☆☆四星级☆☆Economist Debate阅读写作分析－－the value of H2O

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

The value of H2O
--This house believes that water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value.

http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/133

content：
1# about the debates         done   
2-3# background reading    done   
4# opening statements       done   
5# guest                           done
6# rebuttal statements       done
7# guest*3                       done
8-9# closing statements     done
10# decision                      done
11# comments                not
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17# 汇总                          not


好词好句
读不懂
思路分析
扩展的知识点及与aw的联系

About this debate

Water is both an industrial input and a prerequisite（先决条件，前提precondition） of life. Roughly a billion people do not have a constant supply of clean and safe water. Would water supplies be better managed if it were treated as a commodity, and priced accordingly? Or is water a basic human right that governments should secure for their citizens? 社会类、政治类话题

Do you agree with the motion?

Representing the sides
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Defending the motion

Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann Managing Director, WaterTech Capital & co-founder, Palisades Water Index Associates

The severe spatial and temporal imbalances in the supply of and demand for water—and safe drinking water in particular—dictate that water be priced at the true market value in order to resolve our global water challenges. （言简意赅，很强大。似从三个方面论证，供不足、需求大、安全饮水。静待分解）


Against the motion

Dr Vandana Shiva Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Natural Resource Policy

Between last year and this the market value of Lehman Brothers（1） dropped from $38.4 billion to $5 billion, Merrill Lynch （2）from $71.9 billion to $33.1 billion, and Morgan Stanley （3）from $70.2 to $43 billion. Since then Lehman Brothers has collapsed.（三大金融巨头的缩水或者倒闭，eco crisis，估计要从资本、价值这个角度展开辩驳吧。静待分解。）

（1）雷曼兄弟公司破产“金融海啸”来了？
雷曼兄弟公司,成立于1850年的莱曼兄弟公司是一家国际性的投资银行机构,该公司总部设在纽约,地区总部设在伦敦和东京。该公司是全球股票和定期债券的领先承销商,也是世界许多公司和政府的重要顾问机构。莱曼兄弟的风险重点投资在高新技术,医疗,消费品和金融等领域。由于英国第三大银行巴克莱宣布退出拯救“雷曼兄弟”的行动，15日凌晨曾为美国第四大投资银行的雷曼兄弟公司发表声明说，公司将于当日递交破产保护申请。消息一出，美元和美国股指期货齐声下跌，预示当天纽约股市开盘后可能大跌，有分析家甚至形容可能会引发“股市海啸”。美国政府乃至全球金融界担心，一旦“雷曼兄弟”遭贱卖，可能在金融界触发多米诺骨牌效应，影响整个经济形势稳定与健康。
（2）美林公司
2008年9月14日周日晚间，已有94年历史的美林公司(Merrill Lynch & Co.)同意以大约440亿美元的价格出售给美国银行(Bank of America Corp.)。二者的合并将造就一家业务范围广泛的银行巨头， 角几乎涉及了金融领域的方方面面，遍布信用卡、汽车贷款、债券和股票承销、并购咨询和资产管理各个方面。美林证券是世界领先的财务管理和顾问公司之一，总部位于美国纽约。作为世界的最大的金融管理咨询公司之一，它在财务世界里响叮当名字里占有一席之地。
（3）摩根士丹利
美国联邦储备委员会在21日晚间宣布，已批准了高盛和摩根士丹利提出的转为银行控股公司的请求。而高盛和大摩的转型，意味着“长久以来世人熟知的华尔街的终结”。

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Background reading

1、Case history
Tapping the oceans
Jun 5th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Environmental technology: Desalination turns salty water into fresh water. As concern over water’s scarcity grows, can it offer a quick technological fix?

THERE are vast amounts of water on earth. Unfortunately, over 97% of it is too salty for human consumption and only a fraction of the remainder is easily accessible in rivers, lakes or groundwater. Climate change, droughts, growing population and increasing industrial demand are straining the available supplies of fresh water. More than 1 billion people live in areas where water is scarce, according to the United Nations, and that number could increase to 1.8 billion by 2025.（关于水资源的缺乏。具体数据。例子。）

One time-tested but expensive way to produce drinking water is desalination: removing dissolved salts from sea and brackish water. Its appeal is obvious. The world’s oceans, in particular, present a virtually limitless and drought-proof supply of water. “If we could ever competitively—at a cheap rate—get fresh water from salt water,” observed President John Kennedy nearly 50 years ago, “that would be in the long-range interest of humanity, and would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.” （科技类长远利益与眼前利益那题。以及科技类投资priority那道。）

According to the latest figures from the International Desalination Association, there are now 13,080 desalination plants in operation around the world. Together they have the capacity to produce up to 55.6m cubic metres of drinkable water a day—a mere 0.5% of global water use. About half of the capacity is in the Middle East. Because desalination requires large amounts of energy and can cost several times as much as treating river or groundwater, its use in the past was largely confined to wealthy oil-rich nations, where energy is cheap and water is scarce.

But now things are changing. As more parts of the world face prolonged droughts or water shortages, desalination is on the rise. In California alone some 20 seawater-desalination plants have been proposed, including a $300m facility near San Diego. Several Australian cities are planning or constructing huge desalination plants, with the biggest, near Melbourne, expected to cost about $2.9 billion. Even London is building one. According to projections (conclude/forecast)from Global Water Intelligence, a market-research firm, worldwide desalination capacity will nearly double between now and 2015.

Not everyone is happy about this. Some environmental groups are concerned about the energy the plants will use, and the greenhouse gases they will spew out. A large desalination plant can suck up enough electricity in one year to power more than 30,000 homes. 提出新问题，能源耗费&环境问题。科技的进步似乎总会带来这样那样的问题，提出问题-解决问题-提出新问题-解决新问题，此循环下科技进步，社会发展

The good news is that advances in technology and manufacturing have reduced the cost and energy requirements of desalination. And many new plants are being held to strict environmental standards. One recently built plant in Perth, Australia, runs on renewable energy from a nearby wind farm. In addition, its modern seawater-intake and waste-discharge systems minimise the impact on local marine life. Jason Antenucci, deputy director of the Centre for Water Research at the University of Western Australia in Perth, says the facility has “set a benchmark(standard/criterion/level) for other plants in Australia.”

References to removing salt from seawater can be found in stories and legends dating back to ancient times. But the first concerted efforts to produce drinking water from seawater were not until the 16th century, when European explorers on long sea voyages began installing simple desalting equipment on their ships for emergency use. These devices tended to be crude and inefficient, and boiled seawater above a stove or furnace.

An important advance in desalination came from the sugar industry. To produce crystalline sugar, large amounts of fuel were needed to heat the sugar sap and evaporate the water it contained. Around 1850 an American engineer named Norbert Rillieux won several patents for a way to refine sugar more efficiently. His idea became what is known today as multiple-effect distillation, and consists of a cascading system of chambers, each at a lower pressure than the one before. This means the water boils at a lower temperature in each successive chamber. Heat from water vapour in the first chamber can thus be recycled to evaporate water in the next chamber, and so on. 学科交叉，不同领域相互借鉴得以成功

No salt, please
This reduced the energy consumption of sugar refining by up to 80%, says James Birkett of West Neck Strategies, a desalination consultancy based in Nobleboro, Maine. But it took about 50 years for the idea to make its way from one industry to another. Only in the late 19th century did multi-effect evaporators for desalination begin to appear on steamships and in arid countries such as Yemen and Sudan.

A few multi-effect distillation plants were built in the first half of the 20th century, but a flaw in the system hampered(disturb) its widespread adoption. Mineral deposits tended to build up on heat-exchange surfaces, and this inhibited the transfer of energy. In the 1950s a new type of thermal-desalination process, called multi-stage flash, reduced this problem. In this, seawater is heated under high pressure and then passed through a series of chambers, each at a lower pressure than the one before, causing some of the water to evaporate or “flash” at each step. Concentrated seawater is left at the bottom of the chambers, and freshwater vapour condenses above. Because evaporation does not happen on the heat-exchange surfaces, fewer minerals are deposited.

