71–80 of 91 posts
Food shock =~ meat shock. 95% of our agriculture is dedicated to raising meat. Cutting meat production immediately relieves any and all water problems.
> 95% of our agriculture is dedicated to raising meat That's a really tall claim, and I don't believe we don't dedicate resources to grow wheat, rice, corn etc. Do you have sources for that?
It is surprising to not see desalinization mentioned, here or in the article. Consider https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... or https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534996/megascale-desalina... . I have no special knowledge of desalinization apart from a distant relative who has worked on such projects, but the absence of it in the discussion is notable given its recent prominence.
In Israel, desal water is not used (read: wasted) on irrigation. That does not make any economic sense.
We use purified wastewater (output of sewer systems) for that. About 85% of wastewater is reused.
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> imposes a negative effect on an unrelated third party yes, and i'd argue that is certainly the case here. but the two are closely related. http://ipeatunc.blogspot.com/2011/08/negative-externalities-... i think the above is a bit over the top for my taste: > Secondly, is it really clear that people in Bangladesh (say) have a rights claim to an climate environment that is not two or three degrees warmer than it is r…
You can argue that some ongoing tragedy of the commons also has externalities. But is there such an externality in the use of water? Is there some side effect that doesn't involve the use of water itself? Isn't the tragedy, the depletion of the supply, the problem? That isn't external.
> You can argue that some ongoing tragedy of the commons also has externalities.
sure, two of the preceding opinions [wikipedia, mit], argue that the tragedy of the commons is a specific type of negative externality, rather than the other way around. one [north carolina] gravitates more towards your interpretation.
the fundamental issue remains though: our conception of time and consequence is woefully limited in scope.
When people use a resource, they should pay more than just the cost of extracting it. They should also pay for its underlying value, which bears some relation to the price you would pay if the resource were no longer available. Such prices would signal to users the actual scarcity of the resource, giving them incentive to reduce waste and find alternatives. It would also spur development of desalination and other tec…
The question is, can we arrive at a system and culture of paying for the "underlying value" of a resource, as you put it, before those resources no longer exist?
And if we don't, the change will be forced upon us and at higher cost with more disruption and risk.
But that's true of most of the problems we fail to understand/choose to ignore.
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The solution in a first world economy is not to limit options. That is just regression. The solution is to make the industrial system sustainable. If there was a power crisis, you wouldn't make everyone use pocket calculators instead of computers, you'd figure out how power generation alternatives.
That analogy isn't great -- plenty of places in the world have power crises, and they do respond by limiting consumption of power. In actual water crises, such as the one in California, limiting and controlling consumption is the response. Obviously, it's always better to come up with an alternative before you reach the crisis. But once you've gotten to the crisis, you're already exhausted all other options and have…
At the cost of luxury, economic development and social stability.
It's an emergency option, not a sustainable one.
New generation and leaps and conservation technology allow for the same options while improving future sustainability.
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In economics what you are describing is typically referred to as a Negative Externality ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative ). It's hard to reframe these for the obvious reason that the parties involved directly in the transaction benefit from ignoring them (at least in the short term...)
I think it's what they call the tragedy of the commons. Wikipedia says an externality "imposes a negative effect on an unrelated third party". For example, pollution from a coal-fired power plant that pollutes the air of people living somewhere else.
Water rights in California are not at all market based, because of historical reasons and a previously mistaken notion of property/mineral rights.
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Explain?
Like fossil fuels, fossil water is not a self-renewing, i.e. sustainable resource. When it's used up, we're back where we started. Also, it seems this stuff isn't really convenient to come by. Granted, though, if 100 centuries' worth of water is really extractable, this may be pushing the problem so far into the future that we can buy a lot of timer for better solutions.
I think many knee jerk liberals haven't yet internalized this viewpoint, and don't (yet) have great answers to that question. (Or turn it around: if you think this is wrong, but don't have a good answer, that makes you a knee jerk liberal!)
PS: I say this as a centrist liberal.
I'm not saying that I am sure they will use less water but we could try and if we focus on being efficient with electricity and land it could make a big difference. For example aeroponics doesn't have to use artificial lighting.
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You can argue that some ongoing tragedy of the commons also has externalities. But is there such an externality in the use of water? Is there some side effect that doesn't involve the use of water itself? Isn't the tragedy, the depletion of the supply, the problem? That isn't external.
we're just quibbling here... > You can argue that some ongoing tragedy of the commons also has externalities. sure, two of the preceding opinions [wikipedia, mit], argue that the tragedy of the commons is a specific type of negative externality, rather than the other way around. one [north carolina] gravitates more towards your interpretation. the fundamental issue remains though: our conception of time and consequen…
An important point, actually, if I understand correctly. Thanks.
When people use a resource, they should pay more than just the cost of extracting it. They should also pay for its underlying value, which bears some relation to the price you would pay if the resource were no longer available. Such prices would signal to users the actual scarcity of the resource, giving them incentive to reduce waste and find alternatives. It would also spur development of desalination and other tec…
In economics what you are describing is typically referred to as a Negative Externality ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative ). It's hard to reframe these for the obvious reason that the parties involved directly in the transaction benefit from ignoring them (at least in the short term...)
EDIT: To put it another way, if 'depleting a finite resource' is considered to be imposing a negative externality, then pretty much every act of consumption generates negative externalities. While I guess we can define it like this if we want, it turns it into a pretty uninformative concept.