Sometimes, obsession with a topic is the only rational response. Witness my contued orbiting of the energy/water/climate nexus.
Two examples of why I think water qualifies for the Obsession Exemption:
Water Becomes a Pawn In Central Asian Energy Dispute (emphasis added):
Uzbekistan’s decision to leave the Central Asia energy grid – which cuts off Tajikistan from importing and exporting electricity – has some Tajik officials suggesting that water supplies to Uzbekistan be restricted during the summer irrigation season, EurasiaNet reports.
The energy and irrigation infrastructure in Central Asia was built during the Soviet period so that the five republics would be interdependent. Now independent, the five countries frequently argue about the constraints of the system. It was designed for gas- and oil-rich Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to provide winter fuel supplies to water-rich Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in exchange for the irrigation water supply from the two mountainous countries’ reservoirs. These commodity swaps have been increasingly difficult to maintain because of market differences in water and gas, and mounting political rivalry.
Uzbekistan’s exit from the electrical grid is especially damaging to Tajikistan since all of its electricity imports and exports transit Uzbekistan. Tajikistan will suffer power shortages during its harsh winter and lose revenue from exporting electricity in the summer, according to EurasiaNet.
Tajik officials say they will be forced to operate the country’s hydroelectric power plants at full production this winter to make up for the lost imports – a move that will leave the reservoirs short of water for the summer irrigation season. Uzbekistan, which resides downstream, relies on irrigation for its agricultural sector, which accounts for 25 to 30 percent of its economy.
Boiling Point: What to Do About Looming Water Shortages?:
When world leaders meet next week in Copenhagen to talk about climate change and the fate of the planet, there will be one big, liquid elephant in the room: water shortage.
The problem could be as big as global warming: If the world doesn’t change the way it uses water, humanity will face a major shortfall by 2030, McKinsey said in a recent report. that’s a deficit of about 40% less water than what would be needed.
Drought is already ravaging places such as east Africa, with dying crops and cattle and hungry people. California’s water woes aren’t quite as extreme, but shortages have prompted higher prices and rationing.
Unlike worries about possible electricity shortages-which are already wracking policy makers from Capetown to Copenhagen-the specter of water shortages threatens more than just modern conveniences. “You can live without television, without a car, without a bicyle, without extra clothes. You can’t live without water,” says Margaret Catley-Carlson, chair of the World Economics’ Forum Global Agenda Council and a longtime water-conservation advocate.
Yet few policy makers are talking, never mind doing, much about the impending water debacle, the McKinsey report notes.
There are many reasons why the water issue has been left to simmer on the back burner. To begin with, it’s a political minefield, requiring maneuvering around bitter disputes between village and village, farmers and cities, and environmentalists and developers. (This extensive timeline of conflicts fueled by water put together by the Pacific Institute attests to the liquid’s explosive nature.)
And, much like curbing global-warming emissions, addressing the water problem threatens lifestyles as the industrialized world knows it, particularly in the U.S., where many Americans are loath to give up their thirsty emerald-green lawns and swimming pools.
I couldn’t agree more strongly with the reasons given above for why this problem has been largely side-stepped until now.
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the Big Event that pushes climate change to the center of almost everyone’s attention here in the US and creates a true sense of urgency will not be a tropical storm devastating New Orleans or Miami or Houston or New York, as so many people online assume. It will be the much less dramatic, but just as painful lack of water in some areas.
Pardon my bluntness, but when people all across the US have to pay significantly more for some of the insanely cheap food we currently enjoy, for months to years at a time, it will get their attention far more than will TV news or YouTube images of a flooded city. When New Orleans was ravaged by storms in 2005, many Americans with no direct connection to the event “felt bad” about it for a few minutes, and some of them made a Red Cross donation, and then they either forgot it completely or they turned it into a political football as they fought endlessly over which part of that multi-layered debacle was whose fault. The net effect on US voting and consuming patterns, and therefore on climate policy: Precisely zero.
But if people are tuning in to see Brian Williams tell them tomatoes, lettuce, and beef have gone up by X, Y, and Z percent in the last year (complete with cute 3D bar graphs), and the main reason is the ongoing, seemingly endless drought in California and the main cattle producing states, then people will pay attention and demand (demand!) that something be done.
I know this sounds horribly cynical, and I wish it were otherwise. Heck I wish people didn’t need to be prodded by real-world tragedies at all, and would listen to scientists and join in a national discussion to find the best way to end our carbon addiction. Anyone here think that will happen? Me neither.
And people wonder why one of my favorite ways to relax is to travel 5 miles north, sit on the shore of Lake Ontario, and just stare into 393 cubic miles of fresh water…
