Lotsa Water | Global Swarming

Lotsa Water

Written by Douglas Wilson

Saturday, 02 August 2008 02:18

Driving out the coast, I had the privilege of driving for the better part of a day alongside the Columbia River. Driving back, the river was just as wide and just as long. What an enormous amount of water, flowing steadily to the sea. And, making this even more fun, we were doing pretty much all of the driving through brown and arid land, and I kept wondering to myself -- where could all this water being coming from? Runoff from the mountains certainly adds up.

On a related matter, the beach house where we were staying had a shower head that was made the way shower heads ought still to be made -- you know, the kind that delivers about ten gallons of hot water every minute, and keeps trying to knock you down. Why don't we do this anymore? We have the technology. Why, we don't do this because we think we live on a planet that is running out of water. As I write these words, I can glance off to the right, just slightly, and take a gander at the Pacific Ocean.

In my hometown of Moscow, the local liberals are all in a doodah about the aquifer beneath us running clean out. And so they are proposing all the usual nonsense. Man's use of water around us is not draining off this valuable resource. If you took all the water rights in all the states that feed the Columbia, that amount of water would be less than the margin of error for the water that flows through The Dalles (one of the dams on the Columbia).

As an afterthought, how can the panic over us running out of water be reconciled with the panic over global warming?

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Last Updated on Saturday, 02 August 2008 02:18

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Gerv	Saturday, August 02, 2008 3:11 am

Have you tried drinking the Pacific Ocean?

The issue is not about running out of water, but about running out of drinking/washing/irrigation water. Let's take your aquifer for an example. Say it vanished tomorrow. Where would you suggest the town get the water that it's currently getting from the aquifer? After all, you can't recommend a cut back, because then the liberal greens would have won. Desalination technology is currently very expensive and, despite the enormous amounts of money to be made in the Middle East by anyone cracking the problem, has remained so for some time.

You could try and suggest that it won't vanish tomorrow, but if it's anything like other aquifers where people are raising this issue, it's hard to argue with a steadily increasing number (being the number of metres you have to drill down to reach the water table).

Sarah Miller

Saturday, August 02, 2008 7:13 am

I don't know anything about water issues in the states, but in places where no one cares about what happens to water, it hasn't taken long to render LOTS of water undrinkable and downright dangerous (e.g., parts of China). Blaming individual consumption might be silly when other things (factory run-off, agriculture, etc.) are the real problem, but it seems absurd to say that a real problem couldn't arise here, when it's happened elsewhere?

Charles Long

Saturday, August 02, 2008 2:42 pm

For less than 100 bucks you can build a passive solar box that will turn your urine into drinking water. And fit into the back of your car. And it has no moving parts. Drink the Pacific Ocean? No problem.

[br][br]And for free, there's always rain.

Valerie (Kyriosity)

Saturday, August 02, 2008 2:56 pm

Oh really, LongShot?

Charles Long

Saturday, August 02, 2008 3:04 pm

Stinkin' commies. For cryin' out loud.

[br][br](referring to the link...)So when the State's rainwater leaks through your roof and ruins your hardwood floors, do you charge them with burglary, or just tresspassing? Or is it just a civil suit, like suing them for property damage? Tell 'em to keep their stinkin' rainwater off your stinkin' house, or else?

[br][br]Commies.

[br][br][/bloodpressurespike]

DHammer

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:23 pm

Speaking of water, why is that whenever environmental topics come up the usually brilliant DW, seems to flush his clear thinking and logic down the toilet? As hard as you try and fight it, the numbers (see Gerv's post) are hard to argue with and its the same experience all over the American west. It seems when you have a constantly accelerating population consuming a limited resource, especially in an arid to semi-arid climate, guess what? The resource gets scarce.

DHammer

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:37 pm

Speaking of the Columbia, one of the reasons why there is so much water in it at this time of year is because it is dammed up in a series of lakes from the Dalles to southern Idaho. That just happened to be the topic of conversation at work tonight, here on the Front Range. Talking about a Life magazine article from the '60s, bragging about man's brilliance in bringing cheap power to the Northwest and how because of our cleverness there would be no effect on the bazillions of salmon that used to run thru there. Ooops, sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean to devasatate that population to the point of collapse.

