By Will Falk
I have a problem with some of the people I call the “shower police.” These are the people yelling about how we all need to take shorter showers because of the water crisis. They deem anyone a hypocrite who accuses corporations and the government of being the worst water offenders while not enthusiastically letting a night of the strongest urine fester in their bathrooms.
My problem with the shower police is not that they’re wrong that we all need to live as simply as possible. We do. My problem with that shower police is not that they’re wrong that we all must endure much more than funky bathrooms. We will.
My problem is that the shower police often confuse personal change with social change.
I need to be clear. There is a water crisis. We need to stop it. But, we will only stop the crisis with an accurate diagnosis of the social climate producing the climate.
According to a study by the Pacific Institute, 93% of the water used in California is consumed by agriculture. 5% is used by residences.
I’ll write it again: 93% of the water used in California is consumed by agriculture.
Most of the water is not used by you. Most of the water is not used by me. It’s used by agriculture. Not flushing your toilet is not going to stop the water crisis. Taking shorter showers is not going to stop the water crisis. Washing your dishes less is not going to stop the water crisis.
You know what else is not going to stop the water crisis? Buying stuff, or not buying stuff. Why? Because the worst consumers of California’s water produce heavily subsidized crops – cotton, corn, and wheat. The government will pay them to produce their crops whether we buy them or not.
History supports my argument, too. Consider the Anti-Nazi Boycott of 1933 that began as a response to anti-Semitism following Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany. It took a world war to stop him 12 years later. Look at the American Free Produce Movement began by Quaker abolitionists in 1826 to end American slavery. It wasn’t for 39 more years and the nation’s bloodiest war until American slavery was ended.
I know many of my readers will be rolling their eyes at my juxtaposition of the Holocaust and American slavery with California’s water crisis. They may have a point. The Holocaust, of course, threatened the existence of European Jews while American slavery murdered millions of Africans.
Then, again, maybe they don’t. California wildlife officials have banned fishing in the San Lorenzo River, the Big Sur River, and the Pescadero Creek to protect endangered salmon and steelhead trout. Meanwhile, John Boehner and other members of Congress want to pump water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta -home to more endangered salmon and threatened delta smelt – to support more agriculture.
Now, I am not saying that the same tactics used to stop the Holocaust or American slavery will be effective to stop California’s water crisis. War may not be appropriate. But, if history teaches us anything, action on a wide-reaching social level that directly affects agribusinesses and the government will be the only effective response.
So, despite what the shower police may call you, I don’t care so much whether you are funked-out and stinky from not showering or you are a hypocrite. I care whether California will have water. The salmon, trout, and smelt care, too.
Will Falk
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We should stop watering lawns and golf courses before we stop taking showers. As for agriculture, since there aren’t enough honeybees to polinate the almond crop, maybe we should just stop irrigating all the almond trees and save the water for more viable crops.
Yeah, I think there were some eye-rollers in there. The highest percentage of agro domination of water use in California I could find was Wikipedia’s at 80% to 85%, and a UCLA study had it at 77%. That’s pretty high, so maybe we need some positive suggestions, like how we could switch to crops that use less water.
Well beyond that.. sure I’m disgusted when people who advocate shorter showers and more yellow water in the toilet are put in the same league as Hitler, or, just below that insult, called “shower police.”
By these standards, you could call me a sun fascist for believing in solar power.
No need to trust Wikipedia when you have this:
And the mass extinction of species is in the same league as Hitler.
A salmon’s life is as valuable to him or her as your life is to you. I would even dare to say a salmon’s life is more valuable than a Californians desire to eat almonds, or a farmer’s desire to grow commodities like cotton.
The House of Representatives passed a California Republican backed water plan today that would roll back federal rules in order to provide more water for farmers and municipalities in California’s Central Valley. It will be DOA in the Senate and Obama says he will veto the bill if it does get to him.
The public focus needs to be on policies which protect the environment–the land, people, oceans and animal life which are all in it together–and to do so not only for this moment but for the future.
The public also needs to be vigilant. The “we are all in this together” approach is what conservatives abhor and it is the very approach that we should be stressing.
How much do weekly water main breaks consume?
good question– I live in LA and not only see public water mains breaking too often (there was one last summer at Mulholland & Coldwater Canyon that spewed over a million gals like a geyser before they fixed it), but also see water leaks from estates up here in the hollywood hills that erode hillsides and run down onto public roads, all while wasting water– nobody does a thing! The owners hardly notice the small bump in their water bills since it’s a drop in the bucket (no pun intended, sorry) in the financial scheme of things for them. Also, in my neighborhood in laurel canyon, there are natural springs that surface water to the streets every day, which flows down into the drains, wasted- -the city doesn’t bother to figure out how to capture it and use it! I have bugged them about it for years, and they do nothing.
The water main breaks make our conservation efforts moot.Apparently there is no alert system and they have to be reported. It bugs the crap out of me that the politicians never mention this, it should be a top priority.
