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Don't Live Here
While skimming Digg this morning I stumbled on an interesting article about how the city of Phoenix reduced their water use by twenty percent since 1980. My first reaction was enthusiastic support. How fantastic – this dry region is seeing positive results from altered behavior, policy changes, and conservation efforts. In less than a day the story had received fifty-two comments. Generally speaking, that’s not a huge number, but for a story covering this topic it surprised me. When reviewing those comments, I realized that many were communicating the very attitude I mention at the start of this post – who cares about a twenty percent reduction, people shouldn’t live in deserts.
Doesn’t that kind of miss the point? Such comments contribute little to the larger conversation? People shouldn’t live in deserts, people shouldn’t live in regions prone to tornados, people shouldn’t live in regions prone to hurricanes, people shouldn’t live on a fault line, and so on. When Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 I heard the same type of statements – what did they expect living in a city that’s below sea level. In the months that followed, talking with friends about the disaster showed an underlying belief that the city would be better off abandoned. Doing so would mean giving up one quarter of the nation’s petroleum refining. Not to mention the birthplace of the only indigenous American music style – the Blues, unique food culture, a city like none other, history, heritage, and the homes of so many.
It seems a ridiculous point to make. People already live in these areas. By the kind of reason proposed in these comments, the residents of the most populous state in the nation should move, and the most productive agricultural region of the country should be vacated. The three principle metropolitan areas of California – San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – all lie on a major seismic fault line. Los Angeles has an arid Mediterranean climate with low annual precipitation. If the region’s water supply relied only on precipitation and ground water, the second largest U.S. city would cease to exist. And anyone like myself with fair complexion prone to easy sunburn should not live in a city with so many days of sunshine. It’s too late to make such inane statements about where people choose to live – like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped.
So where should we live? By the logic implied in the comments I read this morning, the area would likely be very small, and very crowded. The problem is knowing where to draw the line. What are reasonable criteria in deciding the optimal conditions for human occupation. I’m not going to do a comprehensive study. Instead, my hunch tells me that no matter where you chose to live you will be exposed to potential natural disaster and possible resource scarcity. Don’t live here. Sustaining civilization in the face of extreme adversity and inhospitable conditions has played a crucial part of human history. One of our species survival strategies is tied to our understanding of time – past, present, and future – and the ability to plan ahead. And that’s why the article about Phoenix water conservation should be celebrated. What do you think? Let us know.
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