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I disagree with your contention that water is an earth scale problem. In fact, as someone charged with building and maintaining not only my own water sources a
by rsync 7y ago
I disagree with your contention that water is an earth scale problem.
In fact, as someone charged with building and maintaining not only my own water sources and infrastructure, but community water resources as well, I would put forth that water resources - and their responsible usage - are governed by very unique hyperlocal conditions.
We all know that, for instance, the water resources and usage are different between New York City and the Colorado River Basin - and we wouldn't expect usage and sharing agreements between those two locales. But are you aware that similar scale differences in water resources and usage can exist within the same county ? Physics and economics make them just as impractical to share and manage.
There may indeed be drivers of global governance - and I typically find them distasteful - but I don't think this is one of them.
- danharaj 7y agoThere's already international politics about water sources. For example, the Tigris and Euphrates are very important to multiple countries, starting with Turkey and flowing downstream. In the US, you could imagine pipelines bringing water from the East Coast westwards. That could transform water economics in much of the nation, maybe even save an aquifer or two.
- avip 7y agoOk, now go tell that to a Syrian, Bangladeshian, or Ethiopian.
- xboxnolifes 7y ago> are governed by very unique hyperlocal conditions Yes, and what happens when 1 area does not have available water, another does, and the area with water does not want to share?
- rsync 7y ago"Yes, and what happens when 1 area does not have available water, another does, and the area with water does not want to share?" That is a real problem - and should be addressed - but the physics and economics dictate that the sharing need be relatively local. So I would agree that it is a governance issue, but it is not going to be a global governance issue.
- munk-a 7y agoIt is a global governance issue since, much like your relative who's house was wrecked in a hurricane, the rest of the world will need to pick up the pieces when water availability collapses. I'm not against that sharing personally, but we as a world need to all get together and ensure global stability because otherwise a problem like this will be like falling dominoes where the additional water burden will spread and exacerbate the issue.
- nateburke 7y agoWhen the people without water get up and move, from one country to another, it will become a global governance issue.
- bluGill 7y agoIt doesn't matter if they want to share or not. Pumping water is so expensive that sharing won't be economically. Sure we can ship bottled water - for drinking that is cheap enough, but try taking a shower with bottled water. If some areas doesn't have enough water some people need to move out to areas that have enough (this is easy to say and hard to do). Areas that are borderline need to think hard about what gets priority - much of California has been ignoring this question for a long time (climate change may or may not make a difference in the future)
- 7y ago
- e40 7y agoI think pollution makes it more of a global problem, so I think you and GP are both right.