December 20 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina has published an article by Dr. Michael Walden which calls for the increase of water prices to effectively limit water usage. Although higher prices are likely to impede water waste, it is also likely that the already disenfranchised will become even more so as a result. Thus begins the great divide, those who have lot’s and water too, and those who have even less:

“North Carolina is suffering its worst drought in 100 years. Many municipalities are counting the days until reservoirs are empty, and rural water users worry their wells will run dry.Governments have responded in two ways. They have called on households and businesses to voluntarily conserve water. And they have imposed restrictions on the use of water.

However, water restrictions require rules about who can use water, when they can use it, and what they can use it for. Inevitably, questions arise about the fairness and implications of such rules. As restrictions are tightened, questions become more intense. To be effective, governments must spend resources to police the rules.

Economists argue there is another approach. Simply put, the easiest way to motivate people to do something is to give them a financial motivation to do it on their own.

Therefore, economists say, if we want people to use water more frugally, the quickest and more direct way to do so is to increase the price of water. The core economic principle of demand says the higher the price of a product, the less people will use. Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of water decreases water use by about 3 percent.” Click here for more.

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December 20 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is a great piece on water security from a blog called “Rolling Back The Tide of Extremism, One Post at a Time”:

“Looking for a good investment? Have a look at the leading companies in the rapidly expanding, global water supply industry. There are a lot of places in the world where people lack access to clean, fresh water and that’s a growing market at least for the century to come. What’s more, people who need fresh water will pay what it takes to get it. Life itself doesn’t really work too well without it.

Water as a commodity. It’s something a lot of Canadians have fretted over for years, the idea of somebody selling our stock of freshwater to foreign bidders. Keep your eye on that.

An interesting development in the US southwest where water is becoming increasingly scarce. It arises out of the apportionment of water between agriculture and domestic use. About three-quarters of their fresh water supply is earmarked for agriculture. People gotta eat - or do they? Some clever farmers in the region are reportedly now getting into the business of selling water they might otherwise be putting on their fields. They’re not selling their quota, just the water. That means they’re taking a common resource, privatizing it and putting it onto the commercial market. The best thing is they never pay dime one for the water itself. They get it so they can grow crops. The new way, however, cuts out all the bother of planting and irrigating and harvesting. You simply sell what you never produced in the first place. Neat trick, eh” Click here for more.

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December 19 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The following article was published in The Advertiser in Adelaide, Australia. In it the prospects of charging residents based on delivery distance for water is discussed. On one hand this indicates the changing nature of water as a commodity, on the other, it introduces the concept of penalization for those living in more arid climates - perhaps this is something the US should consider to prevent further development of areas with little water resources such as Nevada or parts of California:

“Southern Australia’s (SA) billing system should be “scrapped” and replaced with a pricing structure based on residential region, an Adelaide water expert says.

Professor Mike Young, a scientist from Adelaide University and member of the Wentworth Group, yesterday released a Pricing Your Water plan calling for a complete overhaul of SA Water’s two-tiered water pricing system.

“I propose we have a per kilolitre pricing structure where people are charged for each kilolitre they use,” he said.

“That price would be determined by the region, its water system, the problems associated with that system and the scarcity of water at the time.” Click here for more.

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December 19 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

How we use our fresh water resources greatly impacts our future. Given the importance of water, as well as the apparent on-going abuses of such precious resources, International Perspectives has decided to keep a running source of articles covering water issues from around the world. We hope you find the collection useful!

Our first article comes from Don Wiltshire and was originally published in the Mountain Mail. The article discusses a recent application to begin drilling the limited water resources of New Mexico and exporting it for sale in Texas:

“Some random and perhaps paraniod thoughts about “the water problem”:

An application has been filed at the New Mexico State Engineer’s Office by Augustin Plains Ranch LLC to drill 37 water wells with 20 inch casings to a depth of 2,000 feet. 17.5 billions of gallons of water a year would be pumped to Elephant Butte.