Countries in the Middle East with a lot of oil and a little water soon adopted multi-stage flash. Because it needs hot steam, many desalination facilities were put next to power stations, which generate excess heat. For a time, the cogeneration of electricity and water dominated the desalination industry.

Research into new ways to remove salt from water picked up in the 1950s. The American government set up the Office of Saline Water to support the search for desalination technology. And scientists at the University of Florida and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) began to investigate membranes that are permeable to water, but restrict the passage of dissolved salts.

Such membranes are common in nature. When there is a salty solution on one side of a semi-permeable membrane (such as a cell wall), and a less salty solution on the other, water diffuses through the membrane from the less concentrated side to the more concentrated side. This process, which tends to equalise the saltiness of the two solutions, is called osmosis. Researchers wondered whether osmosis could be reversed by applying pressure to the more concentrated solution, causing water molecules to diffuse through the membrane and leave behind even more highly concentrated brine(seawater).

Initial efforts showed only limited success, producing tiny amounts of fresh water. That changed in 1960, when Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan of UCLA hand-cast their own membranes from cellulose acetate, a polymer used in photographic film. Their new membranes boasted a dramatically improved flux (the rate at which water molecules diffuse through a membrane of a given size) leading, in 1965, to a small “reverse osmosis” plant for desalting brackish water in Coalinga, California.

The energy requirements for thermal desalination do not much depend on the saltiness of the source water, but the energy needed for reverse osmosis is directly related to the concentration of dissolved salts. The saltier the water, the higher the pressure it takes (and hence the more energy you need) to push water through a membrane in order to leave behind the salt. Seawater generally contains 33-37 grams of dissolved solids per litre. To turn it into drinking water, nearly 99% of these salts must be removed. Because brackish water contains less salt than seawater, it is less energy-intensive, and thus less expensive, to process. As a result, reverse osmosis first became established as a way to treat brackish water.

Another important distinction is that reverse osmosis, unlike thermal desalination, calls for extensive pre-treatment of the feed water. Reverse-osmosis plants use filters and chemicals to remove particles that could clog up the membranes, and the membranes must also be washed periodically to reduce scaling and fouling.

Getting better all the time
In the late 1970s John Cadotte of America’s Midwest Research Institute and the FilmTec Corporation created a much-improved membrane by using a special cross-linking reaction between two chemicals atop a porous backing material. His composite membrane consisted of a very thin layer of polyamide, to perform the separation, and a sturdy support beneath it. Thanks to the membrane’s improved water flux, and its ability to tolerate pH and temperature variations, it went on to dominate the industry. At around the same time, the first reverse-osmosis plants for seawater began to appear. These early plants needed a lot of energy. The first big municipal seawater plant, which began operating in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1980, required more than 8 kilowatt hours (kWh) to produce one cubic metre of drinking water.

The energy consumption of such plants has since fallen dramatically, thanks in large part to energy-recovery devices. High-pressure pumps force seawater against a membrane, which is typically arranged in a spiral inside a tube, to increase the surface area exposed to the incoming water and optimise the flux through the membrane. About half of the water emerges as freshwater on the other side. The remaining liquid, which contains the leftover salts, shoots out of the system at high pressure. If that high-pressure waste stream is run through a turbine or rotor, energy can be recovered and used to pressurise the incoming seawater.

The energy-recovery devices in the 1980s were only about 75% efficient, but newer ones can recover about 96% of the energy from the waste stream. As a result, the energy use for reverse-osmosis seawater desalination has fallen. The Perth plant, which uses technology from Energy Recovery, a firm based in California, consumes only 3.7kWh to produce one cubic metre of drinking water, according to Gary Crisp, who helped to oversee the plant’s design for the Water Corporation, a local utility. Thermal plants suck up nearly as much electricity, but also need large amounts of steam. “A thermal plant only is practical if you can build it in such a way that it can take advantage of very low-cost or waste heat,” says Tom Pankratz, a water consultant based in Texas, who is also a board member of the International Desalination Association.

Economies of scale, better membranes and improved energy-recovery have helped to bring down the cost of reverse-osmosis seawater-desalination. Although the cost of desalination plants and their water depends on where they are, as well as the local costs of capital and operations, prices decreased from roughly $1.50 a cubic metre in the early 1990s to around 50 cents in 2003, says Mr Pankratz. As a result, reverse osmosis is preferred for most modern seawater-desalination (though rising energy and commodity prices mean the cost per cubic metre has now risen to around 75 cents). Experts reckon that further gains in energy efficiency, and hence cost reductions, will be increasingly difficult, however. According to a recent report on desalination from America’s National Research Council, energy use is unlikely to be reduced by much more than 15% below today’s levels—though that would still be worthwhile, it concludes.

Sometimes, using desalination within water management may be the only way to ensure supply.

To achieve these reductions, researchers want to find better membranes that allow water to pass through more easily and are less likely to get clogged up. Eric Hoek and his colleagues from UCLA, for example, have developed a membrane embedded with tiny particles containing narrow flow channels, producing a significant increase in water flux. The membrane’s smooth surface is also expected to make it harder for bacteria to latch onto. Depending on a plant’s design, the new membranes could reduce total energy consumption by as much as 20%, reckons Dr Hoek. The technology is being commercialised by NanoH2O, a company on UCLA’s campus.

Meanwhile, the possibility of making membranes out of carbon nanotubes, which consist of sheets of carbon atoms rolled up into tubes, has also garnered attention. A study published in the journal Science in 2006 demonstrated unexpectedly high water-flow rates. But insiders think it will be a decade before the idea is ready for commercialisation.

As desalination becomes more widespread, its environmental impacts, including the design of intake and discharge structures, are coming under increased scrutiny. Some of the damage can be mitigated fairly easily. Reducing the intake velocity enables most fish species and other mobile marine life to swim away from the intake system, though small animals, such as plankton or fish larvae, may still get caught in the intake screens or sucked into the plant.

Measuring the impact
A bigger problem may be the leftover brine, which typically contains twice as much salt as seawater and is discharged back into the ocean. So far little scientific information exists about its long-term effects. In the past, most big seawater-desalination plants were built in places that did not conduct adequate environmental assessments, says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a think-tank based in California that published a report on desalination in 2006. But as plants are built in areas with tighter environmental restrictions, more information is becoming available.

Some recent measurements from Perth are encouraging. Initially scientists from the Centre for Water Research feared that the brine discharge from the plant would increase the saltiness of the coastal environment. But a monitoring study found that salinity returns to normal levels within about 500 metres of the plants’ discharge units. “The brine discharge is a problem that can be overcome(做克服讲时不可数) with good design,” says Dr Antenucci.

A separate problem may be that some metals or chemicals leach into the brine. Thermal-desalination plants are prone to corrosion, and may shed traces of heavy metals, such as copper, into the waste stream. Reverse-osmosis plants, for their part, use chemicals during the pre-treatment and cleaning of the membranes, some of which may end up in the brine. Modern plants, however, remove most of the chemicals from the water before it is discharged. And new approaches to pre-treatment may reduce or eliminate the need for some chemicals.

Based on the limited evidence available to date, it appears that desalination may actually be less environmentally harmful than some other water-supply options, such as diverting large amounts of fresh water from rivers, for example, which can lead to severe reductions in local fish populations. But uncertainties over the environmental impacts of desalination make it hard to draw definite conclusions, the National Research Council concluded. Its report suggested that further research on the environmental impacts of desalination, and how to mitigate them, should be a high priority.

The reverse-osmosis process is increasingly being used not just for desalination, but to recycle wastewater, too. In Orange County, California, reclaimed water is being used to replenish(complement/make up) groundwater, and in Singapore, it is pumped into local reservoirs, which are used as a source for drinking water. In both cases, the treated water is also available for tasting at local water-recycling facilities. This “toilet-to-tap” approach may leave some people feeling queasy, but wastewater is a valuable resource, says Sabine Lattemann, a researcher at the University of Oldenburg, Germany, who studies the environmental impacts of desalination. “Energy demand is lower compared to desalination,” she explains, “and you can produce high-quality drinking water.”

As water becomes more scarce, people will want to find several ways to secure their supplies. Many parts of the world also have enormous scope to use water more efficiently, argues Dr Gleick—and that would be cheaper than desalination. But sometimes, making desalination part of the approach to water management may be the only way to ensure a steady supply of drinking water.