Jason Farley

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:37 pm

perhaps if the same people that were trying to run you out of town because you didn't believe that a walrus and an onion were cousins by lying like a bear rug in a lake cabin, all the while braving the coldest and snowiest winter ever on the way to a global warming revival, were telling you that they needed you to trust them to regulate your kitchen sink and garden hose, (whew - that was a run-on sentence) you would be a little suspicious, even if the promised that they were telling the truth.

DHammer

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:37 pm

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." - John Muir

Jason Farley

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:38 pm

Has anyone ever seen piles of dead salmon floating away from the a damn because they couldn't get past? just curious?

Jason Farley

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:48 pm

I just think that the integrity of many on the "water regulation bandwagon" is suspect. Is that so wrong?

Charles Long

Saturday, August 02, 2008 4:59 pm

I think the point here is that while a particular resource in a particular form might be getting scarce, the resource itself is abundant in many other (usable) forms. And just because you haven't spent all your time lately making this other form more usable doesn't mean the job can't get done.

DHammer

Saturday, August 02, 2008 5:03 pm

Jason, we were clever enough to figure the upriver part and foolish enough not to figure out the down river part. Since the river is now a lake, most of the current is gone. The fry spend lots of extra time in the river where they are tasty tapas for bigger fish. Then if they make it to the dams they get ground up into fish fertilizer in the turbines or die in the hyperoxygenated water they create. Various tactics are tried, like spilling extra water over the dams to pick up the current or, get this, trucking the fry from ID and eastern OR in trucks to below the dams, so that they will still imprint their route.

DHammer

Saturday, August 02, 2008 5:05 pm

I'm ready to invest my 401k in Longshot's depeeification company. We're gonna make the Saudi's look like the Joads.

Douglas Wilson

Sunday, August 03, 2008 12:34 am

Dhammer, the reason my usually cogent thinking goes kablooey is this: accelerating population meets non-accelerating resource. Resource gets scarce. Price of resource goes way up. Demand goes down all by itself and/or massive incentives are created by the market for those entrepreneurs who figure out a cheap and efficient way (say) to desalinate the water from the Pacific. This is a great system, and involves trusting God.

But some want to trust the regulators instead, whose job it is to apportion resources, remove incentives, pad their own jobs, and take our money and freedom away.

So my point is not that expanding populations cause no problems. My point is that the market addresses those problems far more efficiently than bureaucrats and ideologues can.

Jeremiah Brown

Sunday, August 03, 2008 10:37 am

Pastor Wilson,
While I agree with your last comment that free markets will come to a stable solution to problems, I also recognize that some solutions (usually the cheapest ones) can pose a significant impact to other people or creatures. I can't speak to water issues in the northwest, as I've lived in the southeast most of my life. However, I have some knowledge of that water issues from a couple different areas.

First, consider Atlanta. Atlanta is one of the larger cities in the country not built on a major river. The drought last year caused the reservoirs levels to plunge dramatically. The city passed major restrictions on water usage and mandated exorbitant fees for usage over a certain amount (Birmingham had similar restrictions). Now there is a major fight between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida over water rights to a couple rivers passing through Georgia on their way to the other states. Georgia wants to divert a significant portion of the water to the Atlanta area, which is expected to threaten mussel and clam fisheries in south Alabama and Florida.

Jeremiah Brown

Sunday, August 03, 2008 10:49 am

Second example: Florida is an extremely flat state and the water level only a few feet below the surface in places. So what happens is water is pumped out from under the ground and then poured out again on top of it. During drought conditions when the water table drops, water flowing along the surface (from irrigation) can form cracks in the crust which turns into the sinkholes that have destroyed a fair number of houses in the state. Central Florida is now thinking about pulling water out of the St. John's river. This has two impacts. The agricultural chemicals already in the water will become more concentrated (if you pull out pure water, the impurities become a larger fraction of what remains) and the water level will drop. In a state where six inches of elevation literally means a complete change in ecosystems, and where large numbers of species of endangered birds and other animals find their homes, a small (but permanent) decline in the river level can mean the extinction of entire species.