My water bill in San Diego is about $80 per month and $60 of that is sewer. If people use less I imagine the sewer costs will need to go up if peoplke use less water.
ADD Boehner: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-drought-crisis-morphs-into-political-football-between-democrats-republicans/
He’s as utterly clueless about what’s REALLY causing California’s record drought, as he is about most everything else. Jerry Brown (whatever else you might think of him) was absolutely right to call him out on it, too.
Worst. Speaker. Ever.
Meanwhile, CA Repubs’ exile in the political wilderness just keeps stretching out longer and longer…iron pyrite, everywhere…
Comparing our personal water conservation effect against agriculture water use is besides the point. The water we conserve here in San Diego slows the drawdown of the reservoirs storing water for our use. Especially during time of drought that does make a difference.
I don’t believe it is beside the point, George. Thinking in purely personal terms narrows our scope of action to simply our own consumption habits.
If all each one of us does is limit our own water use, we cannot stop the water crisis. We have to limit our use AND limit corporate use. Even if California humans cut their water use in half, California humans would be responsible for 2.5% of California’s water usage. And California agriculture would still be using 93% .
Maybe a parable will help:
Robert Jay Lifton, in his famous book The Nazi Doctors, wondered how men (they were men then) who had taken the Hippocratic oath to do no harm could participate in concentration camps. He found that oftentimes these doctors did everything they could for their patients. They would give a patient an aspirin to lick. They would excuse them from labor for a day.
They did everything they personally could, but they never did the most important thing of all: They never challenged the Nazi system that was killing their patients in the first place.
Regarding Bob Dorn’s comment, Wikipedia isn’t wrong. Rather, it refers to water use, as traditionally measured, while the Pacific Institute uses a wider and newer concept — water footprint — which Will Falk uses in his article.
Interestingly, the Pacific Institute study says that your water footprint in California is slightly less than the average American. So what’s going on in the rest of the U.S? Also, more than ten percent of your water footprint comes from poorer developing countries!
The future — don’t be surprised by water wars (look what is happening in Sonora) And, agriculture will have to change — and not just subsidy policies. Among other things, presently efficiency in agriculture is frequently measured by yield per acre. We will have to move to efficiency being determined by yield per acre foot of water.
Liberate the water markets from government planning and appropriate rationing will take place. Eliminate subsides and the high-volume users (whom the author calls “corporate”) will conserve or perish
Keep the markets away from water. Water is essential, it belongs to the people, it is a public good.
There was, is, and always will be a water market. The question is, do you want the price set by a few or by the millions of users?
I like that idea, Brian.
I would go a step farther. Eliminate subsidies and eliminate government protection for high-volume users. If a business uses too much water, then community members can shut down that business. Forcibly, if need be.
I must admit I had a dream last night that outraged humans (especially mothers affected by fracked groundwater) started dismantling fracking stations and the police showed up. Instead of pepper spraying everyone, the police formed a perimeter to keep angry suits off the dismantlers.
It was the best dream I’ve had in a long time.
“If a business uses too much water, then community members can shut down that business. Forcibly, if need be.”
I can’t support violence but by eliminating the subsidies, you properly allocate the cost of products. If said businesses can’t produce products, at a competitive, non-subsidized price, they stop consuming water. (unless the profit incentive is so powerful that alternative water collection/production methods come into play)
Pricing (in a TRULY free market) really does efficiently allocate resources
That’s the problem, for me, about a market. The market exists to place value on things. But, how do you place a value on water?
The world is not filled with “resources” or “things to be used.” The world is filled with other beings to be entered into relationship with. Water, included.
And as far as violence, the violence is already being done. Are the dams preventing salmon from reaching their spawning grounds not violent?
And if we were effective at dismantling the systems that allow our water to be wasted as it is, you can bet the violence will intensify.
Imagine if we decided that there’s not enough time to let the political process sort this all out (there’s not). Imagine if our water, our streams, our rivers, our fish, our poor communities who are hit hardest by the water crisis, are more important to us than cotton. Imagine if we organized to physically stop water from being used on commodity crops through tearing down dams or blockading irrigation ditches.
How long will it be before police violence is visited upon us?
“That’s the problem, for me, about a market. The market exists to place value on things. But, how do you place a value on water? ”
You tell me–how important is water to you? I have an idea about how important it is to me. At a certain price, I won’t water my lawn nor bathe every day for that matter.
The point (I made earlier) is that there always was, is right now, and always will be a market for water. The question is– do we want thirty people setting the price of 30 million people setting the price? The faster we move towards the latter, the more providers we are likely to have to keep costs down
Value and price aren’t the same. Free market proponents would have us believe that they are. Using the argument that 30 million people will set the price conveniently glosses over the fact that privatization represents the interests of the few and 30 million actually won’t set the price.
Yeah, we all remember that Free Market for electricity for California…
That wasn’t a free market, Doug. I think you know that from my past explanations.