The question that the author asks is great from a theoretical standpoint but more money provides better access to resources, natural or otherwise, regardless of geographical location. It is true in the African continent as well in North America.
The more interesting take that is almost never discussed in the main-stream media is the high cost associated with providing access to clean water in the Middle East & its implications in the next few decades for the region, and for less prosperous nations that lack capital & resources to secure access to basic human necessities.
For example, UAE & Qatar have among the highest per capita consumption of water in the world, and they would probably top the charts if you discount the vast no. of migrant workers that consume relatively few resources but swell up the population statistics. All this clean water is sourced from the sea, desalinated in energy-intensive plants, which take multiple years to build. When I was living in Qatar, fuel was less expensive than water, partly because Qatar (& UAE) have high oil/gas reserves but mainly because they have to expend a lot of resources to build desalination plants, often licensing technology & building materials from western nations. They can probably scale up water production relatively quickly in the coming few years to keep up with increasing water consumption, however other nations, including India, probably might not be that lucky in securing access to clean water for its citizens at an affordable cost.
Water rights are going to be the defining political issue of our time, and the fundamental challenge of our generation. No resource is more necessary and less replaceable. Our reaction to this challenge is going to define our political and social institutions. We will either meet that challenge, or let the usual petty squabbling and infighting and opportunism get in the way and the fallout will either kill or enslave huge swaths of the population.
This seems obviously false to me for several reasons. Are you being serious? Perhaps I'm ignorant and you can enlighten me, but I think the water rights situation in the United States is pretty clear-cut.
The water rights situation in the U.S. is a total disaster. You have California, Nevada, Arizona, etc, fighting over ever more overstrained output from the Colorado river. Even in wet places like Florida you're having to dig deeper and deeper to hit water (1,000+ feet in some cases). Aquifers in the western midwest are threatened by fracking.
And in the midst of potential scarcity, the law is a total mess. Basically, you can do whatever the hell you want with groundwater as long as you can pump it out, even if it decreases the water table for people around you.
The reaction to this is that some people now see the potential for profit. There are forces that want to privatize water resources, taking water from the places that still have it to water lawns in fucking Scottsdale and Phoenix (which shouldn't even exist). That's where the "slavery" part comes in.
We have a federal government to resolve conflicts between the states. Maybe the federal government isn't very effective, but that makes it a problem with the way government is structured, not so much about water. Once ownership is settled, it's pretty clear what rights an owner has over that water vs. a non-owner.
The law being a mess is a common problem with the current government, again not so much about water, water is just becoming one of the many things it sucks at managing.
What percent of the US GDP do you think the government would need in addition to what it already takes in so that over the next couple of decades it can create and maintain desalination and other technology to get rid of the scarcity issues?
I don't see the connection from privatization --> slavery, but I agree things would be easier if people would just move where the water is (or where it's easy to get water to). It's not unprecedented for the US government at some level to force people to move.
I still don't see why water problems (generalizing from water rights) is the thing that is poised to one day become the definitive issue and challenge of our time. Maybe it will help spur a rejection of democratic processes or something, but then the defining issue would more likely be told as eliminating the currently most prevalent forms of government. What's your time frame on "our time" anyway? People born in generation X, Y, and Z? "Our time" isn't even half over yet. Speculating about what might be the definitive issue that people 50+ years from now look back on these previous and upcoming decades, there are a lot of things that seem more likely to be the issue than "water rights".
> We have a federal government to resolve conflicts between the states.
Water law is unfortunately mostly a state issue, and the federal government has been loathe to get involved in mediating water disputes.
> Once ownership is settled, it's pretty clear what rights an owner has over that water vs. a non-owner.
Coming up with a clear allocation of rights ("all water now belongs to Bob") doesn't mean its easy to come up with a good allocation of rights.
> The law being a mess is a common problem with the current government, again not so much about water, water is just becoming one of the many things it sucks at managing.
I didn't say the challenges were unsolvable, I said that the usual political infighting will get in the way of us solving them.
