I fail to see anything “wrong-headed” in the linked article/updates from Project Censored, a respectable source. Simplistic, perhaps, but no more so than the typical “free-trade-as-panacea” articles found throughout the mainstream media. The updates do not argue for “unpriced” water, but rather public instead of private control. I get my water from a public utility – that hardly means it’s free to me.
The more important issue underlying the articles is that of sovereignty – the idea of something as basic as water supply being controlled by foreign companies is, quite understandably, a sensitive issue for some poorer countries.
>> The more important issue underlying the articles is that of sovereignty
I do not think any multinational corporation has threatened any country with taking their water by force, much less done it. If countries would want to sell water I think they should be free to do so, just like they sell oil, copper ore, phosphates or lumber. They are free to set prices and limits. that is a free market. then once it is for sale, it should be free selling and buying. If I am willing to pay for the commodity more than you are then that means it is worth more to me than it is to you. At least that is what I am finding out in ebay where I cannot get a USB hard drive at a decent price because other are willing to pay more.
protectionism of any kind just leads to inefficiencies.
Are you suggesting that China owns the USA? Of course not. My position is that people in a region need to be able to determine the control of the resources in their region within the bounds of global environmental protection, and need to be able to control their region’s social and economic development within the bounds of global human rights. These necessitate regional ownership, be it private, public, or public in trust.
This is not true. Ontario does not want to sell bulk water. The most right wing, business oriented government we have ever had in Ontario pulled the plug on bulk water exports by rescinding a drawing permit to the first company which wanted to export in bulk. The left parties are even more opposed to bulk water export. Despite being strongly opposed to bulk water export, Ontario may have to export if Newfoundland does due to NAFTA, which Ontario did not sign up for but must answer to.
There is little benefit to Ontario because the value added takes place outside of Ontario. Meanwhile, Ontario is left holding the bag of secondary costs, such as dramatically increased municipal taxes due to having to rebuild water intakes, leading to a less competitive position when trying to attract or keep industry, leading to reduced employment and a lessened tax base.
The last I heard, Texas is not exporting water in bulk. Your analogy is so remote that it can not be applied.
As far as the importance of sharing resources, it is a matter of degree. Texas exporting oil provides great benefit to Texas as well as those to whom it exports. As I have already pointed out, this does not apply to Ontario and its water. And just what benefits are provided to Ontario from Texas? Oil? Don’t need it. We have some provincially and nationally are a major exporter. Cows? We got 'em – besides, I’m a veggie, so I don’t wan’t 'em. Computers? Sorry, but you’re in direct competition with our own compter industry in the Ottawa region. George Bush? Thanks, but you’re welcome to keep him. Please promise you’ll keep him out of Canada.
Check you facts on this one and get back to me. The consensus in Canada held by the federal and provincial governments is that NAFTA will prevent the ability to limit the export of bulk water by virtue of NAFTA preventing exernal discrimination when compared to the bulk drawing of water for local use, and will prevent the differential taxation of exported water for the same reasons. I personally am not convinced that NAFTA means this, but I am in the minority. The majority are far less optimistic.
That is where we fundamentally disagree. As I have stated, regional control by people in a region is what I support, within a global environmental and human rights framework. If you honestly disagree with this, and believe that all people anywhere have an equal right to resources anywhere based on ability to pay, then I suggest that we are fundamentally at odds.
I agree that protectionism usually is negative, but in some instances it is warranted. Concerning bulk water exports within the existing international trade framework, this is one of the few areas where at the moment protectionism is necessary, for the reasons I have already set out. Bulk export simply will increase local costs and slow the regional economy.
Texas again? Texas is a nice place, and it has a thriving oil industry, but neither Texas nor the oil industry are relevant to this discussion.
Then why is it that in Canda, where the price differential in oil between our primary producing province Alberta and the other consuming provinces has led to the economic development of Alberta without harming the other provinces? Your supposition certainly fails when applied to the oil industry in Canada. Not that we are talking about oil anyway.
