Whose Water Is it Anyway?
tehelka.com
tehelka.com
The more interesting take that is almost never discussed in the main-stream media is the high cost associated with providing access to clean water in the Middle East & its implications in the next few decades for the region, and for less prosperous nations that lack capital & resources to secure access to basic human necessities.
For example, UAE & Qatar have among the highest per capita consumption of water in the world, and they would probably top the charts if you discount the vast no. of migrant workers that consume relatively few resources but swell up the population statistics. All this clean water is sourced from the sea, desalinated in energy-intensive plants, which take multiple years to build. When I was living in Qatar, fuel was less expensive than water, partly because Qatar (& UAE) have high oil/gas reserves but mainly because they have to expend a lot of resources to build desalination plants, often licensing technology & building materials from western nations. They can probably scale up water production relatively quickly in the coming few years to keep up with increasing water consumption, however other nations, including India, probably might not be that lucky in securing access to clean water for its citizens at an affordable cost.
And in the midst of potential scarcity, the law is a total mess. Basically, you can do whatever the hell you want with groundwater as long as you can pump it out, even if it decreases the water table for people around you.
The reaction to this is that some people now see the potential for profit. There are forces that want to privatize water resources, taking water from the places that still have it to water lawns in fucking Scottsdale and Phoenix (which shouldn't even exist). That's where the "slavery" part comes in.
The law being a mess is a common problem with the current government, again not so much about water, water is just becoming one of the many things it sucks at managing.
What percent of the US GDP do you think the government would need in addition to what it already takes in so that over the next couple of decades it can create and maintain desalination and other technology to get rid of the scarcity issues?
I don't see the connection from privatization --> slavery, but I agree things would be easier if people would just move where the water is (or where it's easy to get water to). It's not unprecedented for the US government at some level to force people to move.
I still don't see why water problems (generalizing from water rights) is the thing that is poised to one day become the definitive issue and challenge of our time. Maybe it will help spur a rejection of democratic processes or something, but then the defining issue would more likely be told as eliminating the currently most prevalent forms of government. What's your time frame on "our time" anyway? People born in generation X, Y, and Z? "Our time" isn't even half over yet. Speculating about what might be the definitive issue that people 50+ years from now look back on these previous and upcoming decades, there are a lot of things that seem more likely to be the issue than "water rights".
Water law is unfortunately mostly a state issue, and the federal government has been loathe to get involved in mediating water disputes.
> Once ownership is settled, it's pretty clear what rights an owner has over that water vs. a non-owner.
Coming up with a clear allocation of rights ("all water now belongs to Bob") doesn't mean its easy to come up with a good allocation of rights.
> The law being a mess is a common problem with the current government, again not so much about water, water is just becoming one of the many things it sucks at managing.
I didn't say the challenges were unsolvable, I said that the usual political infighting will get in the way of us solving them.
> What percent of the US GDP do you think the government would need in addition to what it already takes in so that over the next couple of decades it can create and maintain desalination and other technology to get rid of the scarcity issues?
That's an entirely theoretical question. We've hit such political gridlock that we can't even maintain the infrastructure we have, much less build new infrastructure.
> I don't see the connection from privatization --> slavery
Controlling a fundamental resource is a great way to enslave people.
> Speculating about what might be the definitive issue that people 50+ years from now look back on these previous and upcoming decades, there are a lot of things that seem more likely to be the issue than "water rights".
50 years really isn't that long (Lisp is 55 years old, UNIX is 43 years old). It's not like we can't even fathom what the world will look like 50 years from now--it won't look all that different from today. Sitting here now, knowing what we know, it's hard to think of any other issue that's going to be as pressing in the next 50 years. Especially considering that some of the other pressing issues (like climate change, alternative energy) are going to put pressures on freshwater resources first. We're not going to run out of oil in 50 years, we're not going to get hit by a meteoroid, etc, etc, but it's very possible that the Ogallala will dry up devastating American food production.
The nasty things will happen across national borders. Like, when things in California get tight, will Mexico continue to receive any of the Colorado? Or worse, what about the Upper Ganges Aquifer, already shrinking and used by both India and Pakistan.
And the idea that Seattle and Spokane have a strong enough cultural bond to secede together is just silly.
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/water-wars-in-wild-wes...
The water crisis affects developing nations who can and will be taken advantage of (referred to here as slavery). As the article explains, as water continues to be a scarce resource there becomes more and more power in controlling it.
I think wars over oil are bad but the ethical questions around water are significantly more fundamental.
There are other problems too. For example my city has had excellent success in water conservation. However the fixed costs of the water infrastructure haven't changed so they have to keep increasing the water rates as consumption decreases, in order to maintain revenue covering the costs. (Arguably the fixed cost of the bill should be higher and the consumption charge should be lower to better reflect reality but that falls hardest on the poorer households and would discourage conservation by the larger consumers.)
I also recall reading somewhere about other unexpected consequences of conservation - sewage pipes had significantly reduced lifespans because effluent was more concentrated resulting in greater corrosion.