Climate Change and Fresh Water Resources:
A Moral Guide to the Great Unknown
Offered by Brent M. Haddad, November 20, 2005
The WWII generation has been called by many our greatest generation of
Americans. This lofty accolade has been bestowed upon those Americans born in
the ‘teens and ‘20s who weathered the great Depression, fought in WWII, and then
contributed their energies to the post-War boom that built America into the nation
it is today.
There are things that that generation faced that I hope we never have to face,
including war, economic collapse, and the oppressive social conditions that
preceded the civil rights movement. But there are a couple of things that
generation enjoyed that we might dearly wish for today. Specifically, fewer people
and richer reserves of natural resources. In 1920, California’s population was 3.4
million, roughly one-tenth its current number. Our national and global populations
were in 1920 one third their current size. That’s one-third, and in California’s
case, one-tenth of the people to shelter, clothe, feed, and employ. Compared to
today, those born in the 1920s also had at their disposal 85 extra years of not-yetconsumed natural resources, including minerals, forests, fisheries, top soil, and, as
we have been discussing today, fresh water. Before returning to the topic of water,
allow me to mention another resource we had in greater abundance in 1920. It was
our earth’s carrying capacity for the wastes of industrial production, most
especially our atmosphere’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, produced by the
burning of fossil fuels, without disturbance to its functioning, that is, without
getting hotter.
1
By 1920, we were still comfortably living out Thomas Jefferson’s triumphant
claim made, in 1801 in his first inaugural address, when he said: “(Ours is) a
chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and
thousandth generation….” Room for one hundred generations? For one thousand?
In ten generations, we have reach a point never before experienced by the
European immigrants to North America and their descendants. We have reached
the point of binding constraints on our use of natural resources, not least of which
in importance is this odd resource I’ve called carrying capacity of the atmosphere.
We are experiencing this binding constraint directly in the form of an overheating
planet and indirectly in the changing patterns of storms, droughts, and rainfall that
is being experienced throughout the world. There are few precedents in American
experience for the phenomenon of running out of something not just regionally, but
nationally, and in this case, globally.
When dealing with the water-related risks of climate change, several principles
have emerged. Each has its partisans and opponents and each gets proposed,
refuted, restated, and re-refuted in never-ending attempts to capture public and
political support throughout the world. Let me run through a short list of these
principles.
The first set of principles answers the question “When do we act?”
- The Precautionary Principle – when facing potentially-disastrous
consequences, it is better to take precautionary action even when our
certainty of bad outcomes is low.
- Wait until we are certain about what needs to be done. Then act.
The next set answers “Who should be helped?”
- Help the poorest first
2
- Help the must vulnerable first
- Help those individuals or nations least likely to squander the help first
- Help our friends and families first.
The next set of principles answers “Who should do the helping?”
- Those who caused the problem should fix the problem
- Those who will contribute the most to the problem in the future should
contribute the most to the solution.
- Let those with the most to lose take the most action
- Those who can afford to help should help.
- Everyone should help.
The last set of principles answer “What should or shouldn’t be done?”
- Do nothing that compromises personal freedom
- Do nothing that compromises near-term prosperity
- Do nothing that forecloses the options and opportunities of those not yet
born (the sustainability ethic)
- Protect plants and animals – ecosystems – at the expense of human wellbeing.
These principles are referenced again and again in climate change debates. They
each have deep historical roots in moral philosophy, and, when invoked, often
point in entirely different policy directions than the other principles. There is no
consensus on which principles are the right ones to follow, or which are the most
important ones to follow. There is, however, an unspoken consensus that climate
change choices must be morally justified, and this in itself is a very good thing.
3
Our UU Legislative Ministry has stepped into this debate. The UU Legislative
Ministry has taken up “Water Democracy” as an action theme. The challenge is
immense, and the Legislative Ministry and its lay committees are all people of
good will. I wish I could report that these brothers and sisters in spirituality, having
done their research and carefully applied our UUA principles, have reached
important moral conclusions that point in the right policy directions. I can’t report
this. Instead, they have diligently documented problems, applied our principles,
and reached the wrong conclusions.