In drought-ridden Western Australia, which ordered conservation years ago, the Water Corporation has adopted what it calls “security through diversity”, otherwise known in the industry as the “portfolio” approach. At the moment, Perth’s residents receive about 17% of their drinking water from seawater desalination. Desalination makes sense as one of several water sources along with conservation, agrees Dr Antenucci. But, he adds, “to say it is the silver bullet (all-powerful magical weapon) to say it is wrong.”

2、China’s water-diversion scheme
A shortage of capital flows
Oct 9th 2008 | BAODING
From The Economist print edition
Going thirsty so Beijing can drink

THE water level at Wangkuai Reservoir, one of the biggest in Hebei province, is close to an historic high—in a region gripped by drought. This has been achieved by hoarding the water. Local farmers say they have received none for two years. A hydroelectric plant by the huge dam is idle. Wangkuai is preparing for what officials call a “major political task”—channelling its water to Beijing, to help boost the city’s severely depleted supplies.

On September 28th, after more than four years’ work on a 307km-long (191-mile) waterway costing more than $2 billion, Beijing began receiving its top-up. Two other large Hebei reservoirs, Gangnan and Huangbizhuang (see map), were the first to feed the new channel. Wangkuai is due to open its sluices in December, says a dam supervisor. Oddly for such a large and supposedly vital project, the launch was low key. Yet the channel’s inauguration was the most notable achievement so far of what, in the coming years, is intended to become a far more grandiose diversion scheme: bringing water from the Yangzi basin to the parched north, along channels stretching more than 1,000km.

China’s leaders have reason to be sheepish. Controversy has long plagued（bother） the South-North water diversion project, as the scheme is formally known. Launched with much fanfare in 2002, it was described as a move to fulfil Mao Zedong’s vision of 50 years earlier, when he had said that to solve the north’s chronic shortage it was “OK to lend a little water” from the south. But many worried whether the water would be clean enough, and about the risk of perpetuating the north’s reckless water-consumption habits.

The stretch from Beijing to Shijiazhuang, Hebei’s capital, forms the northernmost end of what is intended to be the central route of three south-north channels. The eastern route has been plagued by delays (sure enough, keeping the water clean is proving hard) and is not intended to supply Beijing. The western one is still on the drawing board. Rather than wait for the crucial middle route to be completed (due in 2010), Beijing is drawing water from the Hebei reservoirs as a stopgap.

Hebei has long sacrificed its water needs to Beijing’s. Some complain that this has exacerbated poverty in Hebei, forcing water-hungry and polluting industries to close and some farmers to forsake rice growing for less water-intensive but also less profitable maize. Compensation has been meagre（deficient）. In the case of the Beijing-Shijiazhuang channel, the capital has agreed to pay Hebei $88m for the first 300m cubic-metre supply of water, due to be completed in March. Water-deprived farmers and industries in Hebei are unhappy.

The Beijing Olympics in August helped to stifle complaints. Few Chinese wanted to spoil the party. Nearly 50,000 people were relocated to make way for the new channel, which includes China’s longest aqueduct. As the three reservoirs began cutting irrigation supplies in 2006, farmers had to turn to far more costly groundwater. Even in Dangcheng township at the foot of the Wangkuai dam, where groundwater is relatively plentiful, some farmers say they have had to plant fewer crops and take up other jobs. Asked about compensation, they snort contemptuously.

“A harmonious society—a peaceful Olympics” says a slogan painted on a wall in Baoding. This is party-speak for “do not make trouble”. The authorities may well have feared water-related disputes might erupt during the games. They had planned to use the new channel before the Olympics began. But even though it was ready in time, they waited until September 18th, one day after the conclusion of the Paralympics, before turning on the spigots. The water took ten days to reach Beijing.

The official reason for the delay was an unusual amount of rainfall in the capital, easing pressure on the water supply. But the Chinese press says the rain has done little to replenish Beijing’s own reservoirs. Dai Qing, a Beijing-based water-conservation activist (sadly a rare breed in China), says the authorities are highly secretive about water-supply data. She speculates, however, that they used relatively clean groundwater to meet Olympic demand. With the games over, they are now turning to Hebei’s less dependably pure supplies.

The extent of Beijing’s predicament is not in doubt. Xinhua, the official news agency, recently said the capital’s water supply was “set to reach crisis point” in 2010. Probe International, a Canadian environmental group, estimated in a report in June that with Beijing’s reservoirs down to one-tenth of their capacity, two-thirds of Beijing’s water supply was now being drawn from underground. Ms Dai says the water table(地下水位) is dropping by a metre a year, threatening “geological disaster”.

Beijing has been trying to reduce demand by increasing water tariffs, which are far too low to cover costs. Xinhua reported that the city government was considering a plan to charge residents two to five times more for water if they exceed a monthly quota. Boosting prices might also encourage recycling. Probe International said Beijing’s industries were now recycling 15% of their water consumption, compared with 85% in developed countries.

When the water arrives from the Yangzi basin, officials in Beijing and Hebei will breathe a little easier. In order to store water for Beijing, Wangkuai has stopped supplying water to Hebei’s Baiyangdian, the largest freshwater lake in northern China. To make up the shortfall, Hebei has had to buy emergency supplies, channelled in from the Yellow River 400km away.

But Ma Jun, an environmental consultant in Beijing, says the relief will be short-lived. Given Beijing’s population growth and its rising levels of domestic water consumption, the city could still face “a dire water challenge” soon after the central route is complete unless it changes its profligate ways. Hebei’s overstretched reservoirs had better be prepared.

额，这篇不太适合当issue的例子。看看就好吧~节约用水刻不容缓啊~

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Background reading

3、Australia's water shortage

Australia's water shortage

Apr 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

全文不可见。。。

THE mouth of the Murray-Darling river sets an idyllic scene. Anglers in wide-brimmed sunhats wade waist-deep into the azure water. Pleasure boats cruise languidly around the sandbanks that dot the narrow channel leading to the Southern Ocean. Pensioners stroll along the beach. But over the cries of the seagulls and the rush of the waves, there is another sound: the mechanical drone from a dredging vessel. It never stops and must run around the clock to prevent the river mouth from silting up. Although the Murray-Darling is Australia's longest river system, draining a basin the size of France and Spain combined, it no longer carries enough water to carve its own path to the sea.

  

John Howard, Australia's prime minister, arrived here in February and urged the four states through which the Murray-Darling flows to hand their authority over the river to the federal government. After seven years of drought, and many more years of over-exploitation and pollution, he argued that the only hope of restoring the river to health lies in a complete overhaul of how it is managed. As the states weigh the merits of Mr Howard's scheme, the river is degenerating further.… 保护资源归根结底必须是一种政府行为，把掌管M-D河的权利握于政府手中才能更好的保护。政治类。社会类？

4、Water in the West

Water in the West

Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

全文不可见。。。

A FEW warning signs and a rickety pier are all that remain of Overton Beach's once-busy lakeside marina. The boats have been gone since February, towed more than 30 miles (50km) to where they are in less danger of running aground. Fish-cleaning stations are now hundreds of yards from the receding shoreline. At the local rangers' station, a placard describes the Lost City, an ancient Indian settlement drowned when the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s. That city is no longer lost: so low has the surface of Lake Mead fallen that it is re-emerging from the water. 水位严重下降，环境问题→社会类。

“This is not a normal drought,” says Pat Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Since 2001 the flow of water into Lake Mead has been below average for all but one year. The reservoir is now less than half full. If the drought does not break in the next few years, the Las Vegas metropolis will be the first to suffer. Its 1.8m inhabitants depend on the lake for nine-tenths of their water supply.…

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Opening statements

Defending the motion

Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann Managing Director, WaterTech Capital & co-founder, Palisades Water Index Associates The severe spatial and temporal imbalances in the supply of and demand for water—and safe drinking water in particular—dictate that water be priced at the true market value in order to resolve our global water challenges.


Against the motion

Dr Vandana Shiva Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Natural Resource Policy Between last year and this the market value of Lehman Brothers dropped from $38.4 billion to $5 billion, Merrill Lynch from $71.9 billion to $33.1 billion, and Morgan Stanley from $70.2 to $43 billion. Since then Lehman Brothers has collapsed.


