ABSTRACT
On 10 April 2011, upon returning from work, I found that there was no electricity and, consequently, as a pump is used to feed water into our apartment block, there was no water either. I had become used to having both water and electricity all the time in London, despite having experienced shortages in both while living in India. I was feeling a bit smug because I had not been using a fridge or a freezer for almost two years1 and so there was no food that would go off on this hot spring day. I could not use my computer, the Internet or telephone and I do not own a TV. So I turned on my solar radio and relaxed for a while. But then, I realised that I would not be able to cook because the hob uses an electrical spark to light the gas. I could water the plants with stored rainwater but would not be able to drink water myself. My supply of stored drinking water was running out and the shops were out of bottled water owing to local panic buying. The lease rules do not allow the use of fuel-based appliances such as barbecues or a ‘storm kettle’. The electricity was eventually restored after two-and-a-half hours, just as I was thinking of going further to get food and water. These two-and-a-half hours gave me a glimpse of a future and perhaps an ever-present reality for many of the world’s poor. Despite progress in a technological sense, billions of people remain unfed, homeless or are dying of preventable diseases. According to Wateraid, 884 million people all over the world lack access to a safe water supply and 2.6 billion have no access to sanitation in 2011. They estimate that 4,000 children die daily from diarrhoea owing to lack of clean water and sanitation facilities.2 The Millennium Eco-system Assessment, prepared by 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, concluded in 2005 that the excessive exploitation of natural resources would be a cause of future poverty and hunger – not a solution.
