

The race to buy up the world's water - edw519
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/08/the-race-to-buy-up-the-world-s-water.html

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stretchwithme
The market is the only mechanism that can allocate scarce resources equitably.
And the only alternative is politics.

In California, those with influence have secured water for agriculture at
below market rates, water delivered with infrastructure built by taxpayer
dollars.

When people can get a resource for less than the cost of delivering it, they
use it with less discretion. And the prices of the things they produce with it
don't reflect the true value of the water, even if they did pay for all costs
of delivery.

That's because water has value itself. Its not just the cost of delivering it
that matters.

But when a resource is allocated with a political process, the only costs that
are considered are the costs of delivery. Assuming the taxpayer's interests
are represented at all.

The political process is notoriously shortsighted. But if someone owns a
resource, they have an interest in preserving it. Its sale price represents
the total future value of it, not just what can be extracted during a
politicians term of office.

Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It
is their solution.

~~~
jacquesm
> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water.
> It is their solution.

That bullshit gets trotted out with some regularity but it is clearly
nonsense.

Have a read here and draw your own conclusions:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests>

If someone owns a resource they have an interest in extracting maximum value
out of it, not in preserving it.

I've seen the case made for private ownership of air and water and I think it
is utter rubbish. What we need instead is good stewardship of our natural
resources, a way to extract tax on the depletion of natural resources instead
of on production of value.

~~~
mmaro
If you're trying to extract the maximum value out of a resource you own, why
would you not preserve it?

~~~
ovi256
ITT: people who do not understand the tragedy of the commons.

~~~
jacquesm
Privatization usually does not translate in to 'the people that use the
resource will own it', it usually translates in to 'big-corp' in 'some other
country' now owns a resource you depend on and will make you pay through the
nose for it.

If the situation were such that each of us gets to be responsible for their
little chunk of the planet then I wouldn't have a problem with it, in practice
that is not how it works. Hence overfishing and all kinds of other issues that
could have been avoided.

One of the major problems seems to be that there simply are too many of us,
that's a very harsh thing to say according to plenty of folks but it may very
well be that the only real long term solution leading to better stewardship of
the environment is to reduce the number of people that consume resources. Not
a very popular point of view, that's for sure.

~~~
stretchwithme
you go first.

More can be done with less and that sort of improvement is happening all of
the time. freedom and innovation is the solution, not limiting people's
freedom

when I see tiny, populated, resource-poor, rich countries, its clear to me
that trade and the rule of law are the solution to a great many problems many
insist are unsolvable in other places that lack freedom

The situation you describe where deals are made with foreign corporations for
control of resources are typically made by governments that have such control
themselves. when resources are controlled by individuals in a competitive
market, its very difficult for corporations, foreign or domestic, to bribe
officials to sell out for far less than a resource is actually worth

~~~
rdtsc
I think you both failed to make a distinction between resources necessary for
life and optional resources.

When it comes to water, healthcare, minimum daily amount of food, leaving that
up to the market (especially one where monopolies form over time, and I
believe monopolies will form in any "free" market over time) is tantamount to
a country abusing their own population and shows a disregard for human life.

When it comes to designer clothes, jewelry, eating out, entertainment, sure
let the market work its "magic". When it comes to peoples' lives, the market
will not put their interests first and a "free" market will end up producing
lots of suffering for lots of people.

Also it is worth pointing out that a centrally planned economy is also not an
option. The answer if probably somewhere in the middle.

~~~
jacquesm
Sorry if it came across like that, I thought we were discussing water, which
is pretty much _the_ example of resources necessary for life (the others being
air and staple foods).

Trinkets and cell phone subscriptions are a different matter. (and in the case
of cell phone subscriptions you could even wonder if the market is doing its
work or not).

~~~
rdtsc
Oops didn't mean to derail the topic. You made a good point with which I
agree. I just wanted to add how in one case government intervention is needed
while in the other case it would be detrimental (think international tariffs
on specific models and types of cars, etc.)

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patio11
Buying and selling water is nothing new. Usually it is transported in
agricultural products. (And pretty much any manufactured item, but the big use
is agricultural products.)

This lets you do trivial substitution for a water deficit: import crops, grow
less crops locally, drink the stuff you were about to pour on the crops you no
longer have.

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code_duck
Of course, this is why insiders such as Dick Cheney have been investing
heavily, personally, in water and encouraging water privatization as
governmental policy worldwide. Not so recently, more like 6-8 years ago. It's
the next resource to rake the working people of the world over the coals for.

------
ars
Do your part to conserve water: Use plastic, not paper. Don't recycle. If you
have a septic system replace it with a sewer. Do not buy local, but from
wherever is able to most efficiently grow the crop.

Making paper uses tons of water. So does washing the plastic for recycling.
Water is far more precious than energy/oil right now.

A septic system wastes all it's water, but a sewer system recycles almost all
of it.

Growing things locally can use more water than if you plant things in the area
they grow in best.

~~~
hugh3
Or just live somewhere where there's plenty of water.

Water falls from the sky, and in many parts of the world it's not a scarce
resource at all.

~~~
route66
I'm not so sure about that: lots of water around means that your drinking
water has a high risk of becoming polluted with industrial sewage (as now did
happen in Hungary) or salty water in areas close to the sea. Abundance of
water != drinking water.

------
kes
Was this not the basic plot of the latest Bond flick?

~~~
bh23ha
What's funny about that is that it was based on a real case, and the real case
was actually worse. The movie played things down a bit, to make them more
believable.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Can you find a reference to the case you mention? Sounds worth reading.

~~~
Psyonic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests>

~~~
brunt
I prefer to read about it from Maddox.

[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_p...](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus)

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marilyn
Any bloggers who have something to say about this, this year's Blog Action Day
(<http://blogactionday.change.org/>) topic is water.

------
Kilimanjaro
If water is the new oil, Canada is the new saudi arabia.

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glork
So we have 1) governments that sell water at prices too low to match the
reality of scarcity, 2) private corporations who would sacrifice the
environment and consumers for profits, and 3) a populace that consumes too
much and is resistant to change. Are we all fucked?

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olegkikin
Isn't it easier and cheaper to desalinate ocean water using solar energy?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination>

~~~
regularfry
Desalination in general is expensive, and requires (obviously) that you've got
coastline handy. I don't think solar desalination is a general answer, simply
because of the energy densities involved.

The physics behind solar desalination means that you need _at least_ 10m^2 of
solar collection per household, just to heat the water if you're hoping to
sustain people in this way alone, so while it might be part of a bigger
solution in some parts of the world, it'll never be a solution in its own
right.

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lowglow
It's ok: I only drink Coke Zero.