The moderator's opening remarks
Sep 30th 2008 | Mr Edward McBride


“Anyone who can solve the problems of water,” John F. Kennedy once said, “will be worthy of two Nobel prizes—one for peace and one for science.”

Sadly, as moderator of the latest of The Economist’s online debates, I do not have any Nobel prizes to hand out. But there is no doubt that Kennedy was right: water has always been a pressing issue, and one that involves many different disciplines. Some see it as a matter of morality—a human right—and others as a purely practical concern. And even among pragmatists, there is little agreement about how to get clean water to the 1.1 billion people around the world who lack it.

The motion before us suggests one possible solution: “This house believes that water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value.” Arguing in favour is Steve Hoffmann, of WaterTech Capital, an investment bank that specialises in the water industry. In his opening statement, he argues that water should be priced precisely because it is of such fundamental importance to health, development and the environment. Although there is lots of fresh water in the world, it is not always available at the right times and in the right places. Treating it and transporting it to those who would use it is expensive. The market, in Mr Hoffmann’s view, provides the only reliable test of how much money should be spent on water, and where.改写下可用于value、market题

Indeed, Mr Hoffmann sees pricing as the key to the sustainable management of water. It ensures that water is allocated to the most productive use, and can help to prevent its over-exploitation. His opponent in the debate, Vandana Shiva, author of “Water wars” and founder of Navdanya, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns to protect the poor’s access to water, also invokes sustainability in her opening statement. But she sees the market, with its profits and losses, its booms and busts, as too unstable to provide for sound, long-term management of the world’s water.

Moreover, Shiva worries that markets for water, far from instilling thrift, simply reallocate it from the frugal poor to the prodigal rich. In her view, the market does not recognise the importance of providing livelihoods to impoverished farmers, nor does it ascribe an appropriate value to health of the environment. In short, putting a price on water reverses the natural order of things, allowing it to flow “uphill”, away from the places where it is most useful to society as a whole.

The two debaters agree on one point at least: that water is critical to development, and to the fortunes of the world’s poorest citizens in particular. But otherwise, their views seem utterly at odds—the perfect start to a vigorous debate. For the next ten days, the arguments will ebb and flow, and all are welcome to add thoughts of their own. Then we will put the motion to a vote: sink or swim, as it were.

The proposer's opening remarks
Sep 30th 2008 | Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann


The severe spatial and temporal imbalances in the supply of and demand for water—and safe drinking water in particular—dictate that water be priced at the true market value in order to resolve our global water challenges.
The notion of sustainability is gaining momentum with respect to the use of water and is likely to permeate virtually every aspect of water-resource management in the 21st century. While the hydrologic cycle is a closed biogeochemical process, the fact that the aggregate amount of water on Earth, in its various forms, is virtually constant on a human time scale does not mean that we do not face enormous challenges with respect to its spatial and temporal distribution. 关键词，sustainability

Water is a critical factor in poverty, has a fundamental impact on human health, and is increasingly crucial in economic development. The World Health Organisation reports that 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water and 2.7 billion people lack basic sanitation needs. Yet despite its stature as a prerequisite for life and for living, the price of water remains artificially low based on an institutional ideology that developed when accessible freshwater was relatively abundant and when contamination was mitigated by the ubiquity of the resource. 不明白。。。

Sustainability is the mantra behind many emerging regulations, water-policy initiatives and technological advances. And nowhere is the market price of water more critical than in the concept of sustainability. Efficiency is critical in achieving sustainability and a market-driven price is paramount to the efficient allocation of water resources. The sustainability criterion suggests that, at a minimum, an allocation must leave future generations no worse off than current generations. Economics has much to say about the efficiency of the allocation. sustainability →efficiency→market value→price

The pricing of water must go beyond the mechanical and political aspects to the basic factors that affect the relationships between producers and consumers, and that are implicit in the rate structure. 不明白The principle of sustainability is critically dependent upon efficiency in water use. And efficiency cannot be achieved without the proper signals included in market prices. Market value is equivalent to water rates based on economic principles of water-resource pricing. In that regard, resource economics requires the convergence of two key principles: equimarginal value in use and marginal cost pricing. 再次联想到效率，leisure time那道题 哪位大侠来讲一下eqimarinal principle, marginal cost pricing...

Economic principles of resource allocation dictate that when costs are incurred in the acquisition, treatment and transport of water supplies to customers, the principle of equimarginal value in use should be combined with the principle of marginal cost pricing; that is, market value must govern. Additional units of water can always be made available by expending more resources to acquire and transport it, that is, at a given marginal cost.

The question of where to stop in increasing the supplies made available is then added to the question of how to arrange for the allocation of the supplies in store at any point in time. On efficiency grounds, additional units should be made available as long as any customers are willing to pay the incremental or marginal cots incurred. To meet the criterion of equimarginal value in use, however, the price should be made equal for all customers in a class.

It is precisely because of practical considerations such as alternative supplies, location, use patterns, types of service etc,(argument 他因) that the marginal costs of serving all customers will not be the same. Pricing should be arranged, then, so that all customers within a class served under identical cost conditions pay the same amount equal to the marginal cost or market value. Between classes, however, prices should differ, and the difference should be the difference in marginal costs involved in serving the two. In general, the economic principles of resource allocation indicate that customers served under identical cost conditions should be charged equal prices and that the water should be supplied and priced in such a way that the price for each class of service equals the marginal cost of serving that class.

Water rates should be designed to fully recover the costs of providing water by charging customers in accordance with how they contribute to the costs. Schedules of water rates that charge customers in accordance with the cost of service would be efficient from the economic point of view, in that the price of a unit of water would be equal to the cost of the resources used to obtain and deliver that water. Further, they would be equitable in that no customer would be required to subsidise any other customer. To sum it up, the dictates of efficiency are clear: water should be allocated so that the marginal net benefit is equalised for all users. If marginal net benefits are not equalised, it is possible to increase net benefits by transferring water from those uses with low net marginal benefits to those with higher net marginal benefits. Again, the pricing of water at the ‘market’ value is the only way to make these determinations.

The amount of easily accessible freshwater is coming under increasing pressure as a result of global population growth, particularly in developing countries where urbanisation and industrialisation are underway, and the degradation of existing supplies. The amount of readily accessible freshwater is a minuscule percentage of the Earth’s total water budget. If per capita consumption of water continues to increase at its current rate, we will be using over 90% of all available freshwater with 20 years.

Scarcity, spatial and temporal, must be reflected in a pricing mechanism. Water is like any other economic good for which there is supply and demand and a pricing mechanism that seeks equilibrium between the two.

This is not a process-oriented enchantment with the free market that it may appear to be. While this might sound like so much economic rhetoric, the reality is that market pricing is central to enabling the forces that allow the efficient allocation of the resource. It is simply a recognition that market prices convey a great deal of information; information with respect to incentives, efficiency and allocational considerations. The pricing of water based on its true market value is also critical in resolving the issues associated with its allocation among competing beneficial uses.

Desalination is an example of where the market value of water plays an important role as a catalyst for problem resolution. In regions of the world where water is permanently scarce, desalination has emerged to meet demand. And it has done so only because there are few options. Granted, desalination is more attractive where energy is cheap, but it points to the reality that if water is simply unavailable, the market value argument is easy to acknowledge. It stands to reason that water priced at the market value (which includes scarcity, regulatory costs, treatment costs and resource management considerations) would be beneficial for the entire spectrum of conditions.

The signals and incentives contained in pricing water at its market value also enable the processes of recycling, reuse and conservation that are central to achieving sustainable water use. That water is not priced (valued) at its market value is the main reason why we are experiencing many of our severe water-quality and -quantity issues. Resource economics dictates the allocational efficiency of market-driven pricing.