Let’s put this Texas oil analogy to rest once and for all. Canada is a major exporter of oil to the US. There is even an agreement between Canada and the US which sets out that Canada will not close the tap to the US in times of emergency. Water is fundamentally different, for it is already in use and any major decrease in its availiability will cause local harm. It is not oil export which I am concerned about; it is bulk fresh water export. Let’s not confuse the two.
Again we fundamentally disagree, for you qualify the common right to resources across boundaries with “if we are willing to pay the price.” This introduces the power imbalance which I prevously set forth. “If we are willing to pay the price” means that the rich will control the resources rather than the people who must suffer the misuse of their resources.
Quite simply, I live by a lake in Canada. I do not want to lose that by virtue of Texas oil flashing an American dollar claiming that “we all have the same right to that water if we are willing to pay the price.”
Rather simplistic, don’t you think? Although Canada benefits greatly overall from international trade and tends to benefit from free trade, there are specific areas in need of protecion. In the context of water, protectionism is necessary for our continued economic strength. We must not premit the environmental and economic harm which the US mid west and west is creating for itself drag us down. In the context of culture, protectionism is necessary for us to maintain a cultural identity separate from American mass media. In the context of health care, protectionism is necessary to maintain our higher standard of health care at a lower cost than the US due to their privatization. In the context of education, protectionism is necessary to ensure that our people can obtain as high an education as they desire rather than be economically knocked out before even having a chance. You may think of these examples of protectionism as being inefficiencies, but I think of them as being vital to my people’s well being.
Has an international coproration every threatened a country with force over water? No. But direct application of force is not the only way to affect the people of a country.
“What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain. Since water is as central to food production as seed is, and without water life is not possible, Monsanto is now trying to establish its control over water.” Monsanto Corporation’s Robery Farley.
“Monsanto’s water and aquaculture businesses, like its seed business, aimed at controlling the vital resources necessary for survival, converting them into a market and using public finances to underwrite the investments. A more efficient conversion of public goods into private profit would be difficult to find. Water is, however, too basic for life and survival and the right to it is the right to life. Privatisation and commodification of water are a threat to the right to life. India has had major movements to conserve and share water. The pani panchayat and the water conservation movement in Maharashtra and the Tarun Bharat Sangh in Alwar have regenerated and equitably shared water as a commons property. This is the only way everyone will have the right to water and nobody will have the right to abuse and overuse water. Water is a commons and must be managed as a commons.” Vandana Shiva, Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi.
So there you have it, Sailor. An international corporation is trying to “establish control over water,” particularly in water poor nations such as India and Mexico. Following your insistance on water going to the highest bidder, that pretty much leaves poor people in a terrible situation, where they must compete with you, or with whatever corporation or landlord who owns the water in their area, or with good old Monsanto itself, for the very water they need to drink and for the very water they need to grow their food.
Now maybe Monsanto will do a good job, and eventually improve the lot of the people who’s water they control, or may they will not, and instead will make their money off the backs of the the world’s poor and water starved. I’m not prepared to take a guess yet, although obviously I hope that their results are as good as their intentions. What I am prepared to stand on is that the people in a region should have a common right to such vital resources such as water, and that entitites outside of that region should not be permitted to impinge on their right of the commons. To the degree that water rights often are already closely held within a region by those with power (and often water equals power), I again contend that this is fundamentally inequitous, and that people within a region rather than the powerful few should have control of their own water.
(1) I believe Sailor’s comments on right to a commodity are actually almost as wrong-headed as the initial OP. Water is quite a different issue from oil. Quite different on a number of levels, it can not be treated as oil. Simplistic equations with commodities such as oil are not only self-defeating for introducing pricing, they are wrong.