> What percent of the US GDP do you think the government would need in addition to what it already takes in so that over the next couple of decades it can create and maintain desalination and other technology to get rid of the scarcity issues?
That's an entirely theoretical question. We've hit such political gridlock that we can't even maintain the infrastructure we have, much less build new infrastructure.
> I don't see the connection from privatization --> slavery
Controlling a fundamental resource is a great way to enslave people.
> Speculating about what might be the definitive issue that people 50+ years from now look back on these previous and upcoming decades, there are a lot of things that seem more likely to be the issue than "water rights".
50 years really isn't that long (Lisp is 55 years old, UNIX is 43 years old). It's not like we can't even fathom what the world will look like 50 years from now--it won't look all that different from today. Sitting here now, knowing what we know, it's hard to think of any other issue that's going to be as pressing in the next 50 years. Especially considering that some of the other pressing issues (like climate change, alternative energy) are going to put pressures on freshwater resources first. We're not going to run out of oil in 50 years, we're not going to get hit by a meteoroid, etc, etc, but it's very possible that the Ogallala will dry up devastating American food production.
Last estimate I saw for a Columbia River to Los Angeles pipeline was $150G. Expensive, but not out of reach for the US government. And there's enough water there to take care of the southwest for a long time.
The nasty things will happen across national borders. Like, when things in California get tight, will Mexico continue to receive any of the Colorado? Or worse, what about the Upper Ganges Aquifer, already shrinking and used by both India and Pakistan.
Water from the Colorado is mostly used for agriculture in Arizona. The Phoenix area has enough water from other sources to last for the next 100 years. Cities in TX, OK, California and even Atlanta are going to have more problems.
Its not entirely clear whether you'll even be able to catch the rain that lands on your own roof. Clear as mud (which you might only own the dust part of).
I don't understand why water is such a scarce resource: the price of water will never increase past the cost of desalinizing seawater with energy from, say, solar panels.
Desalinization is extremely expensive to the point that we can't yet rely on salt water.
The water crisis affects developing nations who can and will be taken advantage of (referred to here as slavery). As the article explains, as water continues to be a scarce resource there becomes more and more power in controlling it.
I think wars over oil are bad but the ethical questions around water are significantly more fundamental.
Don't forget transmission costs too since not everywhere is by the coast. I live in a California coastal town that has spent 20 years just to come up with a project plan. They are currently doing an environmental review because it turns out that pumping concentrated brine back into the ocean can have detrimental effects. Read all about it at http://www.scwd2desal.org/
There are other problems too. For example my city has had excellent success in water conservation. However the fixed costs of the water infrastructure haven't changed so they have to keep increasing the water rates as consumption decreases, in order to maintain revenue covering the costs. (Arguably the fixed cost of the bill should be higher and the consumption charge should be lower to better reflect reality but that falls hardest on the poorer households and would discourage conservation by the larger consumers.)
I also recall reading somewhere about other unexpected consequences of conservation - sewage pipes had significantly reduced lifespans because effluent was more concentrated resulting in greater corrosion.
The more interesting take that is almost never discussed in the main-stream media is the high cost associated with providing access to clean water in the Middle East & its implications in the next few decades for the region, and for less prosperous nations that lack capital & resources to secure access to basic human necessities.
For example, UAE & Qatar have among the highest per capita consumption of water in the world, and they would probably top the charts if you discount the vast no. of migrant workers that consume relatively few resources but swell up the population statistics. All this clean water is sourced from the sea, desalinated in energy-intensive plants, which take multiple years to build. When I was living in Qatar, fuel was less expensive than water, partly because Qatar (& UAE) have high oil/gas reserves but mainly because they have to expend a lot of resources to build desalination plants, often licensing technology & building materials from western nations. They can probably scale up water production relatively quickly in the coming few years to keep up with increasing water consumption, however other nations, including India, probably might not be that lucky in securing access to clean water for its citizens at an affordable cost.