America
has a problem. We’re a thirsty
nation. Actually, it’s more like we’re
addicted to water,
abusing it. We subsidize its use on a
grand scale in industries that use it inefficiently, even wastefully, and in
locations where it is naturally hard to come by. We allocate it based on facts that are no
longer true, and were doubtful or changing even as we made our policies. In our sometimes blind enthusiasm, we
overreached and now we are mire in unintended consequences. To top it off, we rarely change our ways
until a crisis is already upon us.
Cynthia Barnett describes these problems in her book Blue Revolution. She also looks around the country and the
world for solutions. Her essential
solution is a water ethic.
At one time, people were intimately connected to water. Farmers watched for rain. Children fetched pails of it from the stream
or worked a pump handle. Communities were
built around watermills where people brought in grain or carried away
flour.
Of course, water is no less essential to modern life. We depend on it for drinking, cleaning, sanitation
and green lawns. It is essential or the
energy that light and cools our homes and powers our computers. The abundance of food in our groceries stores
is partly a testament to the abundance of water used to irrigate fields that
don’t get enough rainfall for the crops we grow.
What is different is the way we view water. For most of us it is cheap, nearly free in
comparison to other utilities and services we use in our homes. We can get as much as we want whenever we
want by opening a valve. Water is
something we hold back with dams, divert with canals, and pump through
pipes. It bends to our will—except when
it doesn’t.
Our water policies and technologies
have often had unintended consequences. We
turned deserts into productive fields, but much of the water is lost to
evaporation. We moved water great
distances to supply cities, but it encouraged profligacy that threatens those
distant, expensive supplies. Dams that
were engineering
marvels may soon stand at the ends of empty lakes.
Sure, changes in technology and policy are needed to stop, and
hopefully reverse, these problems. Barnett
doesn’t stop there. Our approach to
water arises from the way we value it, think about it, and relate to it. Our present state came from valuing water
little, thinking about it little unless it was our job, and relating to it
little except for those who intensely depended on a highly subsidized supply.
The water ethic Barnett proposes would value water, both in the sense
of personal appreciation and economic
cost and opportunity. It would seek the
best use of the water we have, especially what is locally available. It creates opportunities for people to
contact water and understand where it comes from and how it is affected by
use. It is something that spreads
organically from person to person, neighborhood to neighborhood, business
to business, and city to city.
It is an ethic that is within reach, too. Barnett describes how places that have long
had extreme relationships with extreme water environments, like the Netherlands,
Singapore
and Australia,
have changed their relationship with water.
These are not just policy shifts, they are cultural changes. Even in the United States,
there are places where a new water ethic is taking hold and people understand
how important and fragile water is.
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