

Whose Water Is it Anyway? - smadaan
http://tehelka.com/whose-water-is-it-anyway/?singlepage=1

======
sgpl
The question that the author asks is great from a theoretical standpoint but
more money provides better access to resources, natural or otherwise,
regardless of geographical location. It is true in the African continent as
well in North America.

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.

------
rayiner
Water rights are going to be the defining political issue of our time, and the
fundamental challenge of our generation. No resource is more necessary and
less replaceable. Our reaction to this challenge is going to define our
political and social institutions. We will either meet that challenge, or let
the usual petty squabbling and infighting and opportunism get in the way and
the fallout will either kill or enslave huge swaths of the population.

~~~
Jach
This seems obviously false to me for several reasons. Are you being serious?
Perhaps I'm ignorant and you can enlighten me, but I think the water rights
situation in the United States is pretty clear-cut.

~~~
rayiner
The water rights situation in the U.S. is a total disaster. You have
California, Nevada, Arizona, etc, fighting over ever more overstrained output
from the Colorado river. Even in wet places like Florida you're having to dig
deeper and deeper to hit water (1,000+ feet in some cases). Aquifers in the
western midwest are threatened by fracking.

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.

~~~
Jach
We have a federal government to resolve conflicts between the states. Maybe
the federal government isn't very effective, but that makes it a problem with
the way government is structured, not so much about water. Once ownership is
settled, it's pretty clear what rights an owner has over that water vs. a non-
owner.

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".

~~~
rayiner
> We have a federal government to resolve conflicts between the states.

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.

------
igul222
I don't understand why water is such a scarce resource: the price of water
will never increase past the cost of desalinizing seawater with energy from,
say, solar panels.

~~~
jmathai
Desalinization is extremely expensive to the point that we can't yet rely on
salt water.

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.

