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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
It is surprising to me that in an article about the worldwide quest for fresh water, the Great Lakes and current political attempts to divert water to golf courses in America's Southwest and elsewhere was not even mentioned once.
-- Wendy S. Williams
In the article "Not a drop to drink," one issue that did not seem to be raised is the percentage of water the nation uses for the irrigation of cattle and livestock. A typical person consumes a few thousand gallons (2,500?) of water per POUND of meat that they eat. Meat production is an extremely inefficient use of water.
Another reason to become a vegetarian.
-- Neel Master
I took great interest in your recent interview with the author of "Water Wars." I was especially appreciative of comments like "The privatization of water is very, very complicated" and "There are a lot of complications in paying for water" among the "Clean Water is a Basic Human Right" rhetoric. Unfortunately, the complexity of a problem does not excuse us from coming up with solutions. From what I could gather from this interview, Ward doesn't have any suggestions. (Generalized Bush-bashing, though fun, doesn't count.) Startling, really, considering how many there are to choose from. Where was the discussion of revision of water prices to better reflect the opportunity cost of provision, informal vs. formal water markets, the tendency of centralized government control of water allocation to result in inefficient hydraulic projects undertaken to serve purely political ends? As convenient as it is to pretend otherwise, water is a commodity; it is subject to economic reality. Avoiding economics for polemics is not going to get us very far.
I am glad to see more attention paid to the violent conflicts that occur, at least in part, due to disagreements over this vital resource. Too bad, though, that partisanship trumps problem-solving in this venue.
-- Sally Williams
"Weather used to be more predictable"??? That was the capper on a long string of unsubstantiated doomsday facts. If in fact everything in Ms. Hansen's piece is true, give us some documentation. The arm waving detracted from an otherwise interesting piece.
-- Laurie McGuinness
