Mark, I mentioned water, which I do think is likely to lead to many local
military flare-ups in the near future, to suggest that we cannot speak with much
authority about the exact nature of the future. Someone posted something --
maybe it was you -- about scientists having no inkling of the importance of
global warming a couple of decades ago.
You might be right about energy. I tend to agree with you, although Doug might
be right that we will choke on the pollution first -- but we cannot be sure. I
would follow the precautionary principle, but not speak dogmatically. You have
quite a bit of information, but dispense it with a less hostile tone. I don't
want to unsub people, but we cannot let the antagonism continue.
Mark Jones wrote:
> Michael and Rob are right to emphasise the importance of water and no-one
> who has made a study of the fate of the Ogallala aquifer can fail to be
> impressed by the profligacy with which modern capitalism uses up our common
> birthright. But study of the relative issues does suggest that energy crisis
> is more serious, dramatic, and full of social content as well as political
> immediacy. They are both aspects of the same common process of the
> devastation of nature, but energy famines are more serious, even given the
> horrors of salinisation, topsoil loss and the known propensity of a warmer
> atmosphere to dry out topsoils orders of magnitude more rapidly.
>
> To hang or to be shot are neither of them inviting prospects.
>
> Mark Jones
> http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Rob Schaap
> > Sent: 01 July 2000 17:10
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [PEN-L:21120] Re: water water everywhere
> >
> >
> > G'day Michael,
> >
> > >Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit
> > before the
> > >energy crisis. For many, it already has.
> >
> > I think I agree with you. And farming is THE focus here, I think. After
> > all, farming is responsible for 70% of global water use, and fully one
> > quarter of the world's irrigated land is salinised (Oz is already
> > in crisis
> > on this criterian, but we'd blown what little top soil there was in these
> > areas anyway). Water tables are falling in North America (whereas Oz,
> > incidentally, seems just to have discovered a whopping aquifer under West
> > Australia - where mining companies are pushing for the royalties;
> > I'm told),
> > the Euphrates River in Iraq is at the mercy of the new Turkish dam; the
> > Sudnaese marshes aren't marshes any more, India's feted Ganges has as much
> > e-coli in it as it does H2O; world grain is, according to those Gaia
> > rhetors, going down as a direct consequence at 14% per capita per
> > decade.
> >
> > And each and every Yank and Ozzie uses 34000 litres of clean
> > water per year
> > to force a measly 500 litres of do-dos round the S-bend ...
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Rob.
> >
> >
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
