Over-consumption of natural resources is the topic du jour. The current popularity of environmental sustainability has birthed the notion that countries go to war for water. This is simply not true. While we do fight wars over resources, we do not fight over water – principally because water is not a resource.

In nearly all cases, water has led to peaceful agreements, even amongst warring nations. Nations fight over resources; including, but certainly not limited to, natural resources (oil, metals, coal), human resources (slaves, religious disciples) and land. Water is fundamentally not a resource, it is a requirement. The dictionary defines resource as:

resource |ˈrēˌsôrs; ˈrēˈzôrs; riˈsôrs; riˈzôrs|
noun
1 (usu. resources) a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively

However, water is not something that can be drawn upon, water must be drawn upon to survive – this is a fundamental difference that too many people overlook. We do not require oil, metal, religion or (much) land, yet we must have water.

The Trojans fought for Helen, the Romans for salt, the Europeans for gold, spices, and cotton, and the Americans for oil. However, no one fights for water. In large part, this is because humans around the world commonly recognize water as an essential ingredient for life; cruel as we might be, we seem to have the fundamental dignity to not desiccate our fellow man.

There is no need to take my non-expert word for this, Wendy Barnaby, a science journalist set out to prove that we fight over water and came back with just the opposite conclusion. She was tasked with writing a book about water conflict, but when she could not find the evidence, the book was cancelled (who wants to read about peace?) and she turned her work into an article for Nature. Here a few examples of existing conflicts and the role water might play in them.

Sudan is often cited as an example of conflict over water. It is claimed that the northern Arab Sudanese attacked Darfur for the fertile land and water supply. In some respects this is true, but the conflict over the fertile land is primarily due to the West. During the colonial period, the Brits redistributed the land according to tribal roots – trying to emulate our property system by creating definite borders and ownership systems. The nomadic tribes were excluded from the land allocation and these new borders constricted their mouvement between regions.

The droughts of the 1970s pushed the Sahara desert 40km into the fertile land, displacing people who now had fewer places to go. Neighbouring conflicts in Chad and elsewhere – often proxy wars of our cold war – placed further barriers to mouvement on the inhabitants of Darfur. Before these barriers were erected, the people of southern Sudan had a perfectly adequate system for dealing with droughts and lack of water – mouvement.  Now, the once nomadic tribes who moved with the water were trapped in a sandpit. This understandably led to violent conflict.

The Kashmir region of India and Pakistan has been at war since partition in 1947, but they have nevertheless managed to sign the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 which has allowed for the distribution of water between the two countries. Gwynne Dyer’s book Climate Wars, outlines a scenario where India and Pakistan launch nuclear missiles over water rights. Remarkably, the Indo-Pakistani conflict has remained relatively dormant for 60 years despite the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, religious terrorism and longstanding historical conflicts. In light of this, water seems like an unlikely candidate for military escalation. Though Kashmir is still at war, it is not due to water.

Israel and Jordan are separated by the Jordan River and have a mutual interest in its waters. Each Palestinian is allowed to consume 1/5 the water of an Israeli. Israel withdraws far more water than its Arab cousins. Despite this apparent conflict, Jordan and Israel they have maintained the peace since 1992 and water issues are not seen as a major hurdle to a two-state solution. Syria might still be at war with Israel, but it is not fundamentally over water – though the Golan heights do allow for the control of much of the region’s water supply.

The list of agreements over water rights is long, the list of conflicts is very short. The cynics among us believe man fights for power without much consideration for life. If this were true, water would be the ultimate leverage over a population. Yet, over and over again, conflict over water leads to diplomatic agreements – not armed conflict. If anything, I see this as demonstration that despite our differences, we recognize each other’s right to live and have access to water.

An article in Foreign Policy claiming there will be more conflict

Good summary of Wendy Barnaby’s article

Interview with a geologist about water wars

Wendy Burnaby in Nature (paid – 32 $)

Another take on water conflict

Both the planet’s climate and the financial system are very, very complex beasts. Yet, people in both camps claim an ability to roughly model and predict their behaviour. Nicholas Taleb, a very popular figure these days and author of  The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, has long prophesized that the mathematical models used in the financial world were useless because of large unpredictable events. The recent crash being a case in point. He calls these unpredictable events “Black Swans”, named after the discovery of black swans in Australia. Traditionally, it was taken for granted that all swans were white because that is all that was ever observed, but surprise, surprise they aren’t. When Europeans travelled to Australia for the first time, they came face to face with an impossibility – a black swan.

Talebs theory stands on the mathematical work of Benoit Mandelbrot, the man who discovered fractal geometry. Fractal geometry (figure below) demonstrates that an apparently simple mathematical formula can generate an infinitely varying pattern of shapes with unpredictable behaviour. It goes on to illustrate how a nearly imperceptible change in the initial conditions can have incalculably large effects on the final outcome. Fractal geometry is self-repeating patterns that grow more and more complex through time, but start from a very basic shape. Here is an example of an equilateral triangle being repeatedly copied to produce a Koch Snowflake.

