[FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)

Mon Apr 19 13:16:20 EDT 2021

In the spirit of generative dialog, I offer a few bits:

Some feel that the Red Queen is winning, in spite of the paradox of that
logic: Abundance  <https://www.stevenkotler.com/book-pages/abundance> -
Steven Kotler (former local associate of this group).  His arc of
point-making includes a lot of high-tech but *distributed* solutions,
like getting a 5 gallon-per-day portable water filter system to every
third world family at a "reasonable cost".   He implies the
tech/engineering is already in place, it is only the will of the first
world and subsequent logistics that are lacking.

Until a few years ago Colorado (and other jurisdictions) disallowed
rainwater collection, even at the level of roofs/rainbarrels.   They
relaxed that a few years ago but are still *very* clear about protecting
traditional water rights, if you read the details of the new, more
permissive rules: Rainwater Collection in Colorado
<https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/natural-resources/rainwater-collection-colorado-6-707/>. 
I can speculate about what is really *intended* by this draconian
approach, and notice in NM it is nearly the opposite, *requiring* new
construction to manage runoff (to prevent causing erosion downstream)
from one's own property.   There was an interesting movie (Even the Rain
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_the_Rain>) describing Big
Businesses' (e.g. Bechtel ) involvement in water wars in the third
world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba_Water_War>

I am in the very eye of the storm of water warfare (of sorts).   The Rio
Grande river runs 1/4 mile from me and the watershed it represents is
broken up into upper; middle; lower.   The demarcation between upper and
middle lands at the bridge 1/4 mile from my home, and there are myriad
things which can be  done above that point which become not (legally)
possible a few feet south.  In fact, the Buckman Well complex where
Santa Fe proper gets a lot of their water is just a few miles downriver
from me.    The Aamodt water
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_title_in_New_Mexico#The_1933_amendments>
battle is now 45 years old and attempts to effect the terms of the
settlements are underway all but literally in my back
yard.https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/01/12/kay-matthews-aamodt-settlement-signed-and-sealed-but-not-delivered/  
<https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/01/12/kay-matthews-aamodt-settlement-signed-and-sealed-but-not-delivered/>

The project finally broke ground last year for a huge infiltration-well
system to extract water *from* the Rio Grande to distribute to the
Nambe/Tesuque/Pojoaque river valleys, with the goal of retiring as many
groundwater wells from that region as possible.  It is armatured around
Pueblo water rights (see link above) which includes golf courses, etc. 
which many resent.  On the other hand, one can imagine how the Pueblos
resent the Spanish/Mexican/US land/water grabbing that has been going on
for 500 years with the Manhattan Project (1943) and my own property
(1960s) grabs continuing into the present.   BTW  much of the water
being extracted from the river will come from a diversion from the
Colorado basin by way of a tunnel under the Continental Divide near
Chama.   This watershed boundary disrespect might not mean much at all,
or it might be a hugely bad precedent at many levels?

For broader perspectives on this topic, I recommend this UNM Press
collection: Thinking Like a Watershed.
<https://unmpress.com/books/thinking-watershed/9780826352330>  This
phrase is a quote from John Wesley Powell who recognized the flawed way
we were *already* thinking about resource management and governance back
in the early days of the (Anglo) exploration of the West.

I would claim that water desalinization (nanotech or otherwise) doesn't
even address, much less solve most of these problems.    Which is not to
say that I think high-tech centralized (and distributed) water tech is
patently a bad idea, just that depending on it to solve the more complex
*systems* problems is misleading and could easily make things worse in
some cases.

- Steve

On 4/19/21 9:49 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Corporations are collective intelligences -- people -- but they need someone to sell to.   No point in owning all the air or water unless you have millions of people desperate to pay for it!   But that said, horizons of five years are a long time for most companies.   CEOs incentivized to extract every bit out of those short horizons to please their shareholders.   And the shareholders are too selfish to achieve something like Elysium or even large private water desalination plants.    Even if there is a small evil population that kills off the rest, I don't see how capitalism is going to lead to that.   
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 8:11 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)
>
> I should have linked this:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-ted-chiang-transcript.html
>
> "It’s capitalism that wants to reduce costs and reduce costs by laying people off. It’s not that like all technology suddenly becomes benign in this world. But it’s like, in a world where we have really strong social safety nets, then you could maybe actually evaluate sort of the pros and cons of technology as a technology, as opposed to seeing it through how capitalism is going to use it against us. How are giant corporations going to use this to increase their profits at our expense?"
>
> On 4/19/21 8:01 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>> Ha! Sure. ... it still looks like SteveS called it with the Red Queen's Race. Even if such tech solves more problems than it creates, it'll still be distributed according to the power structures in place (e.g. rich people) when the tech's ready to scale.
>>
>> On 4/19/21 7:54 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> Again technology to the rescue...   Nanotechnology for desalinization.   
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
>>> Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 7:45 AM
>>> To: friam at redfish.com
>>> Subject: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)
>>>
>>> Copper? Natural gas? Pffft! Water's the interesting one.
>>>
>>> https://theconversation.com/interstate-water-wars-are-heating-up-alon
>>> g-with-the-climate-159092
>>>
>>> And another one:
>>> https://www.theolympian.com/news/business/article250595449.html
>>>
>>> On 4/15/21 7:59 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>>>> Another good example is water rights across states given watersheds, 
>>>> flood irrigation, etc.
>>>> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/05/arizona-water-one-p
>>>> er
>>>> centers>
>>>>
>>>> So, the question you're asking (how might "storage" in BTC be less preferable to other assets?) isn't really answerable *without* first discussing what that reservoir is *for*, what end does it serve?
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20210419/5b29fd73/attachment.html>