Water planning needs more than quick fixes
Editorial,The Age
September 4, 2008
Divining water in a dry future requires more than faith and hardware.
THE observation that water is the oil of the 21st century graduated to a truism in a blink. Security and prosperity are tied to it. Wars will be fought over it. Cartels have been founded on control of it. Access to it intimately shapes the possibilities of a life: how we work, where we live, how broadly we venture across the landscape.
But the analogy expires short of the true ambit of water in our lives. There are, after all, alternatives to oil. But to borrow the observation of W. H. Auden, “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water”. While we ride the juggernaut of peak oil with little capacity to determine its direction, the prospect of peak water galvanises action. With buckets and tanks, pipes and plants, thrift and innovation — it is within our realm to secure this, surely?