Fractal geometry is found everywhere in nature. The geometry and size of twigs, trees, and forests are all related through fractal geometry. As are ant colonies, plant distribution, and coral reefs. Human dwellings in Africa, human village size, and other parts of our societies exhibit fractal behaviour. As a brief introduction to fractals, watch the amazing PBS Nova special.

Mandelbrot’s discoveries, led to “Chaos Theory”, popularized in Jurassic Park, and the “Butterfly Effect”. The basic idea is that the flap of a butterfly’s wings changes the air around it and eventually results in a violent tornado on the opposite side of the planet. An apparently inconsequential event can have unforeseen consequences. Sounds crazy, but it is true. It therefore follows that modelling complex, non-linear systems with any degree of accuracy is an activity in self-deception.

The IPCC, financial analysts, and other “modellers” who predict outcomes of complex systems should have their credentials checked. A superficial survey of fractal geometry, chaos theory, shrodinger’s equation, quantum mechanics and complex adaptive systems should trigger alarm bells. Big alarm bells.

There are numerous ecological “Black Swans”, some natural: the eruption of Krakatoa and Mount Tambora, sunspots, tectonic plate shifts; and others human: the discovery of fire, the steam engine, oil, and electricity. Explicitly and simply stated, events and discoveries we are completely incapable of predicting will occur and dramatically alter history. Single events can, and will change everything – we just don’t know what or when.

Imagine yourself in Victorian England, around 1880, as an oxford educated elite with the best education available. Your country controls a good part of the globe and you have read most of the available knowledge. If I were to predict that within 4 generations, man will visit the moon, explore every corner of the earth, have global wireless communication to every living person, regularly fly through the air near the speed of sound and have a black man as world leader; you would call me mad. And yet.

J.B.S. Haldane, the famous geneticist, once said,

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286

Think about it. If we cannot even suppose how queer our universe is, how can we hope to model and predict its behaviour? A word of caution, I am not saying no models work; models do work with relative accuracy most of the time, but when they fail – they fail miserably. It is therefore unwise to base long term planning for the entire planet on a model that has a high likelihood of falling on its face.

Another way of putting it is that there are known knowns (things we know we know), known unknowns (things we know we don’t know) and the unknown unknowns (and things we don’t know we don’t know).

James Lovelock a fervent environmentalist and father of the Gaia Theory, which claims the Earth behaves like a living organism, has expressed doubts that complex models offer much valuable information.

Lovelock is as provocative as ever. He is withering about the attempt of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to forge a consensus, a word that he says has no place in science: “Just think, over 1,000 of the world’s best climate scientists have worked for 17 years to forecast future climates and have failed to predict the climate of today.” UK Telegraph

Lovelock is correct. Until you can demonstrate that your models from previous years have accurately predicted today, your model is broken.

The New York Times just reported that new studies have halved the estimated sea rise due to Antarctic melting, from 20 feet to 10. The change is due to gravitational effects not previously accounted for in the models. So, the new model has changed the outcome by 50% (or 100% depending on your perspective). Imagine this, I advertise my height as 6 feet on a dating website, I then arrange to meet a beautiful woman for a walk in central park. On Saturday, at the convened time, I meet her, and I am 3 feet tall. She might be disappointed.

This is the inherent problem with any model of a complex system; a tiny oversight can have dramatic effects. And since there are so many unknowns; thousands of tiny oversights are inevitable.

I am not saying we should do nothing – quite the opposite. We should do everything possible to place the odds in our favour: invest in education, challenge the status quo, increase healthcare, and most importantly, invest in ourselves.

Some lament that even if the west changes, China and India will drag the entire planet into an ecological black hole, from which there is no escape. Gandhi even prophetically stated, “God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west… If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.”

Yet, environmental issues are not a priority in developing nations because they have more pressing issues, not for a lack of caring. Once their wealth increases sufficiently, they will start to pay attention to the environment – it is already happening. As an analogy, efforts to curb aids in Africa have had mixed results. Different groups advocate for education, abstinence, condoms, antiretroviral drugs, or a combination. Yet, the most effective tool to treat the diseases is increased life expectancy. I know, that smacks of tautology, but hear me out.

If a person thinks they can live to be 40, as opposed to say 25, they will invest in their health, school, and birth control. When you expect to die at 25, you might as well party it up. Get rich, or die tryin’ as 50 Cent says.

When you change the framework a person lives in, the person changes – not the other way around. If we change peoples’ life expectancy, their behaviour will change. The vast majority of countries with improved living conditions, improved health first, then wealth, then the environment. With increased life expectancy, people value the future more and put more emphasis on maintaining their local and global environment for future generations. You need to make people value life; their own, their peers, and that of the natural world.