Jeremiah Brown

Sunday, August 03, 2008 10:58 am

Third example: If you wish to visit the everglades before you die, I'd recommend doing so in the next 10 years. The everglades are fed largely by water from Lake Okeechobee. Unfortunately, agricultural runoff has been gradually killing the edges of the region by killing the saw grass and allowing cattails to take over. The Army Corps of Engineers (in their infinite wisdom) saw all these windy rivers stretching through south Florida and decided to convert them into nice straight canals. As a result, entire natural areas started to die out. They're actually now in the process of removing the canals and attempting to return rivers to their original courses to restart growth. And Miami has been sucking off both water and land that feeds the everglades, cutting it off from its source of life. Bills come up regularly in Florida for everglades restoration, but all of us wise conservatives know better than to spend money on taking care of nature when we could instead invest it in better ways to kill it!

Jeremiah Brown

Sunday, August 03, 2008 11:11 am

So when we stand before the judgment throne and are asked about our return on the 10 talents our master gave us to invest, will we say that we just enjoyed our 10 gallons-per-minute shower heads too much to really care about the extinction of Roseate Spoonbills, Florida Panthers, Burrowing Owls, Everglades Kites, American Crocodiles, and Cape Sable Seaside Sparrows? I'm not asking for massive government programs to "solve" everything. But is not the proper role of government to restrict our hands when we overstep our bounds to the extent of being harmful to others? The conservative's laissez-faire approach to the environment often borders on greed and selfishness. And again, while I, in principle, believe that government often causes more problems than solutions, it is sometimes forced to step in when the people stop acting responsibly. We ended up with government-welfare when the church stopped caring for the poor and needy (and the new way is obviously far less effective than the old). We're heading quickly towards massive government economic programs if businesses and individuals refuse to act responsibly on their own.

Ben Carnahan

Sunday, August 03, 2008 1:20 pm

borders on greed and selfishness? aren't those sort of the gas in our "market-driven" Escalade?

DHammer

Sunday, August 03, 2008 1:59 pm

I'm returning to this thread a day later. Pastor W, I will not disagree with you that bureaucrats want to get their fingers into as much of our lives as possible - but then argue THAT point and not that we should be piggish about using scarce resources. Someone like you, who I know recognizes that God is the source of the good, the true and the beautiful and that theft from our neighbor and future generations is wrong, should be passionate about caring for His creation. I'd be giving you standing O's, not throwing bricks if you used your considerable talents to get rid of this ugly wart that the Church seems so proud of, ie. its determination to trash the environment as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Charles Long

Sunday, August 03, 2008 2:09 pm

You guys have phenominal powers of equivocation.

[br][br]Look -- just because y'all have chosen to favor sucking fresh water out of "fragile ecosystems" because you can't figure out a way distill the overabundance of what surrounds you (like, ya know, the ocean), doesn't at all mean that a guy who likes his shower pressure is "determin[ed] to trash the environment as quickly and efficiently as possible." Sorry, but that's the most irresponsible thing on this thread so far, not the shower heads.

Jeremiah Brown

Sunday, August 03, 2008 2:25 pm

Longshot, I'm fully in favor of desalination plants. However, those plants pour out tons (literally) of pollution. When you take a bunch of sea water and extract the pure water, you're left with concentrated salt and other contaminants. One of the biggest problem with the plants is what to do with the pollution. Dumping it directly back in the ocean will destroy any nearby fisheries and ecosystems. I do believe good solutions will come along, and if you read my first post, my main point was that it's often the cheapest solutions (and the ones that are first to be implemented) that often have a destructive impact. I'm in favor of finding good solutions, and sea water will likely play a major part in the future. We just need to make sure the solutions we choose don't make the problems all the worse.