I might add that while I am not aware of how this applies to North America, international law is clear in forbidding international inter-basin transfers. As such, proposed Canadian-American xfers from a non-shared basin run head long into serious legal issues against well-established precedents and treaties. Now NA may have some whacky rules – in fact I know it does – but I’m fairly certain the inter-basin issue remains the same.
I might add that if (stress if as I see a lot of distortive claimsin in this area) the claims in re an American corp suing Canada over water xfers is true, the plaintiff is terribly wrong-headed.
(2) In re the linked articles, let me take the ifg.org article as an example. It more or less precisely captures the kind of slip-shod and dishonest commentary which I too often see on this issue.
To whit the article first characterizes WB (by implication) and other agencies involved in these issues as promoting
pure and simple. Anyone who has actually read the literature on this, and I have, knows that this is a bald-faced lie. WB and other international agencies working on the question of pricing water have directly grappled with issues of market failure and have devoted important research to pricing in externalities of the type muffin has been mentioning.
I call this sort of rhetoric wrong-headed and gross distortion.
They continue with the assertion:
Sure, unregulated water markets which do not properly addresss market failures (e.g. providing service to consumers unable to pay for a market price which covers full or partial cost of consumption) would. But that is not what WB and other organizations working on this issue, contrary to the implication from the article, are researching and encouraging.
There has been some good, fundamental empirical research on how to design water pricing schemes which help encourage conservation, make the public aware of water’s price of use/limited quantities, and provide funds for investment in maintaining and improving the infrastructure. The last is terribly important as anyone who has had to work with irrigation infrastructure in the 3rd world (such as I) or lived in a third world city (ditto) can attest.
Now onto some of their factiods:
Indeed, but does our lying scum provide context for this? No. Private, unregulated water sellers. Little wildcat guys. They’re providing an essential service, but expensively. Unpriced (or under-priced depending on the locality) public services go under-funded, seeing waste and inability to expand service. Massive capital investments are needed. Globalization is not causing this. Population explosion is. But as usual, the anti-globalization dunderheads stop at superficials without reaching into the nasty thicket of socio-economic contradictions. I have truly lost patience with this fundamental dishonesty.
Precisely! Nota bene: the private vendors are little indies. Public services, underfunded and under-priced, extension all too often depend on political connections.
A well-designed privatization plan attracting large amounts of capital with a pricing structure which protects impoverished users (including subsidies)(*) is the solution. That will require foreign capital.
(*: most commonly we are talking about a low fixed fee for X amount of usage as defined by common poor users average usage and then scaling up ‘excess’ usage fees after that. Insofar as the wealthy are the largest and most wasteful users, but also those whose elasticity of demand is the greatest, this goes a long way to encouraging economicaly efficient usage)
Again, population explosion, rapid expansion, lack of infrastructure, need for massive capital investments.
Now something I have no small interest in
Given me work, I feel more than qualified to comment on the following:
Malthusian warnings are fine but represent a fundamentally distortive static analysis.
The problem remains capital. All these changes, while ** absolutely necessary ** are expensive. And difficult to self-fund, above all if water is unpriced.
Now, onto contradictions.
Dams bad. Big dams worse. All well and good. Now how does one actually propose to meet climbing water demands? Hand-waving doesn’t cut it.
Mind you, most international development agencies have cooled on massive dam projects as opposed to smaller ones for environ. and economic efficiency reasons. Globalization ain’t the villian in massive dam projects – national prestige projects are.
Quite right. Now how does one do this? Price water to discourage wasteful usage. The US is one of the most wasteful countries in this regard. (Raise your hands if you wash your car every weekend. And how many folks have a nice green lawn in the south west? etc. etc.)
And here we have the unfounded leap of logic that says privatized and commoditized (in the proper framework) is bad, while the default condition is good?
What pray tell is the solution?
And then we got on to the scare-mongering:
(emphasis added)
Privateers? Nice play, of course this word means pirates.