这篇写的很精彩的，逻辑主线清晰，段与段、句与句之间承接关系明确，句式多样，用词丰富，有好多长句，勾出来的句子需要好好记下来

The opposition's opening remarks
Sep 30th 2008 | Dr Vandana Shiva

Between last year and this the market value of Lehman Brothers dropped from $38.4 billion to $5 billion, Merrill Lynch from $71.9 billion to $33.1 billion, and Morgan Stanley from $70.2 to $43 billion. Since then Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

There is clearly no reliable “market price” in a volatile world driven by greed and profits, with no social regulation. The idea that the management and distribution of and access to a scarce and vital resource like water can be left to the market—and that the market can assign a reliable price reflecting the real value of water—is both absurd and irresponsible. 提出观点犀利直接

All cultures have viewed water as the basis of life. Marketisation, however, allows water to be perceived as no different from any other commodity in the global market place–to be owned and bought and sold at arbitrary, unreliable prices.

The commodification of water shifts the focus from the water cycle on to water markets – diverse species, ecosystems and water systems adapted to millions of years of evolution are replaced by instantaneous relationships between “sellers” and “buyers” negotiating a commodity transaction which determines how water will be used, where it will flow, and where and to whom it will stop flowing. It is assumed that water will flow from “low value” to “high value” use. This increase in “value” (which refers to price) is supposed to magically overcome water scarcity and allocate water equitably.

We need to focus our thinking on water cycles rather than water markets, on human rights to water rather than profits to be made from commoditising a scarce resource. It is our relationship with the ecology of water that has the capacity to sustain water supplies for us and other species. Trade in water can help water markets grow in the short term, but unregulated markets will make our scarce and fast-disappearing water resources disappear ever faster. It is the discipline of ecology and hydrology that we need to guide our efforts at conservation, not the ecological indiscipline of markets.  本段首尾呼应，结构完整，指出了对方的错误之处，又提出了正确的个人观点。这种写法值得学习。

The anarchy of the water market can be a good guide to profits – but it is a bad guide for the equitable, just and sustainable use of our precious water systems.

In the years ahead（If you are thinking one year ahead, you plant rice. If you are thinking twenty years ahead, you plant trees. If you are thinking a hundred years ahead, you educate people. ）, the ecological and commercial paradigms will clash intensely as globalisation displaces cultures of water conservation and replaces them with a commercial monoculture of water as a commodity.

The commodification of water resources is being promoted by the World Bank and free-trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO. The World Bank is using Structural Adjustment programmes to privatise water resources.   
Free-trade agreements are defining water as an environmental service covered by rules of free trade in services. Privatisation and commodification are threatening to accelerate the processes that have led to the growing crisis of drought, desertification and water famines.

The market paradigm of water involves the assumptions that:
1. Increase in price is increase in value.
2. Increase in water trade is increase in water supply and hence free trade in water can overcome the water crisis.

The assumption that water markets will overcome the water crisis is, however, fallacious and malicious. （这句好，可以用在argu里）Firstly, water markets cannot reduce water use and conserve water because commercial exploitation has created water scarcity by fuelling over-exploitation. In a world of inequality, higher prices do not tame consumption–they increase the luxury consumption by the rich and deprive the poor even of survival needs. Secondly, water trade cannot increase water supplies. Water cannot be created by markets. It can be stored, diverted, polluted and also over-exploited, but its overall availability cannot be enhanced. 这段写得太好了，逻辑清晰，语言合理，整段背诵。。。

Water is defined by the water cycle and renewed if the water cycle is maintained. The ecological paradigm recognises that:
1. Water is the basis of all life on the planet including diverse species and all human communities.
2. Non-sustainable water use spurred by non-sustainable economies and technologies which violate the limits and the integrity of the water cycle are creating a water crisis.
3. The current water crisis can only be overcome by respecting the limits on water use that are enforced by the water cycle.

Markets driven by commercial values can neither recognise or respect the ecological limits set by the water cycle, nor give water its real value as the very basis of life. The real value of water is assigned by culture, which treats water as sacred; it is also assigned by rules of social equity and justice which recognise that everyone has a human right to water.  culture的范围真广啊，连value of water都可以认为其是文化的表现，最后这句话扩展一下，任何自然资源都可以套用这种写法。

Water Markets Violate the Water Cycle
Water markets define “value” only as commercial and market value, and try and maximise this value as profits through commercial transactions and trade.

In nature’s economy, the primary value is sustainability and maintenance of nature’s essential ecological processes. Conservation is the imperative in nature’s economy for maximising ecological values.

In the sustenance economy, meeting people’s biological and livelihood needs for water are the primary objectives. Equity, justice and human rights are the primary values. Sharing of scarce water equitably is the imperative in the sustenance economy.

When water's social and ecological values are ignored and markets determine how water flows, it starts to move against the law of gravity. It moves upwards – to money – from the poor to the rich, from agriculture to industry, from the countryside to the city. In water markets, water moves from having a high ecological and social value, but a low market value, to having a low ecological and social value, but a high market value.

Water markets take water from where it is needed by nature’s economy, people’s economy and the countryside, to where there is purchasing power for water as a commodity—the urban areas, industry and industrial agriculture. Managing a scarce and precious resource like water requires conservation, equity and the recognition that as the basis of life, water is priceless.

总得来说，这篇写得很好的。从思维到语言都赞一个，且逻辑清晰，我已经被作者说服了。纯说理还是可以大放光芒啊。

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Audience participation

GUEST 1: Featured guest
Mr Michael W. Hanemann


Water is a scarce resource in many areas, and does need to be priced. However, the nature of the scarcity and the appropriate role for pricing are often misunderstood. Even among economists, there is an inadequate appreciation of the complexities of water as an economic commodity which render it distinctive from other commodities.

A crucial feature is that surface water supply is exceptionally capital-intensive compared not only with manufacturing industry generally but also with other utility industries. In the United States, for example, the ratio of capital investment to revenue in the water industry is double that in natural gas, and 70% higher than in electricity or telecommunications. Moreover, the physical capital used in water supply is highly non-malleable and exceptionally long-lived. The infrastructure associated with surface water storage and conveyance and the pipe network in the streets can have an economic life of 75-150 years or more. In addition, there are significant economies of scale in many components of surface water supply and sanitation. The result is that the variable (operating) costs of surface water supply (and sanitation) are a small fraction of the total cost. Because of this, financing is, and always has been, a crucial challenge for water-supply infrastructure. One has to pay now for facilities that will provide benefits to future users for many decades to come.百年大计类的题目适用句型

It is essential that what users pay as a group should be adequate to at least cover the variable costs of water supply, and this does not occur now in many developing countries. Without this, water-supply systems are not sustainable in the long run: the quality of the service deteriorates and the system cannot keep up with population growth.

In developed countries, proper pricing of water is essential to promote conservation and efficient use. In the United States, most of the water industry is publicly- rather than investor-owned and so escapes PUC (Public Utility Commission) regulation. As a result, there is no economic oversight of most of the industry, and no champion for economic efficiency. The key is to make users of water face, at the margin, the long-run marginal cost of water supply, including the cost of developing supply from new (and more expensive) sources to meet growth needs. This can be accomplished with a special tiered-rate structure of the sort I designed, and Los Angeles successfully implemented, 15 years ago.

Pricing can also help allocate water in a drought. But it would be a mistake to rely on （用于argu的句型）pricing alone for two reasons. First, the empirical evidence is that non-price initiatives play an important role in shaping behaviour; price is a necessary complement to non-price incentives to save water, but is unlikely to be as effective alone. （用于argu的句型）Second, the notion of using pure market forces to allocate water in a drought is ethically unacceptable to many people; there has to be an equitable allocation system.

GUEST 2: Featured guest
Mr Anup Jacob

MR ANUP JACOB
Partner, Virgin Green Fund

Anup Jacob has over 12 years experience of principal investing and investment banking. Before joining Virgin, he was a partner in TPG's Aqua Fund, which focused on late-stage investments in companies involved in water, clean technology and renewable resources. At Aqua, Mr Jacob helped raise and invest over $300m in companies across various renewable-water and energy sectors. He has served on the boards of Jain Irrigation Systems, Metering Technology Corporation and Scanship Environmental Solutions. Before joining TPG, Mr Jacob spent three years at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York and India in the global power and merchant banking groups. He is involved in several children's and environmental charities in India, and is a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Fundamentally there is a growing disconnection between the price of water and the cost of water. The price of any commodity—and water should be considered a commodity—is determined by the delivery cost of the good (operating plus capital costs) and an implied margin (which in most of these markets is regulated). The cost of water has been increasing over time, as energy, manufacturing and infrastructure materials (steel, cement, aluminum, iron, etc, all commodities with price indexes that have increased 11 times over the past decade) continue to be in short supply.

