Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-268-9557   Updated: 25 June 2009 Newsletter July 2009
July 2009 Newsletter Contents More Noticias Membership Application	Noticias In loving memory of Barbara Purcell, who passed away on Saturday night, June 20th. Barbara was a desk volunteer, helped out with the monthly mailing of the newsletter, and coordinated the lending library. We are thankful for the opportunity we had to meet her and be part of her life. We will miss her greatly, may she rest in peace.
Green Column: Virtual Water by Anne Peterpaul According to an article in the latest issue of Mother Jones (MJ), the global trade in water could be very bad for the poor of the world. Producing food, throughout most of human history, was dependent on access to lakes, rivers and rain. Long-distance transportation of water was not very feasible. Now we have something called "virtual water", which means that water has become a global commodity. It goes like this, according to Josh Harkinson, writer of the MJ water piece. When Egypt imports a pound of wheat from Australia,"it is virtually importing the 156 gallons of water it took to grow it. When a Japanese family eats a pound of American beef, it is effectively consuming the more or less 1,800 gallons of water that the cow drank." The United Nations maintains that 450 trillion gallons of water are traded as virtual water every year. Harkinson says that countries with meager water supplies can now sustain populations beyond what they could in the past. The downside is that the whole world is now competing for water, and the virtual water trade allows the rich countries to "import abundance and export scarcity." The author concludes that as Americans consume ever more water, we may be taking food from the world's poor. Please send calendar items, comments, and questions concerning this Web document to Web@abqPeaceAndJustice.org .