Doomed

I spent the majority of my five and half hour bicoastal flight from DC to LA reading this week’s articles on water scarcity and the global inability to deal with the seeming catastrophe headed our way.  Much of that flight was spent flying over the earth parceled off nicely into large square blocks and circles that can be seen from 32,000 feet.  This scene played out in the plains surrounding the Rockies and in the deserts of the southwestern part of the United States.  It’s not new, I’ve flown this route many times before and witnessed these large crop circles in what appears to be locations as inhospitable as Mars.  Not a river in sight.  Just brown, dry dust.  I got thirsty just looking at it. Yet amongst that dust we grow a good portion of the country’s food supply. Further along the path we approached one of the nations largest urban areas, smack in the middle of this desert. It is an urban area as expansive as any other in the United States, home to almost four million people.  These people live in the City of Angles, they are addicted to their cars (yes plural - most families here have more than one), lawns, golf courses, and swimming pools. Take the 405 south anther hundred miles and you run into another two million people living in an equally, if not more so, parched landscape. Go east about a hundred miles and you continue to find humanity spread out amongst the dunes, mesas, cactus, and lush green golf courses.  Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and Phoenix are all prime examples of this. Traveling around Los Angeles one lives in constant fear that an errant discard of a still lit match could ignite the whole tinderbox for good. With good friends and family living amongst it all, I feel a legitimate fear wash over me upon final decent when I catch myself wondering: Are we too (Southern California and its way of life), on our own final descent?

Mere hours after arrival I steer the conversation to these observations.  Are you worried? What is happening?  Do you think we will run out?  Sure there is concern, some more acutely aware than others, but for the most part there seems to be a mild discomfort by the entire situation.  There aren’t signs posted all over town flashing in bright neon signs screaming, “WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF WATER AND WE WILL PERISH AS A RESULT!!!!”  I saw a small sign posted at the Getty that as a result of the drought, they have elected to turn off one of the fountains.  No further than ten meters down the path we come to two other swimming pool size fountains and sculptures that are running with their water on.  At UCLA, the same school where just months ago a 93 year old water main broke sending 8 to 10 million of gallons of water gushing onto the campus (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/surfs-water-main-break-floods-ucla-campus-n168686) and into the drains, they still run the fountains. Swimming pools are still filled, lawns are still green, and cars still shine in the Southern California sun.  The governor of California, Jerry Brown, recently requested that CA residents voluntarily reduce their water consumption by 20%.  “REQUESTED”  “VOLUNTARILY” What the hell is going on here? Is this some sort of bad b-list horror flick? Why doesn’t water cost $20 per gallon? Why are we dumping this life sustaining resource on dirt to make it green? Why are there still F*#%ing golf courses???? Because, as George H.W. Bush notoriously put in at the Rio summit, “the American way of life is non-negotiable.”  This goes double for the Southern Californian way of life.

Two days before I arrived the Mayor of L.A., Eric Garcetti, announced new city wide water-use guidelines to mandate a reduction of usage of 20% by 2017.  Currently usage in the city averages out at 131 gallons of water per day per person. Doomed. His plan calls for reducing outdoor watering from three days to two. Hopeless. Using pool covers to reduce water evaporation. Condemned.  It’s being touted as “ambitious”, “significant”, and “bold”. Disaster.  Don’t get me wrong, these are definitely steps in the right direction, but we cannot afford to walk, we need to sprint. Directives need to be handed down with reckless abandon, without regard to the next election.  Because that’s what leaders, true leaders do.  Command and control is the only feasible approach on this. We will not change our own behavior, not enough to matter anyway. Because remember, I want my pool. 

The conversation around the dinner table turns once again to water. What will you do if it stops coming out of the taps? Blank stares followed by looks of “it’ll never happen”, “you’re insane”, and “alarmist”.  Maybe I am. Filled with facts, figures, and paradigms from Conca and Barlow.  I gaze out at the ocean and know, sure as I know the sun will rise tomorrow, that this is where our future water supply is. As Barlow says, the desalination plants will ring the earths oceans, but only where it can be afforded. We will continue to grow grass, play golf, and keep those $85,000 cars impressive.  We will continue to the grow food in the desert and ship it overseas, the very same seas that provide the water for their existence.  What will be the consequences of this? What systems will we disrupt and pollute? What dire challenges will we create for ourselves with this set of decisions? 

I don’t know the answers to this.  What I do know is this: Access to clean drinking water is running out.  There is nothing on the planet that is more precious besides air. I’m looking north my friends. Cold and wet. Survive.