The largest cost for the production, transportation and cleaning of water is energy; similarly the largest cost for the production or extraction of energy is water (estimated at 40-50% for both). As energy prices have increased by 5-10 times over the past decade, water prices have not increased at this same rate (10% per year increase in water charges is the nominal increase in the United States implying just a 2.5 times increase over a decade). This dislocation creates an environment for increased negative externalities. Examples of these externalities include a decrease in standards or availability of water, the rise of industries which act as substitutes to delivered water (trucked water, bottled water and point-of-use water).

Furthermore, increased population (especially around coastal regions where water is most difficult to deliver) highlights the convergence of water and energy as a political, investment and economic theme. Globally, the world’s roughly 6.6 billion people use 990 trillion gallons of water every year. Water consumption has increased by two times over the past 25 years while population has increased 1.5 times over the same period. This is a recent historical phenomenon since water consumption per head had historically remained flat due to improvements in distribution, irrigation and efficiency in high water-usage manufacturing. In our current environment as consumption of water per head increases (primarily due to increased agriculture, industry and other wealth effects), new efficiencies may not be able to meet demand, which therefore will either cause increased externalities or will put significant pressure for the price and cost of water to equalise.

From an investment viewpoint we are focusing on the efficiency and distribution side of the equation (compared with supply). Examples of solutions we feel are important include small distributed desalination facilities (compared with large municipal-based desalination); point-of-use filtration systems (compared with bottled water); drip irrigation (compared with sprinkler or pumped water) and flow-of-the-river hydro (compared with large infrastructure dams). These businesses and the derivative business around them (pumps, valves and meters) provide an investable environment which should help level demand and rebalance the price and cost of water.

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Rebuttal statements

The moderator's rebuttal remarks
Oct 3rd 2008 | Mr Edward McBride


The debate, aptly enough, is flowing like water. In his rebuttal, Steve Hoffmann sticks to his guns: the notion that water is somehow different from other resources, and so not well-suited to market pricing, is “erroneous”.

Simply declaring it a human right does not help pay for its provision or ensure an adequate supply. Instead, markets and prices are needed.

His opponent, Vandana Shiva, is equally adamant. “Hoffmann’s solution to water scarcity,” she says, “is the rich stealing from the poor, through water markets and water trade.” Water cannot be allocated in this way, since it does not take proper account of the needs of the poor and the environment.

Both sides have their partisans among the commentators. The proposition is doubtless cheered by davidzet’s argument that “Free water NEVER serves the poor” since demand inevitably outstrips supply, and the poor inevitably lose out when inadequate supplies are rationed（贫富差距带来的社会现实。很好的句子）. On the other hand, matloob66 will have given heart to the opposition: “Since water is the most basic commodity and the most important and indispensable thing for our existence, any kind of charge asked for it is not at all humane.”

A few more specific bones of contention争论的焦点 are beginning to emerge. Many have questioned whether markets, although sensible in theory, ever live up to their promise. As the prolific Federal Farmer notes, “It is sadly the case that when many call for markets, what they get at the end of the sausage grinder of legislation, is not a market, but mercantilism and special privilege.” 红色部分如何理解？

A related question is whether markets are good for the environment. Ms Shiva believes that markets are “ecologically blind”. But Mr Hoffmann suggests that it is lack of pricing which leads to over-exploitation and so puts an unsustainable burden on the environment.

However, as several other commentators have noted, the two sides sometimes sound as if they are talking past one another. There are certainly a few points from each side that I would like to see the other address. Many participants assume that the poor will suffer under a system of market pricing. To win them over, Mr Hoffmann will have to explain why that is not the case, or at least what should be done about it.（可以用于argument 末段的好句子）

By the same token（出于同样的原因）, Ms Shiva has not explained how the infrastructure for delivering water should be paid for if not by a system of market pricing. And she has not explained how water should be allocated among competing users, except to invoke democracy and justice. But voters, politicians and courts could opt for all manner of different systems, including ones based on markets and prices.

At the moment, the proposition is struggling to hold back the rising tide of con votes. But there is still plenty of time left for discussion, and plenty more votes to be won. Please join in, whether by making a comment, or by casting a vote.

The proposer's rebuttal remarks
Oct 3rd 2008 | Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann


It was the objective of the proposition’s opening statement to carefully delineate the economic principles of resource allocation that are premised on the notion of the market value of water.

Opposition to those established principles is often based on the erroneous view that water is different and that market forces are inapplicable when it comes to such a vital resource.

The opposition’s opening statement centred on the ideological presumption that market mechanisms are not appropriate for water pricing and asserted that a human right to water cannot be accommodated by market values. （还是可以用于argu的彪悍句型）An example of market failure was provided by referring to the global financial crisis.  That is oversimplistic. In fact, the underpinnings of the financial crisis stem from a public-policy directive that home ownership is tantamount to a right and that everyone, even if unable to afford it, should be able to buy a home. 查阅相关资料得知，次贷危机--美国房屋“次贷”，这种福利与自由双过分的局面，是导致美国乃至全球经济危机的重要导火索。暂时当做背景知识储备，此外，可以用做眼前利益与百年大计类的题目。比如：美国这种次贷的初衷是为了让穷人当上home owner，结果次贷烂了摊，导致了大雪崩。。。The danger is not in allowing markets to operate but in the social and political institutional frameworks that arbitrarily seek to legislate influences over the market.

More importantly, nowhere was the argument made that water is a public good. This is an argument that can be respected rather than reverting to an attack on profit-driven capitalists who will only exploit our planet’s resources. Water, and treated water in particular, does not possess all of the characteristics of a public good. The theory behind a public good is that market failure will result unless the public sector intervenes. This occurs with a good that is non-exclusive and non-rival in its consumption, in other words, where property rights are not sufficient to exclude other users and where one person’s consumption does not affect that of others (eg parks or a street light).

The argument that water is a public good is increasingly inapplicable as the scarcity of water, the lack of access to clean water and competing uses induce water to function more like a private good, for which the market facilitates the optimally efficient allocation. Water is essential for life. But elevating it to the nebulous notion of a human right does not automatically make it a public good and certainly does not preclude the need to value water at its true market value.

It should be made clear that the proposition does not make a blanket （total and inclusive）statement that the access to safe drinking water, as essential to life and indispensable in elevating the basic quality of life, should be left entirely to the markets to allocate. The market value of water is central to allocational efficiency but there will always be instances where governments must make distributional decisions. Although there is a disdain for privatising water, it must be noted that property rights can be vested with either individuals or with the state. But the latter still does not preclude a municipality from practising sustainable water asset and resource management by charging the market value to its respective users.

If the market value of water is not charged to end users what incentive does Badger Meter have for developing automatic meter-reading technology to measure real-time consumption demands, what incentive does ITT have for developing efficient water pumps, what incentive does IDE Technologies have for improving the desalination process, and what incentive does Aecom Technology have for engineering integrated watershed management programmes? 有气势啊，虽然我totally反对他的观点。所有的这些举措可以是为了节约成本和提醒人们水资源的宝贵节约有限的水资源。没有人反对水资源的market value，反对的是这种价值是否需要以作者所说的征收水费的形式体现。mechanisms lead to efficient water resource use. It is exactly the relationship between mankind and the environment that the principles of resource economics seek to define.

Key rebuttal points of the opposition. Several summary counter-points can be made by inferring a plausible meaning to the opposition’s comments.
(1)Prices determined by a competitive and open market are not, by definition, arbitrary.
(2)The signals contained in prices based on market value are critical to sustainable water resource management.
(3)The notion of the uniqueness of water is at the core of the institutional ideologies that created many of the supply and demand imbalances in the first place.
(4)Commercial exploitation has not created water scarcity. It is the absence of market pricing that leads to inefficient allocations and discourages alternative supplies.
(5)It is the increase in socioeconomic value that leads to an increase in price. The opposition has it backwards.
(6)Market value encompasses marginal costs such as alternative supplies, distribution costs and regulatory compliance, as well as cultural and social costs.