Firstly, I am involved tangentially with this process and I maintain, categorically, this is a gross distortion and amounts to ignorant scare-mongering by people who either don’t grasp the issues or are exploiting it.
I fail to see that public-private partnerships is inherently evil nor that private concerns, such as Lyonnaise des eaux, Vivendi etc. can be characterized as water privateers for participating and bringing much needed capital to water service sector.
]quote]
Instead of allowing this vital resource to become a commodity sold to the highest bidder, this report advocates that access to clean water for basic needs is a fundamental human right.
[/quote]
Motherfucking hand-waving.
(a) as noted, it fundamentally distorts the actual literature
(b) proposes mere * rhetoric * as a solution. We can proclaim all the motherfucking fundamental human rights we want. Delivery of services and actual on the ground realities are what actually count. Capital investments are needed, massive improvements and changes are needed. Simply declaring something does jack shit. Fucking idiots.
Wooo hooo. Thanks.
Now, onto the impractical rhetoric.
Goody goody.
Oh double goody. Water of course moves on its own, but I suppose they actually aim at minimizing inter-basin xfers. All well and good, how does one achieve that in the face of pop growth.
All well and good, how does one actually achieve that? Pricing.
Wonderful. With what god damned resources? Reclamation is expensive and usually capital intensive. Capital doesn’t grow on fucking trees.
Fine, whatever.
If one means regulated, of course. No one, other than some folks at Cato, is saying otherwise.
If one means that one is against private participation in water services, get a clue. Look at the on the ground, empirical evidence – and I do mean in a strictly analytical manner with proper attention to causation not sloppy correlations. Pure government services have tended to be under-priced, overly expensive and result in much of the water crises we see in, for example, my part of the world.
Yeah yeah. And what is adequate. And what does this declaration do in practical terms to solve practical problems. Empty rhetoric.
Quite right and that’s precisely the system being promoted by this idiots enemy number one, the WB. Rhetoric.
As if they even understood what they are talking about. See arguments above.
There, fraid I can’t spend any more time on this, however, I believe this is adequate.
I might add that the Monsanto article also was a hatchet job, and as you all know, I loathe Monsanto.
(a)
Given the context and content of the particular article, I would truly like to see substantiation of this statement.
While Monsanto folks are given to idiotic policies and stupid statements, it strikes me that it is highly likely this quote is either distorted or ripped out of context. Or both.
I further have vast issues with Shiva’s assertion here.
(a) the assertion privitization as such and commodification as such are a ‘threat to the right to life’ is overblown rhetoric
(b) I have yet to see large scale success for water communes. As a micro development it can work. On a large scale to solve the crisis the tools are simply inadequate.
Common right. Wonderful. How does one apportion that right? How does one regulate wasteful usages? How does one acquire funds for improvements for efficiency.
All this warm rhetoric lacks realism, plain vanilla common rights are the default condition in much of the 3rd world and the system has reached a failing point. Pop growth has exceeded the ability of a commons system to handle water scarcity. Within a community it’s perhaps sustainable, but on regional and national bases, it no longer is.
Nostalgia and rhetoric are not going to solve these issues.
Whatever. I think you should learn something more about the situation.
First, water flowing through the Great Lakes and down the St.Lawrence is not wasted. Environmentally it is necessary to maintain the ecosystems. Economically it is necessary for local municipalities and industry, and for shipping.
Second, you are confusing need with ability to pay. Just because the US mid west and west has the ability to out pay Ontario does not mean that they have a greater need.
Third, the need of the US mid west and west for water is artificial. It only exists because people created the problem in the first place. Don’t go spreading those regions’ problems into other regions.
Fourth, stop wasting water and start putting a more realistic price on water. Importing bulk water from the Great Lakes or points further north to satisfy the US mid west and west does nothing to help people in the arrid states to learn the necessity of water conservation. Jack up the price to something more more realistic and water consumption will decrease. Yes, some agriculture and manufacturing will move to where the water is, but then that is part of water being central to economic development in the Great Lakes basin.
