8 ms·

The race to buy up the world's water

61 points by edw519 16y ago

kes 16y ago
Was this not the basic plot of the latest Bond flick?
- Shamiq 16y ago
  Yes, it was.
- bh23ha 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    Can you find a reference to the case you mention? Sounds worth reading.
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests
      - brunt 16y ago
        I prefer to read about it from Maddox. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_p...
- megablahblah 16y ago
  It reminded me of one of the pitches in Brewster's Millions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU
stretchwithme 16y ago
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.
- route66 16y ago
  > Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution. Is as untrue as it can be. Currently water conflicts emerge around the situation that there where no (or only a traditional) market exists, a market for multinationals is created forcibly . IMF and World Bank connect loan conditions directly to water exploitation rights in developing countries. This looks very much like interventionism to me: creating a "market" and installing it's major players at the same time. I can't see the "invisible hand" here ...
- tbrownaw 16y ago
  > The market is the only mechanism that can allocate scarce resources equitably. The market allocates according to ability/willingness to pay. This is perfectly fine in general, but doesn't work so well when "ability" enters the picture for something considered a necessity.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    That's true of everything. I'd much rather pay for what I need from a competitive marketplace that is constantly driving down the cost of everything than leave it up to monopolistic government to hand out the privilege of drinking water. The market works damn well for the vast majority of things with which government has not blessed with its involvement. Water is no different than most things. In fact, it falls out of the sky in a lot of places. Places where its difficult to obtain water usually have plenty of government managing the privileges. The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Most government is coercion. I don't see how more of it is a solution.
patio11 16y ago
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.
lowglow 16y ago
It's ok: I only drink Coke Zero.
piguy314 16y ago
Water is so ridiculously cheap in America. We need some mechanism to price in future shortages so people conserve now. Most people (90% or more) won't respond to anything besides a price signal...
marilyn 16y ago
Any bloggers who have something to say about this, this year's Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.change.org/ http://blogactionday.change.org/) topic is water.
ars 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.
code_duck 16y ago
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.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
If water is the new oil, Canada is the new saudi arabia.
olegkikin 16y ago
Isn't it easier and cheaper to desalinate ocean water using solar energy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination
- regularfry 16y ago
  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.
glork 16y ago
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?

61 points by edw519 16y ago

kes 16y ago

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

Shamiq 16y ago
Yes, it was.
bh23ha 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Can you find a reference to the case you mention? Sounds worth reading.
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests
    - brunt 16y ago
      I prefer to read about it from Maddox. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_p...
megablahblah 16y ago
It reminded me of one of the pitches in Brewster's Millions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU

stretchwithme 16y ago

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.

route66 16y ago
> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution. Is as untrue as it can be. Currently water conflicts emerge around the situation that there where no (or only a traditional) market exists, a market for multinationals is created forcibly . IMF and World Bank connect loan conditions directly to water exploitation rights in developing countries. This looks very much like interventionism to me: creating a "market" and installing it's major players at the same time. I can't see the "invisible hand" here ...
tbrownaw 16y ago
> The market is the only mechanism that can allocate scarce resources equitably. The market allocates according to ability/willingness to pay. This is perfectly fine in general, but doesn't work so well when "ability" enters the picture for something considered a necessity.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  That's true of everything. I'd much rather pay for what I need from a competitive marketplace that is constantly driving down the cost of everything than leave it up to monopolistic government to hand out the privilege of drinking water. The market works damn well for the vast majority of things with which government has not blessed with its involvement. Water is no different than most things. In fact, it falls out of the sky in a lot of places. Places where its difficult to obtain water usually have plenty of government managing the privileges. The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Most government is coercion. I don't see how more of it is a solution.

patio11 16y ago

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.

lowglow 16y ago

It's ok: I only drink Coke Zero.

piguy314 16y ago

Water is so ridiculously cheap in America. We need some mechanism to price in future shortages so people conserve now. Most people (90% or more) won't respond to anything besides a price signal...

marilyn 16y ago

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

ars 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.

code_duck 16y ago

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.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

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

olegkikin 16y ago

Isn't it easier and cheaper to desalinate ocean water using solar energy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination

regularfry 16y ago
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.

glork 16y ago

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?