Comments on: Water: The First Priority

By: Daniel Nocera’s Gift « The Emergent Fool

Daniel Nocera’s Gift « The Emergent Fool — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:48:01 +0000

[...] at places like Barefoot College and could simultaneously create economic development and solve the world’s biggest humanitarian problem, both as a side [...]

By: rafefurst

rafefurst — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:52:32 +0000

Rainwater harvesting in this manner seems like a great approach to the water problem:

http://www.barefootcollege.org/prog_rwh.htm

By: Stray Thought About the Singularity « Complex Adaptive Systems

Stray Thought About the Singularity « Complex Adaptive Systems — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:46:42 +0000

[...] to attempt to preserve themselves to the detriment of pursuing their original goals. As you already know, I think the UN IPCC is one example of this dynamic. But what if we figured out a way to keep our [...]

By: kevindick

kevindick — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:10:30 +0000

He Dave. Somehow I forgot to qualify “interventionist” like I intended. I meant more interventionist on carbon than I. Fixed in the main text.

I think your calls for pricing water are spot on. I would call these “de-interventionist”, i.e., the undo government intervention with market mechanisms.

By: David Zetland

David Zetland — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:21:01 +0000

Hey Kevin — thanks for the link. I was intrigued to find my name associated with “interventionist” (since I am less-interventionist than most :), but perhaps my aggressive pricing philosophy puts me in that place.

My first instinct is “do no harm” and that often means ending subsidies on water projects. If you want to get a better idea of how subsidized water has lead to sprawling desert “communities” that are now imperiled by scarce water (and GW is making it worse), then check out average cost pricing in my dissertation (see sections 1.1.3 and 4.4.2 and the index).

Keep up the good work!

By: kevindick

kevindick — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:18:02 +0000

Hey Don. Good to “see” you.

The short version is that I believe the IPCC conclusions as stated in the AR4 Summary for Policy Makers to be mostly unfounded. After digging through the gory details, my opinion is that the IPCC conclusions suffer from a shortage of science and a surfeit of politics. The quality of analysis was mediocre at best and dissenting opinions were systematically quashed.

By: Don Geddis

Don Geddis — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:43:21 +0000

Re: AGW. I don’t know the details, so I’m not going to debate the science with you. But didn’t the blue-ribbon UN commission of hundreds of global scientists, conclude that, yes, global warming is real, and also, yes, human-produced CO2 is a significant factor?

Was that conclusion, in your opinion, premature? Or did I misunderstand the actual conclusion that they came to? Or do you agree that (human) CO2 is at least one cause of global warming, but merely disagree about likely productive steps to do anything about it?

I’m just trying to understand what your actual position is.