Just before Christmas, the CME Group, the New York-based market operator that takes its name from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange — once described as the biggest financial exchange you've never heard of — began trading water futures.
For the first time, Wall Street traders are now able to take a stake in the future value of water, the way they have with other agricultural and mineral commodities.
Roy Brouwer, executive director of the Water Institute at the University of Waterloo, said that when he came to Canada from the Netherlands five years ago, he was surprised by the low price and wasteful misuse of water in this country.
"If you leave it completely to the market, you might end up with some of these extreme situations," said Brouwer. "Somewhere in between considering water a human right and the commodification of water through these water markets is probably where you want to be."
Read the story from CBC here.