Marc Bain writes at Quartz:
Drought has been a chronic issue in southeastern Australia for years. In regions such as southern Queensland, months can pass without rain. Local communities have to ration water or risk running out.
Yet a company owned by Chinese investors based in Brisbane still got approved last week to run a commercial water-mining operation in the area. It plans to transport the water to a facility where it can bottle and sell it.
This reminds me of the Nestlé Bottling company which continues to bottle clean water near Flint, Michigan as the city of Flint continues to suffer from tainted poisonous lead-tainted water. Thanks to the egregious and violent extremes of climate change, we can expect more and more of these sorts of stories. Simply put, water is the new oil in this new era.