Continuing the Conversation

This week’s posts on water and watersheds brought interesting responses that made me want to continue the conversation this morning: • Oil is irreplaceable, water is replaceable when it rains. That doesn’t change your conclusion on better water management.

This is a good point, but it’s not true. Water is renewable in the sense that it moves through the water cycle (precipitation, infiltration and runoff to oceans, evaporation, precipitation), but there is not one drop more water now than there was when the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago (or 8,000 years ago for my creationist friends). Moreover, other forms of energy (solar, hydro, gas, coal, nuclear, wind) can replace oil, but without clean fresh water, we all die.

• I'm concerned about "diverse coalitions to protect them” – “diverse” and “coalitions" are two words fraught with well-meaning intentions that don't go unpunished by corruption/incompetence. We are a republic. We elect fools.

I wasn’t thinking so much in political terms as about all the varied users of rivers – from fishermen to boaters to consumers to farmers to artists – who too often see themselves in conflict instead of as having a common interest in protecting the river and its water.

• And when population continues to expand? Perhaps mandatory limits to child bearing? Ebola, Isis, Assad, Putin?

Yes, well, there’s the frightening rub. For while the amount of water hasn’t increased in 4.5 billion (8,000) years, the seven billion people who depend on it have more than doubled since 1960.

It’s all connected.