for at least some of these families in Iranian coastal cities during some times of the year. The Caspian Sea has been severely polluted in recent years by various factors, including domestic, agricultural, and industrial wastewater, as well as the entry of petroleum products from countries bordering the sea. The pollution of the Caspian Sea water on the shores of the northern provinces of Iran is neither a new nor an unknown issue. However, a report by the Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Iran shows that the situation of this important sea is increasingly chaotic. According to this report, domestic, industrial and agricultural wastewater, and activities related to oil exploration, extraction and transportation, as well as the entry of various pesticides and toxins used in agricultural fields, play a major role in the pollution of the Caspian waters (it should be noted that the groundwater level of the Caspian coastal provinces is higher than the water level of this sea). In addition, since the sea slopes from the north and neighbouring countries towards Iran, most of the oil and agricultural pollution from coastal countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and eastern countries of this sea ends up in its deep part. The Caspian Sea Ecology Research Institute, affiliated with the Fisheries Research Institute in Iran, announced the amount of oil imports into the Caspian Sea last year at 122,000 tons. For example, the Volga River, which is the most important supplier of water to the Caspian Sea and passes through industrial cities in Russia, is an important source of chemical, oil and agricultural pesticide pollution. Although the authorities of the Caspian Sea do not mention the type of toxins in the fish of the Caspian Sea, we can understand with a little care that: First, the mullet is a shellfish, worm and snail eater and also feeds on algae and decaying matter on the seabed. Second, the shellfish and other animals that this fish feeds on feed on sewage and toxic substances. Accordingly, this fish absorbs all the toxic substances in sewage, oil and factory materials, which all contain chemicals, especially heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury, through these animals. Finally, because humans are at the highest level in the biological and nutritional chain and feed on other animals, including fish, they consume and absorb all these harmful substances. A collection of 40 large and small cities, along with industrial facilities, mining, oil and all their waste, flows into the Caspian Sea through 5 rivers, resulting in 30 tons of waste per day, which directly enters the sea through these rivers. According to the Gilan Governorate in December 2014, this province produces 2,000 tons of waste per day, with no plan for its burial, and the accumulated mass flows directly into the Anzali Port. In addition, since the Caspian Sea is the only recreation area for the working masses of Tehran and the surrounding cities, and since there has never been any system for the delivery and use of waste, during the holiday season, in addition to all this, 2,800 tons of waste are collected daily by the sea and around the rivers. It is not just the mullet that is at risk, but other Caspian Sea fish such as the fossil fish or beluga, the Russian sturgeon or Chalbashi, the Iranian sturgeon or Qaraburun, the sablefish, the osprey or Surga are the main species of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, which are not only now a source of various types of pollution, but 90% of them are at risk of complete extinction. One of the causes of the extinction of Caspian fish, according to the environmental protection officer of Mazandaran province, is the activities of large companies in the northern forests. By destroying trees and stripping the soil, these companies cause sediments to easily enter the water of streams and, along with other harmful environmental substances, endanger the fish that spawn in these waters. Millions of fish die every year for this reason. Another environmental expert from the province told the Mehr news agency, “The most important pollutants in the Caspian Sea include organochlorine and organophosphorus toxins, which have increased significantly due to the concentration of agricultural activities on the shores of the Caspian Sea and the excessive use of these toxins.” The expert added that “the pollution in the Caspian Sea produced by Iran is mostly caused by wastewater and agricultural pesticides, while in other countries in the basin of this sea, carcinogenic pollutants enter the Caspian through oil pollution, and these organic pollutants may penetrate the tissues and sediments of the sea and remain there for a long time.” Referring to the high rate of cancer in Mazandaran province, the same expert says that although no relationship can be found between the high percentage of cancer and the level of pollution in the Caspian Sea, “70% of Iran’s agricultural pesticides are consumed in Mazandaran, and toxic wastewater from farms is dumped into the sea through the rivers of this region. However, since the Caspian Sea is actually a closed lake, it does not have access to other open waters and retains these toxins and carcinogenic elements. Many species in the Caspian Sea have been destroyed, or their populations have decreased significantly due to this pollution.”