Do you have a pipe that connects from your faucet directly into Lake Superior or does it connect to your towns water system? Most people don’t happen to have wells or live right next door to their reservoir. That means that some kind of public works had to be created to transport water from the reservoir to their homes, even if it’s only a couple of miles. Someone has to build and maintain that system. That means someone else has to pay for it. If a municipality can make a couple of extra bucks by selling their surplus water to another town, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Now if I understand correctly, the issue here is communities like the one near Lake Superior are concerned that they will have to enter into some kind of commodity market for water when they have water right next door.
I don’t really see the big deal if that happens. It’s not as if people who live next door to the power plant pay lower electicity rates. People who live next door to a farm don’t pay lower grain prices. Why would someone get their water cheaper than someone three towns over just because they happen to live closer to the reservoir? Actually, I take that back. The further you get from the source, the more expensive it should be because the transmition costs increase with distance.
I am inclined to believe that VS is not misquoting or twisting RF simply because about a year before the VS article the fellow directing the environmental science grad course I was taking spent a couple of sessions presenting his Indian work (watershed management) and repeately spoke of Monsanto moving in in a big way so as to gain control of watesheds. I remember this simply because at the time I was not aware that Monsanto was in the water business, so I was quite surprised to hear this.
Obviously I should. I think that we all should. In my own area, Ontario, there have been some good moves forward in the last few decades. I’ve been poking about on watershed issues for long time now, including working on the big Hydro Class EA, the proposed Small Hydro Class EA, and the Timber Mangement Class EA, and about the only thing I can say with certainty is that we will never know enough.
At the same time, though, for my area I can also claim that local control has worked wonders. It used to be that the provincial government would come in and knock up a dam or permit the knocking down of a forest with little regard for what the people in the area wanted or needed. The there were brought in environmental assessments, then class environmental assessments, then local citizen committees, then citizen committees at the provincial level, and now joint working groups. We have a long way to go, but the planning process fundamentally works.
There is still a problem with those few in power running their projects through the approval process with greater ease than one would think when first reading the legislation. For example, before a project is approved, a need for it must be proven, but somehow this ends to be forgotten quite often until it is too late to close down matter.
There is still a problem with planning zones. In the mid 90s a few of us tried to move the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to watershed management rather than district mangement (e.g. manage the land on watersheds, rather than use rivers to divide management zones), and had limited success. It is difficult to change a bureaucracy. We were, however, able to push zones into working together better.
There is still a problem with valuation. Again, a few of us tried to move the MNR toward both being more inclusive in determining values (e.g. look at all costs, not just economic costs), and also tried to move the MNR toward being more quantitative in their valuation. The top economist on our team ended up being hired on as an assistant deputy minister, so it looked like we were getting somewhere, but then the government fell, putting us back to square one concerning quantification of intangible values.
But I am digressing. As I said, we all need to learn more.
One of the things we learned is that the best watershed management in Ontario comes out of local involvement. For example, Bechtel (an engineering consulting firm) builds a lot of dams in Ontario, and also helps the MNR with its watershed management plans. Things have gone a lot more smoothly since Bechtel started meeting with the people who were being affected by their decisions. In particular, I recall the approach working wonders in trying to find a meeting of the minds between the up-system and down-system residents of the Temagami/Nipissing/French watershed. The only point of contention was that Bechtel had a vested interest in slapping up dams, rather than simply managing the watershed and only building as necessary. This problem has been encountered several times since then with small hydro developers also drafting flow control plans for their proposed developments.
