Garrett Hardin is Astonished

The following is a research note with comments written by Garrett Hardin on the subject of Western Water by Ted Sudia which appeared in We the People, May 1989 Vol. 4 No. 5. Dr. Hardin has given We the People permission to publish his note with a reply by Dr. Sudia. (Ed)

Body of Citation

Discussion of Central Arizona Project

Water that was brought long distances for agriculture is going to be used for city water supply. This is an ecologically sound development and economically prudent.... Farmers cannot pay much more than $11 an acre foot for water. A city can easily pay $1000 an acre foot....

In Washington, DC, household water costs $1250.17 per acre foot. The standard of living in Tucson is not much different from Washington, DC. They could afford to pay $1200/acre foot for water as well. The highest and best use for water in the desert is to urbanize the desert....

I would have no problem subsidizing the growth of fresh vegetables for the table. I do have a problem with irrigated cotton. It would, however, make the most sense to grow crops where rainfall is abundant and therefore not in need of subsidy. Subsidized water should be used for urban development where the costs can be sustained without undue strain on the local economy....

...Sooner or later the west is going to have to support itself. Urbanization and industrialization are better mechanisms than agriculture.

Agriculture should thrive where it can under natural conditions. Urbanization should thrive where conditions could make it flourish. The desert is ideal for urbanization. Areas with high rainfall are ideal for agriculture. These relationships are simple ecology.

Private Notes

(July 1989): An astonishing mixture of sense and nonsense.

1. Author on right track in condemning growing of cotton on subsidized water--because the cotton will receive a further subsidy in the form of price/supports later.

2. Author oblivious to great use of energy in cooling houses in the desert. As fossil fuel disappears, living in desert will become very expensive.

3. When fossil fuel is completely gone (after quite a long while for coal)! solar panels would then gather energy to cool houses undesirably heated by solar energy. Solar to correct for solar!

4. As for agriculture, there is no need to make this double use of solar energy.

5. Long before coal is gone, petroleum will be forbiddingly expensive. The urban investment in place will create political pressure to support the continued existence of cities in the desert where they should not be. Why should commonized funds (Federal money) be invested in the production of future problems? (The author seems to think that the "local economy" pays for the CAP.)

6. Deduction: the author is probably an economist; and is certainly a city boy.

(After entering this material in my research file, it occurred to me that you might be interested in my reaction. --GH)

Sudia replies:

(1) Sudia agrees with Hardin's statement on the use of subsidized water to grow subsidized crops.

(2) Sudia knows that the best rafting on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon occurs in the hottest months of the year when Glen Canyon Dam is producing its maximum electrical output to run the air conditioners in Phoenix. The west has hydropower and vast amounts of coal. The Navajo plant is burning 50,000 tons of coal a day and producing the haze that now obscures Grand Canyon during inversions. Then there are the 4 Corners Power Plant, the Mojave Plant and others. Before electrical motors ran compressors to run air conditioners, the west used evaporative cooling which was not the best but it worked. Cooling a house in the desert summer is no more of a problem than heating a house in the corn belt during the winter.

(3) The known world reserve of oil is sufficient to last to the year 3000 at rates comparable to its use in 1972. The problem is most of the oil is owned by OPEC and economics i.e. price will be a bigger factor than supply. The known reserves of coal go off into the distant future, without counting oil sands, oil tar, or oil shale. The U. S. made a conscious decision in the 1940's to abandon research on coal which was leading to a carbo-chemical industry and instead opted for petro-chemicals. The potential of a carbo-chemical industry is as great or greater than petro-chemical. Solar to correct solar is ideal. In the Mohave desert a commercial power company is producing photovoltaic energy at rates competitive in today's market. Solar collectors will contribute to global cooling instead of global warming if any of the energy is converted to forms other than heat (1st Law). In the long run all fuel sources should continue to decline in price, as they have throughout history, making solar attractive for many reasons. In an ideal world solar would provide a significant share of required energy and natural gas, oil and coal would be chemical feedstocks for a new age of plastics et al.

(4) No comment.

(5) Oil will be here for any strategic planning of the near future (100 yrs out). Coal will last into the unforeseeable future. The future for solar is just beginning and should last the life of the planet. Over the years, civilizations have risen and fallen, their destinies entangled with long distance trade.

Great manufacturing centers of antiquity were abandoned and new ones have arisen. The investment in place is simply a cost of doing business. The piece on western water was written to protest the use of "commonized funds" to support ecologically unsound agricultural systems when ecologically sound urban systems could be established in their place. Agriculture in the desert can't pay for the water necessary for its existence, urbanization and industrial uses of water in the desert could pay for themselves and make a "profit.' A local industrialized urban economy can pay for its water, agriculture in the same place must be subsidized.

(6) Hardin is correct in calling Sudia a city boy since he was born and raised in the industrial Ohio Valley near Pittsburgh but he errs in calling him an economist. Sudia is out of the Chicago school of ecology: Cowles; Transeau; Wolfe; Sudia.

Gibbon on the Arms Race

The Secret Weapon

"The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire (Roman Empire seated at Constantinople) and the adjacent kingdoms would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that should give them a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion.

In a Short While Everyone Had Cannon

"It was soon observed that, if the expansive force were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise era of the invention and the application of gun powder is involved in doubtful traditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly discern that before the middle of the fourteenth century, and that before the end of the same the use of artillery in battles and sieges by sea and land was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England.

The Level Playing Field

"The priority of nations is of small account; none could derive any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge; and in the common improvement they stood on the same level of relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; it was disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of rivals; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer.

The End of Masonery Fortifications

"The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that his cannon was cast and directed at the seige of Constantinople. The first attempt was in deed unsuccessful; but in general warfare of the age the advantage was on their side of the attack and defence was suspended, and the thundering artillery was pointed at the walls and towers which had been erected only to resist the less potent engines of Antiquity.

Easy Victories Over Savages

"By the Venetians the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind."

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)...
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. III pps 685-686

© Copyright 1989
Institute for domestic Tranquility