Abstract
The universal currency of the 21st Century is drying up into a 40% global deficit. Every continent depletes aquifers; over-allocates rivers; endangers aquatic biodiversity; borrows against future rains; and ignites increasingly fatal water resource conflicts. A thirsty supply chain impacts brand names and bottom lines. And therein lies hope. Adam Smith’s logic about our ‘propensity to truck, barter and exchange’ can turn conflict into collaboration and scarcity into abundance if society begins to own and exchange equitable shares of the ultimate liquid asset. Business leaders who measure their water footprint can help embattled officials unlock virtual green ‘click’ markets within natural ‘brick and mortar’ water monopolies to unleash the true potential of the blue economy.
Chapter published in: [Scott G. McNall, James C. Hershauer and George Basile, (Editors). The Business of Sustainability: Trends, Policies, Practices and Stories of Success, I, II, III. New York: Praeger Press, October 2011.]
Abstract
As Aldo Leopold stated long ago and we have seen more recently with the success of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) in fisheries management, vesting ordinary citizens with “ownership” of natural resources leads people to conserve them. By securing equitable shares of water and allowing everyone to trade what they save, innovative technology and the concept of H2Ownership can unlock equitable and competitive markets to effectively harness individual greed to create a widespread incentivized race to conserve, and a Leopoldian understanding and communal ethic about where the water comes from, how it is used, and where it goes.
Article published by the Johns Hopkins University Global Water Program
JHU_Water Ethic_Final_M. Simus
Abstract
This Essay argues that water ethic no longer lies hypothetically in the future. It has been anchored in the past and is inexorably taking shape today in many forms all over the world. Rather than fight and resist the current pressures as they build an informal and tradable right to water, the global Left and the Right could help most by allowing it to emerge, flowing forth from below in a confluence of its own.
Essay published by the Tulane Environmental Law Journal [Vol.23:439] in 2010.