• dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The difference is that “food” isn’t something that falls out of the sky or simply exists in its final form in nature. It is farmed, processed, and packaged for market.

      Water, by itself, is natural and in its final form (sans boiling away impurities). It also falls from the sky. The problem comes up that companies like Nestle have “water rights” that some argue they shouldn’t have that prohibit use of publicly available water for anybody but Nestle.

      Personally, I don’t see a problem with a company profiting off of the packaging, marketing, and distribution of bottled water. The problem I have is that companies should not be allowed to take as much water as they want, especially if it hurts public interest. I also have issue with states restricting a persons ability to capture and use rain water.

      Kind of hypocritical that I cannot capture rain water and sell it, but Nestle can siphon of millions of gallons of water from a public water source and everyone is expected to be okay with it.

        • irmoz@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Not as part of a normal life. Or at least, I don’t see many people carrying baskets of freshly picked apples around.

          Your point is true, though, even if a bit impractical for most.

          • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            When we culturally embrace that food is a market item, not a right, then we systemically avoid maintaining or enabling sources of food that violate market principles: say, for example, keeping fruit trees in public parks, and making excess farm production available to the public

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Rainwater capture isn’t about you and I and some 50-gallon drums, your article even talks about reasonable use. The idea is to stop assholes from changing/diverting waterways.

        There was an ass somewhere out West that was prosecuted, acting like he was a simple man getting the government shaft. He was collecting so much he dried up a creek that downstream farmers depended on.

        Funny enough, I looked up Florida and apparently we not only encourage rainwater collection, some municipalities offer incentives! Weird. Now if it would only rain…

    • SatyrSack@feddit.orgOP
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      2 months ago

      Guess what!

      Also, as an aside, thank you for using an exclamation point. As a licensed and registered pedant, it always bugs me to see a question mark on a statement/command. “Guess what?” is a common offender.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    2 months ago

    That is a real quote and absolutely fucking atrocious.

    On the one hand, extremists think one of two things necessary for life should be a right.

    On the other, I want to exploit those needs for personal gain.

    …Times like these I wish I wasn’t an atheist so I could find solace in the idea that they’d burn in hell. Instead they’ll live a life of luxury while people die.

    • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      All these sociopaths just want personal gain, and don’t realize that it makes us all lose. And when we all lose (at this stage of the game) we ALL lose!

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      2 months ago

      The thing is, food should absolutely be a right, but also, food requires work to produce, water literally falls from the sky, comes out of a source by itself, and flows in a river. It’s the most basic and natural of natural resources.

        • Damage@feddit.it
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          2 months ago

          Lol no. There’s no way we could sustain our current population without agriculture.

      • basmati@lemmus.org
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        2 months ago

        Food literally grows on its own. It can take work to produce but it literally just does that.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        And these fucks consider water a foodstuff… You don’t do anything to water it just is.

        Pepsi is a foodstuff, you make it. I don’t claim a right to have Pepsi.

        A hotdog is a foodstuff, you make it. I don’t claim a right to have a hotdog.

        Water is water… We literally need it to survive, even sooner than we need food. It’s something like 7 days without water and you die, but at least 30 without food…

    • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s a real quote, but it’s taken out of context.

      The CEO was making the point that the municipal water supply should be priced to reduce water wastage, which does have merit (and most municipalities do price water). He was saying that people who oppose water pricing do so on the grounds that water is a human right, which he called an extreme position.

      He never actually said that water isn’t a human right, just that he thinks making water free because it’s a human right is an “extreme position”. He later clarified that he believes having enough water to live is a human right, but beyond that, filling up a swimming pool is not a human right.

      He was making this argument in the context of arguing for the privatization of the municipal water supply, which I do not agree with. But I don’t think he’s wrong to argue for water pricing.

  • trolololol@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    While most of the world’s people continue to live in Asia, much of the increase in hunger since 2017 occurred in Africa and South America. The FAO’s 2017 report discussed three principal reasons for the recent increase in hunger: climate, conflict, and economic slowdowns.

    In 2022, Asia was home to 55% (402 million) of the people in the world affected by hunger, while more than 38% (282 million) lived in Africa.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger