Letter from a Farmer: South Africa in the "Premature Long Emergency"

[phantom power]

I recommend reading the rest of it. I'm thinking about changing my sig-line to this:

Potholes may well be the singular measure of the calamity we are in or about to face.

South Africa has been flung full tilt into a Premature Long Emergency. In the up market suburbs, not least to say generally all over the urban landscape, there is not a 1km (1/2 mile) strip of tarred road that is not full of potholes (hugh gapping holes, across which vehicles cannot drive), the roadside curbs are disintegrating, the road maintenance programmes over the last 10 years have failed to maintain the roads in a serviceable and passable state. The nation is gripped in a crisis of rolling power outages caused by the incompetence of highly paid government ministers and their charges. The news of the weekend is that the nation is in dire straits with the supply of clean, drinkable water to households and business alike. We are faced with unusual weather patterns, floods at the moment, high rain fall for the Summer, the expectation of an early, long cold Winter.

THE POWER EMERGENCY
The rolling power outages are resulting in about a 25% national power outage per month. The ramifications of this can be related directly to an income loss of the same amount, retail supplies are being interrupted and from a security point of view it is dangerous to shop in malls. The Electricity Supply Commission – ESKOM are indicating a forced reduction on power usage by 10%, further, the mines have been told not to work on Fridays. There are revenue and cost implications here that extend beyond the obvious monthly figures. What of the power saving measures that may in turn lead to greater problems, the mines are unable to pump excess ground water from the shafts, the maintenance programmes are due to suffer. And what of the safety indications, miners are protesting the possibility of being caught under ground or in lift shafts as the random power cuts hit the service grids.

(...)

THE WATER EMERGENCY
At some point the effect of the power emergency on water and sanitation supply should be considered and this would be part of the roll out of unexpected events resultant of the collapse of the power supply, but the water board have usurped the power supply with homegrown problems of their own…
So here we have it, 43% of the dams have safety problems and are in danger of collapsing. Further to this, the ground water in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, has radioactive contamination from mining operations.
Now, as a matter of interest, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world that is built on a hill and water has to be pumped up into the city!!!

http://kunstler.com/Grunt_SouthAfrica.html

[aquart]

1. Oh, shit.

I've got family in Johannesburg.

[phantom power]

2. I'd be interested in what your family has to say about what's been happening there.

[aquart]

4. Don't know, but I'm cut and pasting it to them.

[tabatha]

3. Some of these problems can be blamed on ....

guess what ... free market philosophy ... especially the water problems.

Unfortunately, Mandela and Mbeki went the way of the Thatcher doctrine, instead of following the more socialist route.

South Africa was brought to its knees financially before Apartheid was thrown out the window. After if fell, there were high expectations that the fortunes of the Blacks would increase dramatically. However, because of the lack of investment in the country, it has been slow going. Undoing 200 years of discrimination is not going to happen soon, especially relying on Free Markets only.

If you read Naomi Klein's shock doctrine on South Africa, it will explain the Free Market problem.

One of the strongest proponents of Free Markets in South Africa is Leon Louw (with his wife Francis Kendall). Unfortunately, he does not believe in Climate Change either - and thinks the seas of the world should be privatized.

http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/