Which brings me back to Monsanto. Yes, structure needs to be provided if local people are to have control of their waters. Yes, local control must be coordinated across wtersheds and drainage basins. Yes, this requires overarching direction, specialized expertise, and lots of capital, none of which are usually available locally. But to me this does not mean that handing over the keys to the operation to Monsanto is the way to go. It is one thing to bring in experts to set forth proposals and manage projects, and it is quite another to give those experts ownership rights, for at that point the conflict of interest arises which might lead to the harming of local people. Similarly, although regional and even national governments must play a strong role in watershed management by virtue of the geographical size of watersheds, the local people must not be harmed in the process, so great care must be taken to ensure that they not be shuffled aside in deals between large developers and governments.
This is simply what I have learned from my experience in Ontario, which has an rather large amount of fresh water and very few people. I shudder to think of what it is like in areas of the world where there is little water and many people. My hat goes off to those working toward solutions, but at the same time I am extremely concerned that handing over control of watershed resources to large corporate interests is extremely risky.
It was a rhetorical question. I meant that the water in Superior does not arrive there due to anyones efforts. No one pays to put it there. As such, it is cheap to draw from. This makes it a tremendous local resource. It also makes arrid states envious, and has led to plans for major diversions – essentially taking the water away.
Our discussion is not about local pumping facilitites. It is about bulk export of water. E.g. cutting canals and putting in huge piplelines over extreme distances. After years of effort, the communities in the Great Lakes basin have finally got to the point were they have got their water drawing and water return problems more or less under control (e.g. Erie is no longer dead, salmon are back in Ontario, and the Superior fishery is returning; toxic waste has been dramatically reduced, and zero discharge is within our sights). We are at the point that our use of the water is sustainable.
Bulk exports will change this. Just as the mid west and west are burning through their aquafiers, they will burn through the Great Lakes, for there are no major rivers flowing into the Great Lakes. Not one.
Fill a pot with water. Every day take out a cup and put in a cup. That’s where things stand now. Then start taking out two cups and putting in one cup every day. Eventually your pot will be empty. That is what we fear: more being taken out than can be repaced given the very limited amount of water flowing into the lakes. The mid west and west have not been able to come to terms with this concerning their own aquafiers – they just keep taking and taking and taking without realizing that they are headed for disaster by outstripping the system’s ability to refill itself. Now they are grasping at our water as if it is theirs to waste the same way they have already wasted their water.
No municipality will make any money at all. However, there will be massive infrastructure expenses for municipalities which have to extend their intakes due to lowered water levels. These costs will force taxes to be raised, and higher taxes will put a break on industry. Industries which draw directly will face their own cost infrastructure costs, and the shipping industry will be shot to hell due to shallow water.
Yes.
This issue is not whether other towns on the watershed should be able to draw or not. The issue is whether massive amounts of water should be permanently removed from the watershed. If you could take the water to Texas and then return it clean after it was used, then there would not be too much fuss. But once it is out of the watershed, then not a drop of it will ever flow back in. In other words, instead of taking one cup out and then putting one cup in, you go to takng two cups out for every cup going in.
Water is not electricity. We export electircity to the US. Water is not grain. We export grain throughout the world.
Water is unique, for we are heavily dependent on it and will suffer severe economic and environmental dislocation if we lose it.
Again, it comes down to what a fair price is and how such a price is determined. So far there have been many proposals for bulk export, ranging from pipelines to canals to massive redirections of northern Canadian rivers, but not once have I come across a proposal that looks at how to mitigate and compensate the people of the Great Lakes basin for the harm caused by such bulk exports. It seems to me that the first step in mitigation is for the water thirsty mid west and west to get their consumption patterns under control. Before that takes place, talk of going after our water will not be met kindly.
I work for a large Monsanto competitor, we’re interested in the same issues. It’s not surprising, nor is their apparently ham-handed approach. If this pans out I have yet another reason to hate Monsanto for their endemic incompetence. I work like a dog to try to get positive cooperative results. Monsanto shoots the industry in the foot. God I hate them.
On the water rights and control issue, now that you have clarified your thinking, I have no problems with it at all. From my own perspetive “we” invest no small time and effort in local consultation (not in re water, although we have given some consideration to such issues, but in re experimental cropping etc.). It’s called good, long term business sense.