Garbage centers have been established around Tehran and major cities. Of course, this does not mean that the garbage is separated there and each one goes its own way, but rather that it is just a place where the garbage is piled up, resulting in the creation of lakes! Environmental pollution. The Kahrizak garbage center in southern Tehran is an example of this, which has been a major center of environmental pollution for about 40 years, receiving part of Tehran’s garbage. More than 1,500 cubic meters of waste sap enters Iran’s surface and deep waters every day. The deputy head of the National Municipalities Organization says that only 45% of the waste produced is buried. Mazandaran province produces 2,541 tons, Gilan 1,950 tons, and Golestan 900 tons of waste daily. This waste sap, which is higher than other regions of Iran due to the humidity and rainfall in these regions, flows into surface and deep waters. Considering that Iran is the only country where sanitary, industrial, urban, and household waste are not separated, the extent of waste on nature and humans from chemicals, heavy metals, pesticides, medicines, and other harmful waste materials cannot be evaluated or compared with any international standard. Wastewater from Tehran and other Iranian cities that is not collected, directed, and decomposed pollutes tap water and surface and groundwater. The occasional nitrification of water in Tehran and other major cities is just one of the side effects of the lack of a sewage system. A Tehran municipality consultant says that 55% of Tehran does not have a sewage system, which means that wastewater from these areas flows directly into groundwater aquifers through streams. On the other hand, due to the old and worn-out water supply network of Tehran, contaminated groundwater enters the water supply network. Nitrate, which is one of the basic ingredients of chemical fertilizers, is harmful in that it is converted into nitrite, which is carcinogenic as a result of bacterial activity. In addition to the danger of this substance itself, its presence indicates the activity of harmful bacteria in the water. According to international standards, cities with a population of over 50,000 must be equipped with a sewage and waste collection and treatment network. Thus, more than 1,500 cities in Iran lack such facilities. The Ministry of Energy said in January 2014 that only 18% of Iranian cities are covered by sewage collection and disposal, and in the rest, urban, domestic, industrial, and sanitary sewage flows into the groundwater system through absorption wells, and in many cases, it enters directly into the surface waters of rivers, canals, and lakes. The depth of the disaster is that many Iranian megacities such as Isfahan, Kerman, Yazd, Qom, and… obtain a significant portion of their drinking water from these deep aquifers. It is important to note here that the reduction of surface and groundwater leads to an increase in salt concentration, which in turn causes soil porosity and its easy transport by wind. An event that in turn has become a factor in the formation of smog with greater intensity and more frequent occurrence (in the next chapter we will examine this global phenomenon and show its relationship with the drying of large areas of the world). The decrease in water levels also leads to an increase in the concentration of all the harmful substances mentioned above. According to a study conducted in 2011 at the University of Ardabil, “In more than 76 percent of urban areas in Iran, between 80 and 100 percent of human wastewater is disposed of through septic tanks, and about 5.5 percent of it enters irrigation networks. On the other hand, in 40 percent of urban areas, the disposed wastewater enters public streets without watercourses, and in 31 percent of urban areas, this wastewater enters streets with watercourses. Also, about 35 percent of urban wastewater in different regions of Iran enters rivers. More than 335 cities in Iran have acute problems due to improper disposal of urban wastewater. Other cities are also facing such problems to a lesser extent. The drying up of lakes and wetlands in Fars, Khuzestan and other regions of Iran is not a new phenomenon. The most important factors are as follows. In recent decades, a large number of dams have been built on Iranian rivers, including those in Fars and Khuzestan provinces. These dams control the water that flows into lakes and wetlands. The destruction of the aqueduct system and the replacement of surface water with deep wells for agricultural purposes has led to a decrease in the groundwater level, which in turn limits the water resources of the wetlands. The main purpose of the dams (generally funded by the Revolutionary Guards) is to provide electricity and water for large-scale industrial agriculture. The creation of a dam for the purpose of providing energy disrupts the water balance in geographical areas. This means that first, the accumulation of water in one place causes intense evaporation and its wastage. Second, by preventing it from passing through its thousands of years old