The Future is Upon Us

I've recently been in conversations where people have suggested the next wars will be about water and food. Think about how much of your food is imported from different countries. What would you do if imported food was no longer available? Especially consider the winter.

In Canada we kind of take the water part for granted. Yes we should all work towards conserving water. It is not an infinite resource, but for the most part, Canadians are not dying from lack of clean water. This does not mean we don't have to worry about water wars, it just puts us on the defensive. And it starts now (from Alison at Creekside):

"It's no secret that the U.S. is going to need water. ...

It's no secret that Canada is going to have an overabundance of water.
At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements."

So says Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the North American Future 2025 Project, which is wrapping up its closed-door two-day conference in Calgary today.

NAF2025 Project is the trilateral spawn of the US thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada, and CIDE, a Mexican policy institute.

Its mandate is implementing the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the deep integration deal signed by Bush, Fox, and Martin in 2005 and further expanded by Bush, Fox, and Harper in 2006.

From an outline of the conference :

"the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water."

Not bad.

'All your water are belong to us' would have been catchier.

Still, the message is unmistakable, isn't it?

Hmm, I'm all for sharing, but the US doesn't have a good track record for sharing nicely. Remember the softwood lumber dispute anyone?

CC from Canadian Cynic weighs in:

Got that? An "overabundance" of water. The implication is clear: somehow, it's just not right. It's just not fair. We have so much while others have so little, so we should work to somehow balance this out because, well, it's the right thing to do.

And if any of my American readers want to take that position, let me give them something to think about:

* Though accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world's energy. (American Almanac)

* In 1997, U.S. residents consumed an average of 12,133 kilowatt-hours of electricity each, almost nine times greater than the average for the rest of the world. (Grist Magazine)

Sure, let's talk about fair and balanced, shall we? Tell you what -- we can discuss sharing all that water equally when you folks start consuming energy equally.

Whaddya think? Is that fair? Does that work for you?

But my absolute favourite quote on the issue if from commenter North of 49 at Creekside:

I think it stems from the same mindset that demands to know what all that American oil is doing under the sands of Iraq and Iran.