I only offer one correction, I think the non-economic costs would best be referred to as indirect economic costs insofar as disruptions in flows etc. impose real economic burdens etc. It’s a matter of proper consideration of externalized costs, which is certainly not easy, as you note. I want to be clear that while I see pricing water and even water markets as a very powerful tool, I absolutely agree with you that it is dangerously simplistic to equate water with commodities like oil. Bulk transfers between basins is a questionable solution at best and strikes me as more of the non-economic (implicit subsidies) supply side solutions of the 1960s.
Well, now I really need to get some final paperwork and reports done, so…
I guess we’ll just agree to disagree. To me water is a commodity like oil. Evian seems to think so as well and the people who buy their water. In different cases I have heard the “but product X is different and needs to be regulated” argument. Product X is always whatever that person has an interest in. To me oil, electricity, water, food, and other commodities are all equally necessary for our civilization. I just do not see why one is different from the other but others always see one as being different.
I will repeat that free market does not mean anarchism. All environmental laws, tax laws, etc are fine and well. i have no problem with that. A fee for the water you take? Fine, no problem. But once the water is out on the market it should be freely bought and sold because that is the best way to insure the best use for society. If the price of water goes up it means I have to save. It means water is neede elsewhere by people who are willing to pay more. I just don’t buy the “I need it but can’t pay for it” argument. I don’t buy it. If you really need it you should be willing to pay what others are willing to pay. Artificially low prices mean waste. There is no way around it. Since you see it differently, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
You can only really make these sort of statements about prices and markets when all (marginal) costs and benefits are accounted for in markets*. If some costs and/or benefits are not included in market interactions then intervention by governments is required for avoiding waste.
These markets may have important (big, varied and varying) failings. That consumption of them may all enter a standard utility function in the same way is neither here nor there.
*[sub]And some other things which probably don’t hold either.[/sub]
I am not saying a free market is a perfect system. I am not saying that and I do not need to say that to vote for it. All I need to believe is that it is better than the alternatives and that I do.
Free maket pricing is the best way known to promote conservation and the best allocation of resources. The world changes constantly. Suppose I consume a commodity X. Now for reasons which I do not know or even need to know, this commodity has become more scarce or a new or greater need for it arises somewhere else. The price goes up and I am encouraged to conserve or find alternatives. That is the beauty of the free market: that by pursuing my own ends I am encouraged to do what is in the interest of society at large.
Putting a price on things is the way we know what those things are worth to all others. Nobody knows better than myself what a given commodity is worth to me. If prices are set lower than that, I have no incentive to conserve and a great incentive to waste. If they are set higher than that i am being deprived of it.
By freely buying and selling is how people communicate how much things are worth to them. There is no better incentive to obtain the best use for any resource than to let the price system take care of exchanges. We would want to make the best use of water just like any other resource and I just cannot see a better way of doing this. Once the price is fixed at any level then you encourage waste on the part of those for whom water is more valuable than the set price and you take out of the reach of those who cannot pay that price. The value of any commodity changes daily. The weather and many other factors affect it. There is no planning board in the world who can do an efficient job of regulating this market. And yet the free pricing system does a pretty good job (I will not say perfect, but pretty good) all by itself.
If the price of water goes up, I am encouraged to conserve. I need not know (and in fact is not important) whether the rise in price is due to a shortage in production or to a greater need elsewhere. I just get the message that I need to conserve, maybe take a short shower rather than a long bubblebath.
By how you use water (or anyothr commodity) you are telling the world how much it is worth to you. Nobody can do this but you. I do not water my lawn because to me it is not worth the price. Other people feel differently and do water their lawns. If the cost of watering my lawn for a season is about the price of a new anchor for my boat, I have just told the world that for me a new anchor is more valuable than a green lawn. Once you intervene the price system this information is lost.