path, the water reservoirs of these paths gradually dry up (one of the factors causing the drying of the canals). Third, as the natural path of the rivers dries up, the possibility of vegetation and the ecosystem impact of the rivers on the surrounding environment is eliminated. Why do the IRGC and other capitalists do this? This energy supply system is one of the cheapest and most hassle-free energy production techniques for capital owners in this field. The Minister of Energy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in February 2014 said that 5.7 billion cubic meters of groundwater had been extracted in excess of the permitted limit. Without specifying the duration of the extraction or the amount of the permitted limit, the official continued that in some provinces 100% of the capacity of groundwater resources had been extracted (according to him, this extraction was on average 60% of the groundwater capacity). According to the ministry, 80% of Iran’s groundwater resources are at risk of depletion, even though these resources meet more than 50% of Iran’s water needs. The dire situation of groundwater resources is now (December 2014) worse than it was four years ago. The same minister said on April 20, 2015, that the water level in dams has decreased by 17% compared to the previous year. With the explanation given about the relationship between river water and groundwater levels and the statement that dam construction disrupts this balance, the following figures can be used to better understand this imbalance. According to the Ministry of Energy, the amount of groundwater reserves is currently 227 billion cubic meters, while the total water reserves in Iran’s dams are currently about 11 billion cubic meters. This means that about 5% of groundwater is available, but it is the withdrawal of groundwater that reduces the water reserves. As the 170 billion cubic meters of water that has been withdrawn so far (75%) without any possibility of compensating for it, a very dark picture of the water situation in Iran is presented before our eyes. The story of dam construction on Iranian rivers is not the end of this tragedy. The figures below illustrate the dimensions of the disaster. Water and electricity companies in the provinces surrounding Lake Urmia have a total of 235 dams under study, construction, or operation. So far, 106 dams have been built and are in operation in these three provinces on the rivers surrounding the declining Lake Urmia. 24 dams on the Karun River, once the only navigable river in Iran, have blocked the vital artery of this river. According to official statistics from the Iranian Ministry of Energy, there are currently 647 dams under operation and 683 dams under study or construction. Interestingly, according to the Minister of Energy in March 2013, the volume of the reservoirs of Iran’s dams is 1.5 times the amount of water available in the country’s rivers, and it seems that the capitalists of this area, led by the Revolutionary Guards, have sewn a loose garment for this area! In the midst of this, the whims and fancies of the capitalist government in Iran at the beginning of the hot season that “people should save water consumption” is just an ugly demagoguery to blame the working masses. While the capitalists of the Guard and possibly non-Guard are ruthlessly exploiting the waters as their capital and a mechanism for the ever-increasing growth of their capital, they are deceitfully shouting that the cursed masses of workers and their children must also endure as much thirst as possible in relation to their drinking water! The reality is that according to calculations by the Ministry of Energy itself, water consumption in the area of capital advance in agriculture is 92% of the total water consumption in Iran, and this is what the accomplices of the Islamic state of capital in Europe have also pointed out to Iranian officials. As Reuters reported, based on calculations by European sources, the problem of water in Iran is not the consumption of people, but rather agriculture in Iran consumes 90% of water, while its efficiency is not more than 36%. Even the data of the Ministry of Energy states that it is less than 6% of the total water consumption by the people. The daily water consumption per person in Northern Europe is about 250 Liters and 90 cubic meters per year. In Iran, the per capita water supply is 1,550 cubic meters, according to the Ministry of Energy, and the per capita water consumption is only 5.8% of this amount. Now, if the millions of workers in Iran force them to save and one or two percent of this amount is reduced, it will not reduce the pain of the improper distribution of water in Iran. The imbalance means that different areas of capital investment compete with each other for water, and in this, the urban water sector (drinking and cleaning water) has a smaller share, because although this water, like other waters, is a commodity, it is produced by exploiting workers and is sold as a commodity to the working masses, the productivity of labour in its production is lower compared to the energy