AW4U VCC News
[Jul 18, 2026] Tourism in Bali impacts water availability: Christian Karim Chrobog in the article titled “Who is ‘stealing’ Bali’s water? How tourism siphoned off a prized resource” reports on the water conflict between tourism and traditional agriculture in Bali. Many of “the centuries-old infrastructure that treated water as a gift to be shared is disappearing” because a rapidly growing tourism industry is commercializing and overusing the available water resources.
[Jul 18, 2026] Infrastructure failure impacts water availability in Puerto Rico: Coral Murphy Marcos reports in the article titled “As if a hurricane had passed’: Puerto Ricans at breaking point after weeks without water” that the rupture of a major water pipeline is driving up costs of water in Puerto Rico while pressure grows on the water utility. The crisis appears not to be tackled efficiently.
[Jul 18, 2026] The universal human right to clean and safe drinking water is violated : In his latest blog titled “Our poisoned chalice,” Julian Cribb comments on he dire state of the world's drinking water. He starts by stating that in 2026 over two million humans will lose their lives from drinking water. The universal human right of having sufficient access to clean, safe water is violated in many areas where there is not enough water, insufficient or no access to drinking water, or extensive pollution is turning drinking water into a dangerous substance.
Platform News
[Aug 11, 2026] CitizenForum VCC opened: The "Citizen Forum Norfolk and World VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[Aug 03, 2026] Alliance of World Scientists Declares Planetary Emergency: In the paper “ World scientists’ warning to humanity: a third notice” the Alliance of World Scientists includes the “Declaration of a planetary emergency.” The declaration states: “We, the undersigned, recognize that Earth is now in a state of planetary emergency. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land and freshwater degradation, pollution, and unsustainable production and consumption are destabilizing the Earth system that supports all life.”
You can sign the declaration here ...
[Aug 03, 2026] Hothouse Earth: arriving sooner than you think…: Julian Cribb writes in his latest blog: “Latest measurements, carefully analysed to exclude anomalies such as El Nino, reveal a planet cooking up at a steady 0.48 degrees per decade since 2015, in what is thought to be the most rapid heating event in all its geological history.” We are experiencing the most rapid heating event in Earth's billions of years long history! We have caused this event with a few hundred years of sole focus on unlimited growth using all the ancient solar energy accumulated by Earth's biosphere over more than 250 million years - just because we could! That is something to reflect on!
[Jun 04, 2026] ‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: This is what the Global Justice Report published today makes very clear. Read the article by Jonathan Watts in the Guardian as an introduction. While this equal and habitable world is still possible, it is very unlikely that we will transition to this world as long as greedy and unethical billionaires supported by governments they own compete to be the first trillionaire. The report underlines that the fight for an equal and habitable world has to be a fight against a system that rewards extraction and depletion of all resources and requires infinitely growing consumption devouring the Earth's life-support system; a system designed to increase inequality and sustain the exploitation of almost all to serve the greed of a few!
