Commentary: All are responsible for water use, abuse
Aug. 31, 2006 News media contact: Linda Green * (615) 7425470* Nashville {523}
NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org.
A UMNS Commentary By the Rev. Liberato C. Bautista*
Water as a basic human right for all is the theme of the first 2006 issue of pers.pec.'tives, a newsletter of the United Methodist Office for the United Nations.
The 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the denomination's lawmaking body, adopted a resolution on "Protection of Water" that affirmed access to water is a basic right to be used and enjoyed by all God's people.
Individuals as well as societies and governments must take responsibility for the way they use, and abuse, water.
As United Methodists continue to support the Millennium Development Goals the need for environmental sustainability should be lifted up. By 2015, the goal is to cut by 50 percent the number of the world's people who don't have access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation.
Scarcity of water, just like poverty, contributes to the many conflicts in the world today. While the Northeast states in the United States were drenched by rains and flooding in early July, the Southwest states were scorched dry, with many parts in severe drought.
These extreme variations in weather are not new - weather systems can and do change. What appears to be increasingly evolving and making news lately are extended droughts and drier lands as well as more frequent rains and higher levels of flooding.
A new study led by Connie Woodhouse of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center found that "comparing the most recent drought in the southwest United States with other dry periods going back 508 years confirms worries that water shortages will become more common and severe."
There indeed are places with too much water, even unwanted water, while there are regions of the world that need water but are in short supply. The Philippines, for example, experiences a lot of destructive flooding as well as droughts. Climate change, possibly accelerated by unprecedented emission of gases that cause the faster rise in global temperatures, is mired in some science and politics that has environmental advocates and critics at loggerheads.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol are among the important materials that can help nations debate the concerns about and find solutions to climate change. In 1992, the United States ratified the Climate Change Convention, but it has not ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls for legally binding targets to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
So far, the 168 member states of the United Nations that have ratified the convention are responsible for 61.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
United Methodists and other individuals may see that there is much more one can do than just complain about lack of drinking water or about drought or flood.
Information on climate change is available from the World Council of Churches, Church World Service or John Hill, director for environmental justice at the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, at jhill@umc-gbcs.org.
*Bautista is the United Methodist Board of Church and Society's assistant general secretary at the United Nations in New York.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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United Methodist News Service Photos and stories also available at: http://umns.umc.org
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