The statement that “privatisation and [commoditisation] are threatening to accelerate the processes that have led to the growing crisis of drought, desertification and water famines” makes no mention of what exactly those processes are. The assumptions in the opposition’s market paradigm are not valid. First, pricing water can most certainly reduce water use. As a water-rate designer, one of our objectives was to develop water rates that would reduce consumption at peak periods, thereby reducing the overall system requirements. Second, unless the price charged for water reflects the market value, resources will be under-allocated to sustainable additional supplies such as reuse and recycling.

It was also implied that market-driven solutions will have a negative impact on ecological integrity. In fact, the market value of water, defined as encompassing environmental issues, puts a premium on reducing ecological impacts either in the context of discharges to the environment or in developing comprehensive water regulations that protect the environment. If anything, what we have today is institutional failure rather than market failure. The $34 billion annual water infrastructure spending gap (Water Infrastructure Network report, April 2000) in the United States results from decades of charging “arbitrary and unreliable” prices. Market prices are not arbitrary. Market value is determined by the interplay of supply and demand: competing beneficial uses, the internalisation of costs (including environmental), cost-effective regulatory compliance, technological innovation, etc. How can sustainable water resource decisions possibly be made unless the market value of water is the benchmark?

Yes, the 21st century will see many participants in the water business make profits on their investments. But critical water-resource decisions will not be made unless the basis for investing is premised upon the market value of water. It is curious that we have devastating human health impacts from the lack of proper water treatment, women and children spending unproductive time transporting water and severe water contamination, all at a time when the market value of water has not been the price charged.

The opposition's rebuttal remarks
Oct 3rd 2008 | Dr Vandana Shiva


Steve Hoffmann clearly sees water as a commodity, not a unique and precious basis of life. For him “water is like any other economic good”. This is the first false assumption driving water privatisation and commodification.

A commodity is substitutable. There is no substitute for water for maintaining life.

The value of a public good vital to life is allocated by society on principles of ecology and justice. The value of a commodity is allocated by the market.（很喜欢这种句式~）

However, when the market is shaped by giant water corporations like Suez and Bechtel, or bottled water companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle, water is stolen from local communities without economic power and sold to those with high purchasing power in distant places. The market price does not reflect the costs to ecosystems and local communities. It reflects greed and super-profits. In effect, the commodification of water leads to the enclosure of the water commons. And enclosures deprive and dispossess, whether they be enclosures of common lands, water or biodiversity.

For those denied their right to water because of enclosures of the water commons, markets are not an efficient or just mechanism for allocating water, a scarce resource, in an economically unequal world. Markets create and deepen a hydrological divide, taking water from the poor to the rich, from the village to the industry. And through injustice, they unleash conflicts and water wars. When the market logic was applied in the desert state of Rajasthan（consists largely of the Thar Desert and is sparsely populated）（下次再说不毛之地的时候就用他了~）, water started to flow from the parched fields of the farmers to the tourist centres of Ajmer and Jaipur, for swimming pools in five-star hotels. The additional units for wasteful consumption came by depriving the rural communities of water for drinking and irrigation. And when they protested against the diversion and privatisation, five farmers were shot dead. Privatisation means diversion from existing use and diversions create water wars and water conflicts.

Mr Hoffmann’s solution to water scarcity is the rich stealing from the poor, through water markets and water trade. As he has stated, “Additional units of water can always be made available by expending more resources to acquire and transport it.” However, water is a flow, not a divisible additional unit. Applying a mechanistic, Cartesian logic to water, the currency of life, ignores the ecological impacts of diverting and transporting water over long distances, or mining water from the ground beyond its recharge rates. The spatial and temporal flow of water in the hydrological cycle is too complex to be captured in the mechanistic reductionism of the market. Mr Hoffmann also ignores the fact that the water diverted has prior uses. Markets do not seek permission from local communities. They just grab water from where they can, with a little help from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and governments coerced to implement the World Bank’s water privatisation projects through private-public partnerships.

When the World Bank tried to privatise Delhi’s water supply using the same market logic that Mr Hoffmann proposes, a broad Citizens’ Alliance for Water Democracy responded by showing how water managed as a public good, through public-public partnership, could be managed more sustainably and equitably. We showed Delhi could live within its water means if principles of ecology and justice were deployed, and water did not need to be diverted from the Tehri Dam on the Ganga to the Yamuna. Along the Ganga a chorus rose: “Our Mother Ganga is not for Sale”. And Delhi’s water privatisation was stopped by the movement for water democracy.

When Coca-Cola started to mine the ground water in Plachimada Mylamma, women defended the water as a commons. The courts upheld that ground water belonged to the community, not the company, and the commercial exploitation must stop. Coca-Cola was forced to shut its plant by the movement for water democracy. 对于某些棘手的社会问题，公民自身的保护意识可能胜过政府的保护行为

Democracy and justice are best at resolving conflicts among competing users, not water markets, which are both ecologically and socially blind. Markets have systematically failed to internalise social and ecological costs and hence have aggravated non-sustainability and inequality in terms of access to water.

The right to water cannot be left to arbitrary, volatile, insatiable markets. The sustainable management of water cannot emerge from the limitless consumerism driven by limitless wealth in the hands of a few in a world of limited water resources to which all beings have equal rights.

Markets have given us a food crisis. As the President of the UN General Assembly, H.E.M.Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, said at the UN High Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals, “The essential purpose of food, which is to nourish people, has been subordinated to the economic aims of a handful of multinational corporations that monopolise all aspects of food production, from seeds to major distribution chains, and they have been the prime beneficiaries of the world crisis. A look at the figures for 2007, when the world food crisis began, shows that corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill, which control the cereals market, saw their profits increase by 45% and 60% respectively. At the same time, in response to the financial crisis, major hedge funds have shifted millions of dollars into agricultural products.”

In other words, speculators control the food-related financial markets, and they seek to control the water markets. The logic and institutions that have given us the food crisis cannot solve the water crisis.

Mr Hoffmann’s solution to the water crisis through market mechanisms is totally misplaced. As pointed out in my opening statement, the bursting of the financial bubble on Wall Street exposes the gap between market values and real values. The money floating round in the world is 60-70 times more than the real goods and services in the world. High water prices, reflecting the willingness to pay of the rich, can suck out the last drop of water from every river and every aquifer. Money can keep going further to commercially exploit the water of communities till there is no river, lake or well left to exploit. As a native American saying goes:
Not till you have felled the last tree
Killed the last fish
Poisoned the last river
Will you know that you cannot eat (or drink) money

http://www.chinavalue.net/Figure/Show.aspx?id=1107  全球经济危机的缘由及根本解决之道（推荐）
http://finance.eastday.com/m/20090316/u1a4244836.html 美国次贷危机

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Guest

Featured guest
Mr Colin Chartres


While most people would agree that access to enough water for domestic purposes is a fundamental human right, there are significant capital and maintenance costs incurred in delivering water. For most of us water is delivered via a complex collection, storage system and supply infrastructure that is costly to build and maintain. Most of us do not seem to have a problem paying for clean water to be delivered via this infrastructure to our taps. Indeed, it typically costs only $1-1.50 per 1,000 litres, a bargain when we consider that a similar amount of bottled water costs $1,000-4,000. However, many of the world’s poor have never had the opportunity to receive inexpensive tap water. Some women and children have to walk several kilometres a day just to collect enough water to provide for household needs. Furthermore, this is often dirty and contaminated water and thus a source of disease. If monetised, the costs of these water collection activities, even at developing-country wages, would be tens or possibly hundreds of times more than is paid for tap water. Even in developing-country cities, it is often the wealthy（这里应该是个名词？） who have access to cheap tap water and the poor who are forced to pay much more to obtain their water from private sources. The question is why the rich pay so little for their water while the poor pay so much. The answer, in part, has to do with a different kind of water right. 讲事实→抽象化→提取问题→引出自己的观点