DHammer

Sunday, August 03, 2008 3:11 pm

That left-over pollution is even worse when you use Longshot's $100 peeification machine.

DHammer

Sunday, August 03, 2008 3:14 pm

Longshot, If you re-read my post you will see that there is no literary connection between my comment re: "trashing the environment" and Pastor W's generous showers, but between the conservative Church's knee-jerk tendency to oppose even common sense environmental measures.

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 3:24 am

DHammer and Jeremiah, I don't think it's really workable to simply reject "big government programs coming in to solve everything" but then support the government using its power "to restrict our hands when we overstep our bounds to the extent of being harmful to others." The latter goal is precisely what motivates the massive government programs you say you have no interest in. If, somehow, some bureaucrats actually find a way to square the circle and use just a little government coersion here and there to restrain "bad choices" made by the free market, then we still have to ask what the difference is between that and a "massive" government program. The problem of socialist calculation is a problem for the big budget central planner just as much as the small ad hoc central planner. The guy who says "I'm only going to come in and regulate in these few isolated cases, when it's absolutely necessary to do so b/c the people just aren't being responsible enough" is presupposing a standard of what the "right" behavior and use of resources is just as much as the big government regulator is. He might not realize he's doing so, but he still has to decide where to step in and where to lay off. But he can't make efficient decisions about this any more than the big gov't guy can, because he doesn't have enough information to know what the efficient solution is. (Again, that's the problem of "socialist calculation")

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 3:24 am

Let's just grant your point and say that current human water usages are causing the kind of damage to local ecosystems that Jeremiah Brown describes. The question is, might it still be worth the trade-off? After all, human beings are the ones using the water. And they count for something, too. Again, this is the "calculation" problem that the regulator (no matter how big his budget) has to deal with. What really IS the most efficient use of resources? The regulator says that the current use under free market conditions (if only we had, mirabile dictu, actual free market conditions) is "irresponsible." And, somehow, he claims to know what the better use would be. But would it really be better? Are the benefits of what he proposes really worth the costs? How does he know? Does he have more than his own moralizing intuition that X is wrong that can serve as evidence that his proposed Y is right?

I also confess that the notion that the parable of the talents applies to things like how many Whooping Cranes I indirectly killed because I showered for too long, is beyond my own moral intuition.

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 3:25 am

Also, this starts to sound a little darned if we do, darned if we don't. Don't hurt the fish. Don't pollute the air. Don't take up any more space. Don't divert pre-existing rivers or tributaries. Don't do this. Don't do that. But, sure, a "workable" solution might be developed. Someday. Until then, what? Stop using as much water? Which means, in translation to the real, stop growing our population? Which means, translated yet again, some people just need to suffer and/or die. Now the decision-making calculus is all the more grisly, and all the more hopeless.

Matthew N. Petersen

Monday, August 04, 2008 5:03 am

Xon

Aside from the particular calculus of this situation, which none of us are able to answer, people are evil, and need governed. Yes, the American government governs for many wrong reasons, and with many poor programs. But what would repentance look like? Would they simply cease to exist, or would they continue governing?

And if they would continue governing, and we as Christians are to call then to repentance, we must say both the trampling of Nature, and the idolatrous solution to the problem are evil. We must listen to the environmentalists when they say "we are destroying beauty. We hack and rack the growing green. We are turning America into Mordor" and call the orcs to repentance. But we must also call the Statists to repentance, attacking their motives etc.

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 7:01 am

Matthew,

Yes, people are evil and need governed. And the governors are also evil, and need governed. But more to the point, I am not advocating anarchism here anyway. I do think economic libertarianism merits more consideration than it is often given, though, even though many of its assumptions as articulated by its most famous proponents are deeply flawed. When it comes to economic issues, I am having trouble seeing what the via media is between "statism" and "laissez faire." If you want to exhort people to be good stewards of the Earth, then that's fine. But as soon as you start saying "That new building project, contracted between two private parties who had full legal rights to the property they are exchanging with one another, is not allowed because we think it's not the best deal for the environment," then that is a "statist" solution.