Let’s put this in perspective: The annual consumption of water per year in Magdalena is about 42 million gallons. The bar chart presented at the Village of Magdalena trustees meeting was not a pretty picture!” Click here for more.

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December 18 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

IPS News has published a short must-read interview with Maude Barlow on the looming water crisis:

“Imagine a planet where nuclear-powered desalination plants ring the world’s oceans; corporate nanotechnology cleans up sewage water so private utilities can sell it back to consumers in plastic bottles at huge profit; and the poor who lack access to clean water die in increased numbers.

This may sound like science fiction dystopia, but according to Maude Barlow, author of the recently released book “Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water”, this future is not too far away. Barlow is the author of more than a dozen books, including “Global Showdown” and “Too Close for Comfort: Canada’s Future Inside Fortress North America”. She sits on the board of directors of Food and Water Watch and the International Forum on Globalisation and was awarded Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award (considered by many to be the “alternative Nobel Prize”) in 2005 for her work on water issues.

She recently spoke with IPS contributor Chris Arsenault from her home in Ottawa.” Click here for more.

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December 17 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is an interesting article from the Daily Times in Pakistan discussing the possibility of oil producing countries dropping the US dollar in energy deals. The piece sheds some light on the timing and reactions of the US regarding past attempts by countries, such as Iraq and Iran, to drop the dollar.

“It seems that the rejection of the US dollar has become a fashion trend in modern-day business relations. Several major oil and gas exporters have recently announced their plans to use a different currency in their deals with other countries. The heads of Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador expressed such an opinion at the OPEC summit in November. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad particularly stated that Iran needs to replace the dollar because of its ongoing setback. His Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, expanded on the idea and put forward a suggestion to change the dollar for the basket of currencies (apart from the dollar it includes the euro, the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan and the Venezuelan bolivar) to recalculated world prices on oil. Ahmadinejad continued with an idea to set up the OPEC Oil Exchange and the OPEC Bank.

Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, supported the proposal and noted that the dollar fall eats up a considerable part of oil exporters’ income: “In spite of the fact that oil prices have reached the level of about $100 per barrel, in fact they are lower than in the 1980s,” Correa said. However, these ideas received no support from OPEC. The dollar peg issue was put off till the next OPEC summit.

Officials of Russia’s natural gas giant, Gazprom , voiced an idea to use rubles in gas trade. “We consider the idea of selling our resources for rubbles to be quite possible,” Gazprom’s Vice President Alexander Medvedev said at a recent conference in New York. Meanwhile, Iran has already renounced the dollar. “Our country has completely ceased to export liquid hydrocarbons for the US currency. Taking into consideration the dollar setback and the damage that it causes to oil exporters, we can not trust this currency any more,” said IRI Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari on December 8.

Experts say that it is not the first time when the issue of the dollar peg comes into fashion on the world’s market of energy. These transition-to-another-currency talks are quite usual in oil trade when the dollar loses its value considerably. The situation was the same in the late 1970s, in the second half of the 1980s and from 1993 to 1995.

However, nothing has changed in the oil industry since then. This fact is quite understandable: the US dollar will stay on its place as long as Texan Light Sweet along with English Brent set oil quality standards, and New York together with London host major oil auctions. Furthermore, the national currency of Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is pegged to the dollar. Alternative oil exchanges, where other currencies would be used, could change the situation. But the USA and their allies strictly control this issue. Saddam Hussein tried to organize such an oil exchange, but it was just on the eve of the US intrusion.” Click here for more.

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December 14 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Ria Novosti has published an article entitled, “Communists plan protests against Russian election results”. If this isn’t irony, what is?

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December 13 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Here is a pragmatic approach to foreign policy as reported by Kerala News:

“Nobody should feel that our growing ties with other countries are at the cost of old friends,” the minister told reporters…His comment came in response to a specific question on whether the Russian demand for virtually doubling the price of an aircraft carrier the Indian Navy has purchased would sour ties between the two countries.