production, agriculture, and animal husbandry sectors, and the owners of this commodity (water companies and organizations) are unwilling to invest more than the minimum necessary in its production, so quality water is sold less and less. On the other hand, if we consider the figure of 1550 cubic meters of water per capita (the amount of water available to each person during a year in cubic meters) in Figure 23, we will see that Iran is not considered a water-scarce country. The main reason for the drought is not the lack of water reserves in the country, but the imbalance between different sectors of capital in the use of water and the excessive waste of its resources such as rivers and groundwater by capitalists. (The historical system of canals in Iran was the most efficient system in the hot regions of Iran for supplying water to cities, of course, as long as production in the agricultural sector was for direct consumption and had a huge difference from capitalist production for profit and accumulation). The role of financial oligarchies such as the Revolutionary Guards in gaining ever-increasing profits from investing in dam construction is quite obvious (in July 2006, the Ministry of Energy handed over all water and electricity projects in the west of the country to the Revolutionary Guards. After winning the elections, Ahmadinejad handed over all electricity, water and dam construction projects in Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Ilam, Kurdistan and Kermanshah to the IRGC contractors). Dams that no longer provide significant returns for capital have been abandoned and have become a place of sediment and mud. Dams that were built about 20 to 30 years ago and are no longer highly productive are mostly filled with mud and mud up to the cement openings. Of course, the IRGC has also built some dams that are not necessarily like that, in addition to building dams that are integral to massive investments in agriculture and industry. For example, the IRGC, as a capitalist contractor, may have built a dam here and there, and in the process, like all other capitalist contractors, it has appropriated a huge share of the surplus value. The point to be emphasized here and in relation to the IRGC is that such cases are exceptions, and the main goal of the IRGC capitalists, who, like any other capitalist in any corner of the world, produce surplus value from labour, has been and is mostly to build dams that are an integral part of a huge investment in agriculture or industry. It is also important to mention here that, contrary to all those who somehow distinguish between state and non-state capital and suggest that the former belongs to “society” and the latter does not, the problem of the working class is absolutely not the state or private identity of capital. This class is in irreconcilable conflict with the very existence of capital. All the capital of society is the product of the exploitation of the working masses, and what the workers want is the complete elimination of the very capital nature of these products or results of labour. This requires the emergence and expression of a powerful anti-capitalist council movement. A movement that will dismantle the wage system and enable the planning of work, production, and human social life by councils composed of all human beings. Workers must know that under existing conditions, state and private capital are all capital, all the supreme power dominating us and engaging in our ever more horrific exploitation. The state is a tool to impose the productive, political and social order of capital on the working class, and one of its tasks is to indebt the masses (budget deficit and subsequent borrowing from banks) and allocate loans to increase capital profits or challenge the decline in interest rates. In this way, simply listing the projects of the Revolutionary Guards of capital in Iran and discussing them will not solve any problem of the workers of Iran, and in principle, any problem of the working class of any country in the international dimension. This is a bourgeois illusion in the minds of the masses and is rooted in the ideas of social democracy, which sees state capitalism as synonymous with socialism.
Per capita water availability in the Middle East and its surrounding region fell from 921 cubic meters per person in 2002 to 727 cubic meters per person in the following decade, with groundwater levels falling below the minimum threshold (1,000 cubic meters per person per year, Figure 23). Approximately 75% of the population in these countries is below the thirst threshold and half of this population is below the extreme thirst threshold (less than 500 cubic meters per person per year). Future climate change will make the living conditions of the working masses in this region even worse. A comparison of the historical climate change coefficient for the region in question shows that its climate has been steadily warming since 1950 (NCDC National Climatic Data Center, Donat et al. 2014). A two-degree rise in the region’s temperature by 2040 is quite certain (UNESCWA 2013).
