Overcoming Our Mistakes

PIONEER EXPLORER JOHN WESLEY POWELL took a long look at the American west, and decided that it would never be a good place to build big cities, because of lack of water. Maybe we should have taken his advice, but we didn't, and its too late now. With rapidly growing populations and droughts, water reservoirs in the western United States are ever lower, as ill advised places like Los Vegas suck water out of the huge but vanishing underground fresh water ocean. Global warming scientists warn that the future is a poorer, sicker, humanity, which will be forced to invest much of its time and energy fighting climate change rather than increasing wealth. For decades the states of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama have been embroiled in a never ending legal battle over which state can use what amount of water from a single source. Welcome to the future. But there is hope. The city of Miami, Florida has a desalination plant which operates efficiently, and ocean water treatment facilities are springing up around the country. You can imagine a future in which pipelines transport water from rising oceans to deserts coming to life with green. The state of Massachesetts is engaged in a consortium with six other states to provide economic incentives for electric cars, and industrial carbon emissions reduction. The city of Los Angeles uses the same amount of water it used in 1970, even though it now has a million more people. Better plumbing, more efficient water management and pricing. Americans in particular will have to accept, increasingly, that water costs money. The state of California, led by Governor Jerry Brown, is spearheading the development of solar and wind energy, far ahead of efforts by the federal government. In the United States, environmental protection for a sustainable future is taking place at the state level because, as Governor Brown points out, the federal government is frozen solid in gridlocked impotence.