“Our relations with Russia are not one-contract or one-issue specific. Our relations have stood the test of time for 60 years. If problems arise, we will sort them out,” Antony maintained.

“Previously, our relations with the US were not good. Now they are improving. We are also improving our relations with other countries like Israel, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia. But, nobody should feel this is at the cost of our old friends,” he added.”

The current instability of the world as a result of apparent shifts in global power suggest that aligning the fate of a nation with any one sphere of influence is entirely impractical. The approach India is adopting to befriend ever more nations while maintaining good relations with historic allies makes perfect sense.

If only countries such as Canada could see that while the traditional ties to the U.S. should be maintained, our future will hinge on our ability to forge new, lasting relationships with many other countries. Perhaps even some with countries that currently clash with our prevailing ideological bent, which is not to say that those countries are incorrect in their thinking, just that we are both blinded by messaging that is misleading. After all, survival requires pragmatism as well as compassion, but certainly not compassion at the expense of practicality.

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December 13 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Reuters has reported that “Russia warned the West on Monday that recognizing a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by Kosovo could set off a “chain reaction” of problems in the Balkans and beyond.” Most people educated in the West will read this quote and brush the comments made by Russian leaders off as nonsense. After all, somehow, somewhere along the line, the people of the West have been subtly convinced that the Soviet Union never went away and the big Red enemy still lurks about.

What’s so very unfortunate in this case, is that the statements made by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are much closer to the truth than the idealistic, short-sighted thinking of those powers which feel that a unilateral declaration of Kosovar independence makes long-term sense. Our blindness in believing that Russia is the West’s natural enemy prevent us from seeing what the future consequences of such a declaration would be. How soon we forget the bloody aftermath of a newly reunited Germany’s unilateral declaration of Slovenian and Croatian independence. Was it really so long ago that the decimation of Bosnia, Herzegovina and Croatia should be so easily forgotten - much less the precipitous accelerator of such misfortunate in the meddling countries blinded by ideological euphoria? Or has the maintenance of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the direct interference of Western nations by, quite literally, standing in between the different peoples trapped in this precarious country been such a pillar of Western success that we still cannot admit our culpability in the recent Balkan wars?

Undoubtedly, those who believe that granting Kosovo independence makes perfect sense, are the same people who argue that if Serbia wants to be a part of the European Union (EU) the continued piecemeal destruction of this small nation should occur without incident. Such an argument is akin to attempted inducement of an atheist through promises of access to heaven. Serbia no longer wishes to be a part of the EU, and with good reason, what has Europe done for her? In fact, if the Serbs hadn’t been so adroit at stabilizing their own economy, the on-going persecution of what seems to be Serbian war leaders only combined with the already lost Republika Srpska in Bosnia and the pending loss of Kosovo (not to mention what this might mean for Vojvodina in the north of the country with it’s considerable minority populations), the “reparations” imposed upon Serbia resemble, albeit on a small scale, yet another historical European mistake - think Germany after World War I.

It’s anyone’s guess what a unilateral declaration of Kosovar independence might mean for the region, but if history is any indicator the warnings put forward by Russia seem the most likely. Although tired of war, the people of the Balkans seldom react well to such Western intervention of domestic affairs in the region. It’s too bad that we in the West seem quick to shoot the messenger.

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December 13 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Jerusalem Post has reported that “Desalinated water…lacks many essential plant nutrients, and is more harmful than helpful in irrigating certain crops…While water experts had long thought that desalinated water’s low mineral content was beneficial to crops, new research reveals that it actually damages plants like tomatoes, basil and certain varieties of flowers due to a lack of magnesium and calcium.”

The referenced research comes from Dr. Alon Tal of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research on the Sede Boker campus of BGU and several other scientists published in a recent report, “Rethinking Desalinated Water Quality and Agriculture”.

Although science will undoubtedly be able to assist humans in answering our problems, there are some aspects of nature which just cannot be copied effectively. The only viable solution to our pending water crisis is to change our current approaches to water management (or waste, rather) today.

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