Our UUA principles can be found in the opening pages of our hymnal. Two
principles our Legislative Ministry has applied to water in climate change issues
include: “Equity in human relations” and “Use of the democratic process in society
at large.” They have drawn the conclusion that water is not a commodity and
should not be treated as such. Therefore, there is no place for private sector
involvement in the management and supply of fresh water resources. These
conclusions are simply wrong. Water is many many things, with many different
meanings. Water is sometimes a commodity, and everyone in this room has
engaged in the purchase or use of water as a commodity when they have purchased
a container of bottled drinking water. Water as a commodity is the water we buy
and take on hikes. Water as a commodity is the water we buy and keep at the
office. We all benefit from that portion of water that is treated as a commodity. In
fact, water treated as a commodity – bottled water sold to individuals by private
firms kept many people alive in New Orleans while the public water system was
completely out of commission. In a climate-change water world, our very lives
may depend on commoditized water as the one remaining reliable supply.
4
Should private firms be involved in the provision of drinking water supplies? Our
Legislative Ministry says no. I say yes. Always and everywhere? No. In
reaching their conclusion, our Legislative Ministry is guilty of an inconsistency.
Their inconsistency revolves around their confidence in government processes. On
the one hand, they have faith that government will to be able to provide water
services equitably and democratically, while on the other hand, they have no faith
that government can regulate the private provision of water services equitably and
democratically. It can’t be both ways. Either the government is robust,
resourceful, and trustworthy or it isn’t. The presence or absence of a private water
firm does not influence the more basic issue of government capacity and
commitment to serving the public.
Now is not the time to foreclose water-management options. With all of the
uncertainty surrounding climate change and fresh water, now is the time to
entertain every possible option. By attacking the whole of the private water sector,
we are closing off what might for some places be the best hope for a reliable
supply of drinking water democratically and equitably provided. I hope that our
Legislative Ministry will be willing to reconsider its current conclusions on this
matter.
Let me turn now to a different instance in which three of our UUA principles, each
like a powerful yet graceful sailing ship when plying the seas of human experience
alone, have now collided with each other, entangled their rigging, and in the
crucial issue-area of managing our fresh water resources, provide little guidance. I
have mentioned this before. The three principles are:
“Equity in human relations” (again)
5
“Inherent dignity of every person” – worthy of esteem and respect
“Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
If we define human dignity as having access to sanitation services, that is,
bathrooms using water and plumbing to remove human waste, and if we define
equity as making such services available to everybody, the result will be
devastation for the interdependent web of all existence. We simply don’t have
enough water in the developing world to meet standards of human dignity in an
equitable manner while also respecting the interdependent web of all existence. I
have estimated that in the developing world we are one river short of sufficient
water supply, but that river needs to have the annual flow of the Nile. In addition
to lacking the water, we lack the money and the expertise. We simply can’t meet
all three of these principles in terms of the outcome of how water is used in the
world.
With respect to dealing with climate change and water, allow me to sort through all
the various principles mentioned thus far and suggest my own preferred set.
First, we must concern ourselves primarily with procedural equity and not
prejudge the equity of the outcome.
Second, we must find ways to define human dignity that are not tied to specific
technologies or levels of resource consumption.
Third, we must refine a well-known environmental adage that the “polluter must
pay” to clean up pollution to “the polluter must act” to clean up pollution. I bring
this up since many polluters cannot afford to pay but can take action that will
minimize their impacts on water quality.
6
Fourth, we must take our obligations to future generations seriously, even if it
means leaving this era’s poverty problems unsolved. I argue this because the intergenerational transfer of knowledge and culture requires some concentration of
wealth. ome of the wealth we transfer must be in the form of an intact resource
base.
And finally, we must leave our options open, and even encourage redundancy in
our water supply and sanitation systems since, like the people of New Orleans, we
don’t know which system will fail in a climate or other emergency.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1936, told America: “There is a mysterious cycle in
human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is
expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” To arrive
at our rendezvous with destiny, we must first chart the uncertain moral grounds of
an industrial society with a burgeoning population and diminished resource base,
then set a policy course, and then take the necessary action. Because we are
starting further back, without the comfort of well-conceived, time-tested value
statements to guide our choices, instead traversing new, uncharted territory of
resource constraints, the challenge facing this generation, and especially our
children, could prove even greater than those faced by all previous American
generations. I wish us well.
7