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 7:04 am

The fact that people are evil means that it is certainly possible that this particular building project is not done from proper motives, or does not represent the best outcome for the entire community, all things considered. But that's a tough thing to prove, b/c the governors who are claiming the authority to make that call are also evil. The dictum that people are evil and need governed doesn't tell us much, because the governors are also people, who are evil and need governed, and so in any given situation there is no a priori reason to think that the governors are doing the right thing by intervening in the market, either. But I agree with the dictum.

I will be honest and admit that my own thoughts on these things are still in a pretty "tentative" stage, so don't let my dogmatic tone fool you. It's tough to sort all this out. But I used to be a "crunchy" con, Chronicles-subscribing, self-labelled paleo-con and "environmentalist" conservative. I raved against the market and capitalizm as an equal evil to Marxism and statism. I read Chesterton and the southern agrarians, and I claimed that there was a middle way. But I never did get clear (Chesterton's own explanations of "distributivism" don't really help, either) on what exactly that middle way was, though, and so now in the last few years I'm leaning more libertarian on economic issues. Just fyi.

Jeremiah Brown

Monday, August 04, 2008 7:31 am

Xon,

I suspect you and I are in relatively close agreement then. I think the question of how to balance proper use of a restraining hand with individual liberty is the key question here. I don't know where the proper balance is, but I am certain that when conservative and liberty-minded thinkers close their eyes and stop their ears at the first hint of a claim that their actions have environmental consequences, they shut down any hope of finding reasonable solutions.

I suspect the only way environmentally beneficial solutions can come to being without imposed statist decrees is to change the hearts and minds of the people. I like the "crunchy-con" approach when it is self-imposed. I can choose to plant my own garden, or recycle, or use a more fuel-efficient car. In fact, all of these things have an immediate economic benefit to me! But as long as our leaders and ministers keep telling us that anyone that wants to protect endangered species of animals or minimize pollution going into our streams is a crazy statist environmental wacko, we're certainly not going to get more people taking personal responsibility.

Rick Pickering

Monday, August 04, 2008 7:56 am

Dear Mr. Brown,

In one of your posts, you stated, "We ended up with government-welfare when the church stopped caring for the poor and needy (and the new way is obviously far less effective than the old)." In "The Tragedy of American Compassion," Marvin Olasky appears to do an excellent job of refuting this. The church was actually doing a very good job, but one that unitarians, transcendentalists, etc. found objectionable due to the inclusion of the need for repentance, when sin was the cause of the dire circumstances. As a result, there was a concerted effort by the above mentioned groups to get government to wrest care for the needy from the hands of the church. Maybe you are familiar with this view and have refuted it. If not, I commend Olasky's book to you (though not some of his subsequent views).

Regards

Matthew N. Petersen

Monday, August 04, 2008 8:15 am

Xon

Consider the example of two corporations who collude together to pillage the nature. What they are doing is morally wrong. As Christians we ought to say at least as much, and condemn then for being shepherds who eat the sheep. Whether people want to go after them in improper ways is aside the point. Whether the people who usually go after them say other silly things is aside the point. They are shepherds devouring their flock. We ought to oppose them. Even aside from the question of politics, we should be opposed to such use of nature. If they are Christian, charges of excommunication ought to be brought against them.

Matthew N. Petersen

Monday, August 04, 2008 8:15 am

Regarding politics, the question is whether their actions are not only morally wrong, but also a matter of civil government. The question then is, have they wronged the civil body of the king. And the answer is, of course, yes they have. Whether they were able to find a loop-hole to harm the civil body of the king is irrelevant. They are injuring the body politic. And the issue is not a familial issue, but a civic issue. "Do we want our rivers like that." That means that it is, in some way, the duty of the civil magistrate to tell them to knock it off.

That is far different from saying that the state ought to fix every problem. But the state ought to govern. "No, we do not want that sort of building constructed, no we do not want that sort of thing done to our children, no we do not want that sort of thing done to nature" are all legitimate statements for the state to make.