I will repeat for those who like to put words in my mouth that this in no way contradicts the existence of laws and regulations for environmental, tax and other purposes.
But once you have decided you can take X amount of water then it should be bought and sold freely. If you say group X (the elderly, whoever) get it at a lower price, this is at the expense of the rest and an encouragement to waste.
Canada’s government is in trouble this week because Environment Canada posted a tender call on the government procurement website for research to determine the monetary value of its water. They insist that this is merely for informational purposes only, and that there are no plans at all to sell our water.
New Brunswick’s premier was in the news last week because he says they have an over-supply of fresh water that would just end up pumped into the ocean anyway, so he’s looking for permission to sell some.
Most Canadians do not want our water sold. We are prepared to give it away in emergency situations, but any idea of handing it over to entrepreneurs is anathema to the thinking people of Canada.
I’m not as much of an activist as I once was, but this is an area where I could get fired up enough to join a public protest if things start to look worse.
>> any idea of handing it over to entrepreneurs is anathema to the thinking people of Canada
What are they thinking? It doesn’t matter. It is the voters who count. All you need is some PR. This is not something done over night but when the voters start equating “selling water” = “lower taxes” , “selling water” = “more government sevices” , “selling water” = “things we cannot afford otherwise” , then slowly, they’ll start to turn around. Small scale sales will begin… Done slowly and with vaseline it should not be painful at all, on the contrary, quite enjoyable.
“What are they thinking…it doesn’t matter”? A bit of a schizoid sailor, are we?
Canadians are thinking about what it would be like to end up with no water. This is not the same as having no gasoline, or lumber. Water is a vital necessity, and it doesn’t take much intelligence to know that all the cash and/or vaseline in the world will not squeeze a drink from an empty well. Besides, we’ve had a few deaths recently because of careless water treatment managment, and consciousness has been raised considerably on the subject of water.
Great Discussion!!! I should have realized you would have some knowledge of this issue Collonsbury. Although I would like to say that this little article I stumbled upon is probably no more wrong headed or just plain out false than the “agri-commercial” I’ve been seeing lately on TV claiming that “we’ve developed a rice that can prevent blindness in children”. (I know this is a subject you won’t address but I’m using it here only as an example that both “sides” on an issue are often guilty of “gross exagerations”.) It’s also no suprise that Canadians would have a completely different view of how we should manage our natural resources than Americans.
I do however have to take issue with the statement that opponents of NAFTA and other free trade agreements are simply against “free trade”. They are not, they are against the very issues that Muffin brings up, agreements without public representation. When governments and corporations “collaborate” behind closed doors without public input or oversight that is what is fundamentally wrong with this issue.
I do hope you are right Collonsbury. I hope that the World Bank and large multinational corporations would not conspire to make obscene profits off a commodity as fundamental to all life (not just human life) as water. But me thinks you might be the naive one here for a change. I know, hopefully they will just think it’s good business to manage this priceless asset with care. Naturally they’d never have the incentive to do so out of civic duty would they? (Whatever happened to the concept of “good corporate citizens”?)Besides, this isn’t an issue that anyone need concern themselves with, it isn’t like we’ll be addressing it on the NBC news tonight. I just happened to run across it by accident and it interested me.
Thanks for the input, some of it is over my head but it’s very interesting.
Finally, someone who understands a little economics.
Now, I don’t pretend to understand completely the privitization of water setup. Quite frankly, I’m too lazy to research it.I do understand this:
There are parts of the US like Arizona or Nevada that are not near sources of water. Lake Superior is one of the largest fresh water sources in North America. There is a market for water and a companies can make a lot of money selling water to more arid communities. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Now it may make sense for the governement to regulate how much water is drained from Lake Supperior. The water levels could get unacceptably low before the market reacts to the reduced suply. Kind of how the government has restrictions on how much forest loggers can cut down. But I don’t know. Lake Superior is pretty big and that’s more of an engineering problem anyway.