Too often, environmentalists claim that if everyone were as wealthy as the North Americans, we would need six planets to sustain our lifestyle. This is linearly true, but pragmatically false. Fundamentally, it assumes a static, linear relationship between resource consumption and wealth. Thomas Malthus, a 19^th century classical economist, stated, “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man”. Source A man of the clergy, Malthus saw this relationship between earth and man as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour: he regarded optimistic ideas of social reform as doomed to failure. Two hundred years later, it is clear that the Malthusian approach predicting limited economic growth due to resource scarcity has been proven wrong by consistent growth of the world economy. The lack of empirical evidence for the theory is clear and to promote it undermines the legitimate environmentalist. Malthus and his supporters failed to imagine the transformative power of innovative technology.

Once we agree innovation can release us from the bondage of resource limitations, we can start to move the environmental debate forward. Returning to fractal geometry, recall how a small change can have incredibly large impacts. Who, do let me know, accurately predicted the effects of democracy, the end of slavery, mass produced antibiotics, the splitting of the nucleus, or the power of the semi-conductor?

In conclusion, here are four emerging technologies that will fundamentally change the wealth to consumption ratio of modern society.

1. Metal in construction and machinery will be replaced with carbon fibre beams and plates. (Amory Lovins at Stanford)
2. The efficiency of solar and energy storage technology will improve in a similar way as semi-conductors did in the 20^th century (Moore’s law). (Varia)
3. All plastics and packaging will be replaced with bio-degradable materials. (Varia, EU laws, general trends)
4. Vertical, high-density farming will allow for near unlimited production of any food we like. (TED talk
   by Dickson Despommier, 2009)

None of these breakthroughs will be easy, but each has the power to change everything we take for granted. In all likelihood, something else will happen that no one has predicted. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us and what we hold for it. It certainly does not forebode a global warming catastrophe.

Other Resources

Climate Engineering (Dust Related)

Daniel B. Botkin in the Wall Street Journal

Bjorn Lomborg in the NY Times

Dyson in the NYTimes

Dyson @ The Edge

The Planet is on our hands, deal with it – Wired

Micheal Crichton on Global Warming – Charlie Rose

Brief article casting doubts in EU Carbon Emissions Reductions

Another one on lack of EU Reductions

NIMONIK Posts

NIMONIK Post on Bjorn Lomborg

The failure of carbon makets

The global climate is a chaotic non-linear system that cannot be predicted (as stated by the UN). He also claims the models the UNFCC have made are not very good and not verified by third parties. He claims that the global warming issue has been politicized and is no longer science, it is consensus science. He states very clearly, “No one knows what the future holds” – so why should Al Gore?

P.S. This also fits with Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s philosophy of Black Swan’s and unpredictability – check him out.

Mine is not an evangelical vegetarianism, where I scorn carnivores – no more than I think it unwise to smoke cigarettes.

People must make their own decisions, but the corporations who control and mass market food have activly deceived the public on the costs of eating a meat rich diet. Here are a few ideas on why we should avoid (too much) meat.

Health Implications

It is very, very, very, established that eating red meat and other meat in excess is bad for you. Notice how young girls and boys are hitting puberty earlier? Scientists agree that it is linked to the hormone injected chicken nuggets in their happy meal. Ever hear about a movie “Super Size Me”? Need I cite heart attack rates in the West? The list is long and deep, but eat more fruits, vegetables, and a little organic meat and you will live longer and better – guaranteed.

A solid TED Talk on the general reason for eating less meat – by a well-known chef.

Environmental

If we assume that everyone is in agreement on the current situation: global warming, the non-sustainable exploitation of resources and the rising cost of food – then we can also agree that too much meat is being grown and consumed. The UN warns that the oceans’ will hold little more than jellyfish by 2050. Chew on that!

Here is a very scary report on the largest porc producer in the United States. Another interesting article on the rising cost of meat from the International Herald Tribune and another one on the discrepancy between your government sanctioned diet and farm subsidies.

Meat is a tremendously inefficient way of getting protein: imagine everyone showering in Evian water, hunting polar bears and driving hummers. Not the best use of resources you say?

Morality

This one is probably the toughest sell. But ask yourself this: Have you ever killed, cleaned and cooked an animal? If so, you are in the very small minority of the developed world.

I think everyone can agree that factory farming is wrong. Therefore, eating meat from a factory farm is wrong, yes? Vegetarianism is a form of protest against the exploitation of animals, great article here.

Religion, the moral compass for many, is fairly clear on this issue. The ten commandments (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) state, “Thou Shall not Kill” – it does not say “Thou Shall not Kill Humans”, it says “Thou Shall not Kill”. Buddhism is even clearer, and preaches not harming sentient beings. We should do as little harm as possible to others implying leaving our fellow animals to their pastures.

If only schoolchildren were taken on a hunt. Buying chicken breasts at the supermarket is not the same thing as taking a live chicken in your hands and turning it into dinner. I have nothing against hunters, in fact I support them. They are often ardent conservationists and have a great respect for nature.

If we all touched the source of our food – perhaps we would choose a different way.

I finally came across the original graphic from the New York Times:

Source:

http://backspace.com/notes/2008/04/water-table.php

http://www.eem.ca/index.php/blog/68-half-full-or-half-empty-bus

Anyways, article is here:

Original Post

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/15/opinion/edjacoby.php?page=1