Xon Hostetter

Monday, August 04, 2008 8:24 am

Matthew, my own position at this point in my thinking is that, yes, moral evils are a legitimate reason to use coersion against people abusing their liberty. Not necessarily all cases of immorality, but it at least creates an "issue of interest" as far as the gubmint is concerned.

And so, if we take your hypothetical of colluding corporations who are "pillaging" nature, and if you give a little more concrete sense of what that means, then yes, I would be open, in principle, to hearing a case for government intervention. But the earlier examples people have given in this thread don't rise up to that level. Miami has been tapping into these water-sources, and now some of the local ecosystem has disappeared. Is that a clear "moral" issue that requires state intervention? If it is, then we're on a slippery slope, because there isn't much we can do that doesn't, per arguendo, have implications for surrounding nature. But God put us here anyway, and I don't think His command was to live like primitives who never cut nature back.

Child prostitution? Murder for hire? Sure, let the government intervene away upon people's "liberty." But refusing to let a new neighborhood go up because it will displace some ducks (or whatever)? That just isn't as clear.

Jeremiah Brown

Monday, August 04, 2008 9:13 am

I suspect that a good balance may be struck by allowing local state and city governments to determine environmental standards in their own jurisdictions. While it is wildly inappropriate for the US Congress to penalize farmers in Kansas as a byproduct of trying to prevent agricultural runoff from further damaging the everglades, it is not unreasonable for the city of Miami to introduce water standards to protect the beauty of their immediate surroundings. And why should Atlanta care if Denver decides to abide by the Kyoto protocol or San Francisco pay any attention if Birmingham reduces restriction on materials that can go into landfills.

It is much easier for the people to have an impact on local government and thus play a bigger part in directing the future of their own community. I personally would be happy to pay a few extra pennies per gallon of gas if that money went to building paved biking/walking paths in the area or if my electric bill was raised a percent or two if it meant that a larger amount of the local power generation came from solar or other non-polluting sources.

Matthew N. Petersen

Monday, August 04, 2008 10:12 am

Xon

Just as an aside, freedom isn't the ability to do whatever we choose. Freedom is love, which is constraint.

DHammer

Monday, August 04, 2008 10:46 am

Xon, I typically admire your posts (except on the topic of the environment). We are brothers in Christ. The purpose of these conversations are meant to further the Kingdom. So my critiques are meant not to harm, but to help sharpen your arguments where they are dull. You have used the fallacy of the false dilemma in stating that we cannot have small government intervention because then we have to have big government intervention. The Bible and every day experience show that sinful people need restraint. It requires wisdom to know how much restraint is necessary. The fact that too much restraint has been opposed in some situations does not mean that it should not be imposed in many situations.

DHammer

Monday, August 04, 2008 10:54 am

Xon, Not recognizing the importance of Jeremiah's application of the parable of the talents is a symptom of not understanding the value of God's creation. It's beautiful, it's amazing and we Americans treat it like He's given us a stable full of dung. I don't know you, but my first reaction is to say go for a walk ourside, learn to hunt or fly fish, read Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac", read anything by John Muir, paint, ski. Go out and enjoy what God's given you and then come back and contemplate how can I make it better and how can I encourage my brothers and sisters to make it better.

DHammer

Monday, August 04, 2008 10:59 am

Xon, You also present the false dilemma in either we use as much resource we want, in any way we want OR we are condemning people to die or be in poverty. No, there is a path of wisdom that we can tread. It involves of thinking of others more than yourself, it involves not stealing resources and aesthetics from present and future generations, it involves worshiping the Creator who made the world, rather than Mammon. It involves thinking and acting biblically.

DHammer

Monday, August 04, 2008 11:02 am

Xon, Echoing Matthew, freedom is nice. I love it. It is a gift that God has blessed some nations with, but the freedom to do whatever I please just doesn't seem to rank very high on the priorities given to us in Scripture.

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