> Water
> contamination and shortages are becoming very big problems all over
> the country, indeed the world. I'm convinced that the long term
> solution is going to have to be desalinated ocean water. We can't
> keep sucking our rivers and aquifers dry, which is what we're
> doing. In the Tampa area they're proposing a 50 to 100 million
> gallon desalination plant to address water shortages. [snip]
> Desal will cost up to four times more than
> current water prices, mostly due to the energy costs. Then we'll
> need more power plants, with the environmental problems they bring.
> We're eventually going to need fusion technology to meet the
> electricity needs.
>
(Qualifier, in light of a certain quick-to-attack mood that has prevailed
of late, before I even begin: please
note this is NOT intended as a personal attack on Al or anyone else.)
Just want to point out the kind of thinking that's involved here, the
same kind that's behind pronouncements like "Because demand for timber
products is expected to increase by such-and-such a percentage over the
next X years, we MUST cut Y additional acres of forests . . ." and the
like.
(Qualifier #2--what I am about to say is not to be taken to mean that I
think bringing about the needed changes is going to be easy, or that there
are not a multitude of factors in play.)
The assumption always seems to be--certainly in Florida!--there WILL BE
more and more and more people here, and moreover they WILL HAVE greater
and greater demands for all kinds of things, water, wood products, you
name it, and therefore the system MUST BE INCREASINGLY ALTERED in order
to meet those demands.
The notion that not only the nature of the "demands" we make but even the
numbers of us that there will ultimately come to be ARE THEMSELVES SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTIONS and therefore MIGHT THEMSELVES BE WHAT IS ALTERED and not
the ecosystem itself somehow never, or only very rarely and only in oblique,
self-effacing ways, seems to appear in discussions of these sorts of
problems.
I wonder what would happen if everyone involved in such discussions who
has ever entertained the thought of re-framing the questions even in the
slightest degree began interjecting such reconceptualized views, rather
than continuing to propagate the prevailing descriptions of the situation,
descriptions that proceed on the assumption that it's a biological "given."
Ronnie