In Europe
In the case of Europe, the issue of water can begin with the Mediterranean Sea, where one of the earliest civilizations once flourished on its shores. The European water body, the Mediterranea Action Plan, wrote in 2014 that the Mediterranean Sea is almost closed because the Strait of Jabal al-Tariq in its west is only 14 kilometre’s wide and the Suez Canal connects this important European sea to the ocean by only a few meters. This is despite the fact that 3 billion cubic meters of wastewater (80% of all wastewaters from surrounding countries) flows into this sea without treatment every year. 80% of all harmful and dangerous substances that are dumped into this sea come from factories and industrial agriculture. 50% of the coastal cities of this sea lack water treatment systems. This sea, once the cradle of the oldest and most famous civilizations, where stories, myths, gods and religions flourished, is now a graveyard of industrial, agricultural and tourist waste between Africa and Europe. This is what capitalism does to even the human past, turning everything into fuel for its own accumulation and profit-making. Sewage, harmful industrial chemicals, plastics, oil spills from giant tankers constantly enter this water. (28% of the world’s oil ships travel through this sea, and 200,000 oil ships spill about 650,000 tons of oil into this sea every year.) The increase in water temperature as a result of the effects of greenhouse gases, the shallow depth of this sea (its average depth is 1,500 meters) has caused the death of most of the seabed. Urban and industrial waste also enters its waters through the rivers that flow into this sea, and according to some researchers, 90% of the waste in this sea is plastic. When plastic gradually breaks down due to sunlight and sea salt, it is absorbed by aquatic organisms such as plankton and reaches fish and ultimately humans through the bio-chain. According to research by a Belgian French organization, about 250 billion plastic Fibers are floating in the Mediterranean waters (Inremer & University of Liego, 2011), which in turn originates from 500 tons of floating plastic. The worst beaches in the Mediterranean are the western coasts of Spain and France, which are the most littered waters in the world (2,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer, Green Peace, 2014). Barcelona alone dumps 6.4 million tons of waste into the sea every year, 80% of which is plastic. This is why, according to calculations from industrial fishing, the fish population in this sea has decreased by nearly 60%. In addition, the fish of this sea are chemical and harmful waste dumps, so that the amount of mercury in their bodies is much higher than fish of any sea. Chlorinated substances from plastics and DDT and PCB are also among them (Green paper on a European Strategy on plastic Waste in the Environment). Global plastic production in 1950 was about 1.5 million tons per year and this figure reached 45 million tons in 2008. The Baltic Sea is not in a better situation than the Mediterranean Sea. The only difference is that the information and research conducted on this sea is not as comprehensive and long as that of the Mediterranean Sea because its coastal countries have not yet been able to establish a joint organization for research in this field. The reason for this is that coastal states such as Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Finland and France each consider themselves to be environmental leaders!! and pretend that others are the cause of the pollution and death of this sea. But scattered studies have yielded similar results. About 95% of Baltic Sea birds have plastic in their stomachs and about 54,000 cubic meters of waste is dumped into the sea every year. The Baltic Sea has the highest concentration of radioactive materials in the world (HELCOM MORS, 2014) 53. This research institute, which began its work in the mid-1970s and has been measuring radioactive materials, mostly from nuclear reactors in the countries along the coast of this sea, believes that most of this material comes from the nuclear activities of Finland, Sweden, England and Russia. Finland dumps 1,000 times more radioactive materials into the Baltic Sea than Russia, and Sweden 100,000 times more than Russia. These studies show that radioactive materials left over from the Chernobyl accident only make up 10-15% of the radioactivity in this water, while 50% of it comes from the UK’s nuclear reactors. In 1990, the amount of caesium (an element resulting from radioactive activity) found in fish in this sea was 20 atomic units (Bq/kg) per kilogram of fish flesh, while by the end of the decade this amount had reached 50 units. The latest measurements off the coast of Sweden show a figure of 220-230 (Bq/kg). An important factor that distinguishes this sea from other open seas of the world is the water displacement and its exchange with ocean water, as only 1% of its water is exchanged with the ocean, which causes all harmful substances to remain in this water throughout its life and even increase. The garbage scenario in this sea is also similar to the Mediterranean and the Caspian Sea. As 20 thousand tons of industrial and household waste are dumped into this sea annually. The amount of mercury in seawater, which is generally caused by fossil fuels and coal, is so high in fish in this sea that the Swedish Food Safety Authority has banned the consumption of some of them by pregnant women and children and has limited their general consumption to once a week. All the extensive research that has been done on the amount of oxygen in this sea and the activities of its living organisms shows that most of the seabed is dead. The main cause of this, like other dead waters in the world, is the addition of chemical fertilizers and agricultural activities, which absorb oxygen and ultimately suffocate the plants and organisms on the bottom.
