Flashback: 20-26 May

A year later and still worth reading...

Can we end hydraulic mining? My op/ed explaining why California faces water shortages. Applies elsewhere.

The US is to NL as MX is to the US, i.e., it's all relative.

Water pricing and metering -- a lesson from Aguanomics 101

Friday party!

Yes, this is why I love living here.



H/T to TD

Anything but water

1. A month ago, The Economist called for an end to affirmative action. I agree, as I prefer policies that help the poor over those directed at skin tint or ancestry. Read these articles on post-racial society in the US to see why... or just listen to Carlin:
   
   
2. How the Swedes are changing their health care system, and a podcast on the value of subsidies for medical care/insurance in the US (Oregon). My quibble with that discussion of a study that found no health impacts but significant reductions in anxiety for those with coverage is that their discussion of an equivalent benefit via income subsidies (doubling people's income to make them equally happy) missed the obvious solution: mandate insurance for everyone and give subsidies to the poor. That's how the Dutch do it, and it's cheap and effective.
   
   
3. Enlightening/frightening details of how corruption works in Congo's mining sector.
   
   
4. Over 900 people died in the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh when a building full of garment workers collapsed. How to stop future disasters? Some called for clothing makers to withdraw from Bangladesh, but that would leave millions without jobs; others called for government intervention and better working standards, but the local government is corrupt and incompetent. I'd prefer that clothing buyers require factories to carry insurance against disasters, because insurance companies with skin in the game would make sure that conditions were safe -- or they'd charge for greater risk. Combine a policy with public reporting of premiums, and you've got a good monitoring and reporting system.
   
   
5. Compensation to who? "A plan to build a convention centre in Alabama using money given by BP to restore the coast of the Gulf of Mexico has angered environmentalists, raising concerns over how funds to improve the environment are spent."

The struggle for freedom, security and happiness

Sometimes it just seems like the reactionary forces are really coming from all sides:

• The Canadian government is trying to muzzle scientists
• The US government is trying to shut down bitcoins
• ...at the same time as it keeps Guantanamo open
• American religious nuts are trying to jail or kill overseas gays
• The Chinese, Russians et al. are trying (as usual) to Balkanize the internet
• The Israeli government is trying to remove Palestine as a "fact"
• Various governments are trying to monitor mobile phones (and journalists!)

These examples are from today but they represent a timeless tradition of rulers and elites trying to hold onto power. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they are overthrown, but they always cause harm by limiting freedom among the 99%, wasting resources in the course of limiting that freedom, and creating massive damage when resistance turns to revolution (e.g., Syrian civil war, etc., ad nauseum).

Why is it that we see more of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" than enlightened leadership? Can we do more to shift from one equilibrium to the other?

Economists (and other social scientists) have worked on this problem for many years. In some ways (e.g., "homo economicus") we have given up. In others (e.g., property rights, coalition building, etc.) we have improved conditions.

This is a big topic, but I figure that all solutions begin with a balance between willingness to help neighbors and a sense of one's own security. These solutions are harder to implement when neighbors are more different/disbursed and personal wants/fears are greater. Thus, it would be useful to make it easier to connect with neighbors and reduce personal uncertainty.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

The nexus of distractions

I've called it the nexus of bullshit, but I think that the greater danger of trying to manage the water-energy-food-climate-etc nexus is that a focus on one relationship will distract from other, important relationships while a focus on all relationships leads to paralysis.

I think it's easier and more effective for water managers to concentrate on balancing water supply and demand, no matter where it comes from.

Your thoughts?

Speed blogging

1. Some California communities do not have drinkable water due to agricultural pollution. Should people leave those areas, drink bottled water or expect pipes to bring them water?
   
   
2. Stratfor (=US Dept Defense) says that the Colorado River allocations need to be renegotiated rather than repaired one piece-by-piece. This is obvious, but it's interesting that the defense guys are now paying attention. Maybe that will lead to some action?
   
   
3. California farmers and environmentalists are jointly managing water flows for rice, fish and birds near the Yolo Bypass. UK farmers are happy to take cash to reduce their impacts on water quality.
   
   
4. How droughts are "declared" and why scientists are now turning the dial to 11
   
   
5. The Nature Conservancy wants to expand the use of water markets to transfer water from farmers to cities. Good.

H/Ts to DL, RR and GT

Aguanomics 101

Although every post on this blog offers valuable insights (and thicker, shinier hair!), I started tagging posts that cover the basics of aguanomics with "AG101."

By "basic aguanomics," I mean the concepts, ideas and solutions that will help us manage water for social and private uses, indefinitely.

Go ahead and browse through some of those posts (I need to go back into the archives to find more), but -- more important -- tell me AG101 topics that you'd like to see addressed. Then I can write a new post -- if one doesn't already exist!

Corruption in theory and practice

Corruption is "the abuse of public office for private gain." That means that the salesman who gives discounts for sex or offers bribes to bureaucrats to get contracts is not corrupt. He is, respectively, a thief and an opportunist.

But corruption -- to me -- is not just about public officials taking money to do the wrong thing. I also include public officials who knowingly implement policies that match their beliefs (religious, racial, social, etc.) instead of policies that create the greatest benefit to society.* They are not getting a direct cash benefit as much as an indirect personal satisfaction at forcing others to their will.**

So we get to ask if the US Government's Minerals Management Service was corrupt in one (accepting sex and drugs from energy companies, including BP, before Deep Water Horizon) or both ways (also thinking that energy companies need more space to get 'er done). I already blamed Deepwater on the regulators, but now I have two reasons to.

How do you think of corruption?

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* For example, IRS officials chasing Tea Partiers. (My solution to that abuse of power, btw, is to simplify the tax code so the IRS has no discretion.)

** For example:

Public officials have their own biases and motivations. Most officials try to do the right thing, but no one can deny that at some times and places, official judgments can be distorted by the pressures imposed by powerful interests. And even if they are well-motivated, officials are human and hardly immune to the kinds of behavioral biases that affect ordinary people.

Monday funnies

Saw this in Cordoba...

Anything but water

1. One year without internet... reveals that we socialize and think differently without it, for better or worse. Also read Bruce Sterling (the original cyberpunk) on the internet's future.
   
   
2. A good article on adaptation to climate change. I added a tag for adaptation to many posts, but that may be redundant -- aguanomics is ALL about adaptation.
   
   
3. An update on Israel's genocide by a thousand (water) cuts to the Palestinians.
   
   
4. The US government is giving subsidies to Brazilian farmers to allow subsidies to US farmers to continue. FAIL.
   
   
5. Learn via video: Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, and David Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.

Flashback: 13-19 May

A year later and still worth reading...

Cost recovery versus conservation incentives, i.e., what's fiscal isn't necessarily economical.

Dutch water expertise does not apply -- I repeat these every time I talk to Dutchers.