Sep
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Economy, Energy, Environment, Biodiversity and Water
September 10, 2008 | Posted by admin
3 Comments
Peter Black
Series: Water Resources in the Next Decade
Constant economic growth is both a financial benefit to our future and civilization’s major environmental challenge. It may destroy our civilization unless we act to prevent it. Why?
First, we expect our economy to grow at the rate of about seven percent each year, doubling wealth every decade. The Federal Reserve monitors and tweaks interest rates to assure steady, controlled growth.
Second, the overall planet’s human population is growing at an ever-increasing rate demanding more food and energy with less and less arable land, and many other natural resources spread thin. Witness the devastating impacts of global warming as increasing numbers of and more intense storms, wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and droughts. Next, add the misery to which we expose ourselves along with potential – and likely – widespread conflict and sustenance shortages of energy, water, space, and food, and we face colossal challenges.
Third, we fail to evaluate environmental costs of the watershed functions, life support services, and amenities on which we depend: floods, flushing, and biodiversity, for example. All natural water bodies (including us) flush except of course, the receiving oceans. Flushing peaks during and immediately after stormwater events, rain or snowmelt as surface runoff, channel interception, and near-stream subsurface runoff as the storm hydrograph. Precipitation that infiltrates and percolates to ground water reservoirs shows up slowly as base flow: the annual hydrograph. Hydrologists know all that; the public does not. Hydrologists, equipped with powerful and precise innovative tools, inadequately explain to a public that demands protection from floods yet occupies the floodplains; wants lower taxes; complains about noncommunicating professionals. Floodplain dwellers should know that levees do not protect against floods, which will still occur. Levees simply confine the same amount of water to narrower channels making the water higher, and are overtopped. The result is not a “natural disaster:” natural, no; disaster, yes; because Homo Sapiens are in the way of a natural event.
Fourth and most serious is the diminishing ability of Earth’s biodiversity support systems to absorb within limits the impacts of diseases, shortages, and other enhanced assaults. Any further consequences of fossil carbon exploration, development, and use could more drastically promote conditions beyond our ability to control them. We are already in imminent danger of major environmental changes with irreparable shocks to Earth’s biodiversity … New petroleum exploration, development, or use? Not on my life!
In sum, humankind is clearly mismanaging its economic, energy, and environmental resources with potentially disastrous results. Attempts to find methods of creating large amounts of cheap energy are having inevitable unintended but not unexpected consequences. One solution is more and better conservation, the shift of rates of use toward the future. We should pay for our life styles now, not commit our descendants’ paychecks for our wasteful ways. We know better. Our civilization’s mindset inexorably links economy, energy, and environment. Until we figure out a way to nurture Earth’s resources, our wealth will always be at the expense of our children and grandchildren. Do you have any ideas on how to fix that? Where are our priorities? Do we want to continue burdening our offspring for our luxurious, wasteful amenities and pleasures, in the face of dangerous consequences? Or are we willing to pay now? We must find ways to do it.
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Water is a sign of life, So wake up world and protect it and it shows that in future it will become more expensive than patrol.
First, in the near-term I don’t think the economy will continue to grow. In fact, we’re heading into a global economic down-turn, if not a recession now.
Second, I concur that the human population will continue to grow. However, nature has a way of self-correcting for overpopulation of a species through disease, epidemics, famine, etc. That could happen at any time.
Third, hydrologists have an obligation to inform the public of the hydrologic cycle and man’s effects on it. Unfettered economic development, with only token allowances for floodplain functions and resources, cannot continue as the status quo. We need to modify the widespread public view of floods as destructive forces of nature. Floods don’t cause damage & suffering — our decisions about where we live and work do. Instead of trying to contol floods, we should better control how/where we allow human activities to adversely affect water resources, e.g., develop a new approach to floodplain management.
Fourth, we should take an ecosystem approach to water resources management. I also think we can all conserve more energy, develop renewable energy sources and more fuel efficient vehicles. All of this requires a change in the public mindset that bigger is always better!
Based on the above and with the recent election of Barack Obama as President, we have an opportunity in the near-term to change our water resources and energy policies in this country so that we all have a much smaller footprint.
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