In Africa
In Africa, it must be said that, along with very high economic growth, poverty is rampant in most countries, as is the nature of capitalism. Many African countries have experienced more economic growth in the last few years than in the entire previous 40 years. Six African countries are now among the ten fastest growing economies in the world. In these years, astronomical figures of surplus value resulting from the exploitation of workers in the fields of mining, agriculture and livestock have exploded more than ever. According to reports, what capitalists and their governments call “GDP” grew annually in Angola by 11% between 2000 and 2012, Nigeria by 8.9%, Ethiopia by 8.4%, Chad by 7.9%, Mozambique by 7.9%, and Rwanda by 7.6%. Many other countries on the continent have had annual economic growth rates above 7% in the 10 years since 2000. Sierra Leone grew by 17.2% in 2012 (ACET, 2014). The ardent lovers of “independent national industry” usually argue that this is not growth!! Because the export of agricultural raw materials, minerals and ores has made a significant contribution to “net production”!! Naturally, they are retelling the dreams of a certain stratum of the bourgeoisie, but what is real is that the vast mass of African workers has produced this huge volume of annual social product and this huge mass of surplus values has created. Another important point is that at the same time and in the context of this remarkable economic growth, access to drinking water and washing has become one of the acute problems of the continent’s workers. One of the problems that the capitalist industrial agriculture of this continent face is a special situation that, as usual, the capitalist system itself has imposed on the continent’s labour force. The labour force of most African countries succumbs to death very quickly due to the pressure of hunger and the lack of minimal health care. The percentage of these deaths is so high that the inhumane capitalists who exploit workers are also “grieved” by being deprived of the long-term, horrific exploitation of experienced labour for decades!! In other words, the labour force in these countries is at a lower level in terms of nutrition, education, and health than other regions of the world from the moment they are born (UN World Development Report, 2015). In this regard, the role of water, or in other words, polluted water, is very important for energy production and agriculture. Here, as in other capitalist societies, the share of the working masses in water is the last remaining after all the different areas of capital accumulation have been harvested, and as everywhere, the shortage of water in each area of capital is compensated by the excess of the share of the working masses. All these issues that have been said about the working masses of Africa indicate that the dimensions of the poverty of these workers of the world and the wages they receive from the production of billions of capital do not even compensate for their return to work the next day, and they even sacrifice their lives to produce surplus values much more than their counterparts in some other places. Their standard of living is lower than all their counterparts in the world. The wages they receive are not enough for the lowest level of reproduction of their labour power. What is clear in these ten years is that far less work and investment has been made in drinking water and sanitation on this continent than in any other region in the world. The lack of sanitation and clean drinking water is a major factor in the premature death of the workforce in this part of the world. No government or government agency on this continent is consistently addressing the water problem. As a result, only 5% of the continent’s usable water is accessible. Despite growing urbanization, only 57% of Africa’s working class has access to electricity (IEA, 2013). In 2012, only 36% of the continent’s poor had access to running water, and 70% of these people did not have access to a toilet (WHO and UNICEF, 2014). All this means that capital, in its expanding reproduction, is denying them even the most basic and vital need: drinking water. In addition, the extent of the pressure and invasion of capital on the livelihood of the working masses is so great that even the cost of water and electricity is terrifying. Now that capital has, in the course of this process, maximized the pressure of labour exploitation and increased the level of wear and tear and depreciation of African workers in order to reduce the price of labour to the most outrageous extent possible, the talk of capitalists investing in providing drinking water and sanitation for workers would be more than a joke if not pure demagoguery. Apart from the factors mentioned, climate change has had major destructive effects on this continent. Agriculture is the Achilles heel of this continent; the low productivity of millions of small farmers who live in poverty has turned them into simple workers and forced them to migrate to the cities. All these are processes of human extinction and the sacrifice of all life and the survival of billions of workers on the threshold of a more massive capital invasion. The time has come for capitalist relations to be overthrown and relations to be established in accordance with the real needs and desires of all human beings and based on the preservation and conservation of nature. Certainly, if such a change is not made soon and perhaps it is too late now, this system and relations of production will destroy the lives of billions of people under the pressure of the bottlenecks, contradictions and problems of their own reproduction and, most importantly, the narrowing of the possibilities of capital accumulation.
Figure 23 Share of usable water reservoirs (fresh water) in the Middle East and its periphery in cubic meters per year and per person in the country in 2011 49 (Iran’s share in these calculations is empty and if we trust the Ministry of Energy’s calculation, this share was 1550 cubic meters for each Iranian in November 2014).