LeakBird

(Jan. 14, 2009, Urban Work Bench)

Over at Aguanomics there is a guest post by Damian Bickett, a PhD student from University of California Berkley. In this post Damian discusses the use of the term “Peak Water” in a book  by Peter Gleick (among others) of the Pacific Institute. You can read the whole post here, but this is the final two paragraphs…

Now, to get to water. Besides the major problems I have with peak oil, even if true, applying it to water is odd. Water is a renewable resource rather than a nonrenewable one (except some groundwater situations), and so Peak Oil refers mainly to a permanent condition while with water, it is more about management. Attempts to bring the alleged water crisis underneath the umbrella of Peak Oil seems to be an attempt to corral anti-growth, anti-corporate activists into the same tent, and it confuses the message of both problems.

Bottom Line: People are flexible and can deal easily with less, but we need good price signals to do so. The oil market allows prices to rise and to therefore allocate the scare resource. Water prices ought to be able to do the same.

Source: Aguanomics: Peak Water?.

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