Although tap-water provision can certainly be funded by general government revenue, the reality is that water supply utilities in many developing countries are severely restricted in their operations by a lack of capital and funding for maintenance. Improved systems of metering and charging consumers, including industrial users, who are able to pay, are key methods by which funds can be raised for government or private investment to improve the quantity and quality of supply to a greater number of households. However, ill-defined or non-existent water access rights mean that returns to investment, or even the collection of sufficient revenue for operation and maintenance, are unlikely. There is an example of a soft-drinks company in South Asia being closed down because of the perception that it was “stealing” water from the local community. In fact, industry is often highly supportive of paying for its water, but there are rarely appropriate legislative systems to enable this to happen, especially in the case of groundwater. Even the urban poor would generally be happy to pay for piped water, since it would save them from the much greater costs they now endure to obtain cumbersome supplies from bottles or buckets. 看来自来水问题，并非在中国才存在啊~

In the irrigation sector, the legal definition of water access rights and their separation from land rights is the first step towards water trading. Trading water is considered an anathema by some, because of fears of “water barons” cornering the market （囤积市场）and fixing prices. Effective legislation and regulation can prevent this. Trading water on a temporary or permanent basis can be a valuable tool for poor farmers to provide relief in times of hardship or increase their regular incomes. Selling water can even provide the capital to move out of agriculture into other, higher-paying occupations. This in turn may help neighbouring purchasers scale up their production systems and minimise further farm fragmentation. There are now examples, for example in India and Australia, in which farmers with water trading rights have found selling water more profitable than cropping. （本段的例子，还没想好可以用在哪里，不过感觉挺好~）

Whether or not we admit it, there already is a price for water. Clearly we need to think seriously about how to use the best aspects of market-based economics to allow enough money to be made for reinvestment in water supplies to extend supplies to all, rather than insisting that water is a free public good, which in reality we know it is not. （这几句挺有力的~）While it is hard to argue against a fundamental human right to water, securing it often requires water access rights be established first.
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Featured guest
Dr Peter H. Gleick


In global discussions about how to tackle the global freshwater crisis, especially the failure in the 20th century to meet basic human needs for water for all, there is an ongoing philosophical dispute about whether water is a human right or an economic good. This dispute is often presented, and argued, as though choosing one position precludes the other. I think this is a false dichotomy. Water is both a human right and an economic good and we must learn how to balance these characteristics. 恩，这个guest的话深得我心~继续看下去

I believe there is a human right to water, in the full legal, political, and social sense, and I made a comprehensive argument for this position in 1999. The United Nations has come to fully support this position in the past few years. But accepting that water is a human right does not mean that water must be provided for free, in unlimited amounts, to humans（好句型，改一下可以用于我的argu173。恩恩~）. Indeed, the human right to water means that governments must move progressively to ensure that basic human needs for water for survival and minimal domestic needs are provided to all, and they must never deprive their citizens of water for political purposes or because of inability to pay for water. 这段写得也好啊~

But the provision of water services also costs money, to collect, treat, and deliver water, and to take away and treat wastewater. It is not only appropriate, but vital, that governments, water utilities, and even private entities that offer water services be able to charge reasonable, but regulated rates for these services, in order to both operating and maintain infrastructure, and to be able to expand to unserved or underserved populations. Strong government oversight is a key element. Water services are a monopoly, whether provided by public or private agencies, and monopolies must be regulated to protect public values and interests. 豪华的长句啊，膜拜作者~

Examples can be found of successful and equitable provision of water services from both the public and private sectors – the measure of success is not whether a water system is public or private, but whether it meets certain standards of service. Here are a few principles that must guide water management. Additional principles can be found in the report “The New Economy of Water” (from the Pacific Institute):
Meet basic human and ecosystem needs for water: All residents in a service area should be guaranteed a basic water requirement.

Fair and reasonable prices should be charged for water and water services, and subsidies available when necessary for reasons of poverty: No one should be deprived of water for inability to pay.

Governments should retain or establish public ownership or control of water sources.

Public agencies and water-service providers should monitor water quality and enforce water quality laws.

Any private agreements to provide water services must have open contracts（书面合同） that lay out the responsibilities of each partner and mechanisms for resolving disputes.

Negotiations over privatization contracts should be open, transparent, and include all affected stakeholders.

Let’s move away from rhetorical and ideological debates over “public versus private” and toward the creation of sustainable water systems that can meet basic human needs for all. 最后这句回应开篇观点，写得还是很好~可以用于argu吧，只是我不确定，let's这种句式，用于argu给建议，会不会过了点...

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Featured guest
Mr Peter L. Cook


Water is a most precious resource, which must be preserved and carefully managed worldwide. In the United States and the developed world generally we have come to expect reliable water service and quality that meets stringent health and environmental standards. The provision of water service is a challenging technical job that bears an inevitable price tag. 风格跟前面那位大叔迥然不同，还是喜欢之前那个多一点~恩~继续看~

One of the greatest challenges of the 21st century is to ensure that the impoverished and those in the developing world have access to the same quality water we take for granted in the United States（米国水质很好么？不一定吧~哼~）. Therefore, the response to the question whether water should be seen as a human right for all or a priced and traded commodity is that neither extreme position is acceptable.

While we can accept that water is a human right for all, that does not mean that water service is free, as some suggest. Someone must pay for the service. If it is not the customer through water rates, then it must be the government through taxes. One approach is to price the water service at what it costs to provide it and subsidise only those customers that cannot afford to pay the full price. This will ensure that limited assistance funds will only go to the neediest and all will have access to water. 不赞同这个观点，首先，cannot afford to pay the full price的标准如何确立就是个问题，此外，只给这部分补助实施起来太不现实了。。。

The other approach, to regard water as tradable commodity, virtually ensures that many would not have access to water because the price would be unaffordable. Moral and humanitarian concerns lead us to reject this approach.

As alluded to above, the best approach lies somewhere in the middle, with government having a prominent role in regulation regardless of whether the service is provided by a private or government entity.

• The allocation of water resources—the decisions on where water goes and what, broadly, it is used for (agriculture, manufacturing, personal use, etc)—should be performed in the public sector under open and democratic procedures.  虽然他的句子很好，还是无法改变其假大空戴高帽的本性。。。

• The health and environment regulation of water is also an appropriate public-sector responsibility. Such regulations should be informed by sound science and through an open process, but to ensure the public’s confidence these decisions belong with public officials.

• Because the provision of water is monopolistic in nature, the pricing of water services should be carefully overseen by well-informed and credible public officials. Pricing and billing should be structured so that those who can afford to pay the full cost of service pay it, while those who cannot get either subsidised rates or assistance in paying their bills.

While water service can be provided by either the government or a private entity, private water-service providers have a long history of reliable and cost-effective service. They bring efficiency, innovation, research, capital, economies of scale and more than a century and a half of experience.

The bottom-line is that the answers to water challenges do not reside in the extreme positions, but in the melding of the different strengths of the public and the private sectors.

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Closing statements（恶心死了，LZ在这一层差点吐血身亡，居然有保存丢这种事~~~~~(>_<)~~~~ 让我做了两遍的该死的closing~~一切从简一切从简！）

Defending the motion


Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann Managing Director, WaterTech Capital & co-founder, Palisades Water Index Associates
In closing I want to make sure that my position is well explained. Let us break down the statement into its constituent parts.

Against the motion

Dr Vandana Shiva Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Natural Resource Policy
Good science constitutes being able to discriminate between spheres to which a specific theory applies and spheres to which it does not.


The moderator's closing remarks
Oct 8th 2008 | Mr Edward McBride

Rivers tend to slow as they near the end of their course, but our debate remains a raging torrent.

The comments are flooding in—some of them frothing and foaming. Our two protagonists, meanwhile, seem even more vehemently at odds than when they started.

Steve Hoffmann, for the proposition, ends with a spirited defence of his market principles, and a fierce attack on the alternatives proposed by Vandana Shiva, his opponent. He is not advocating greediness, or callousness, or exploitation, he insists, nor is he ignoring the plight of the poor or the potential pitfalls of unbridled capitalism. He is simply advocating that all these concerns be distilled through markets as the most efficient way to allocate scarce resources and to encourage investment to expand supplies. Ms Shiva, he complains, offers no real alternatives, simply vague principles, such as equity and justice. In practice, he believes, she advocates a bureaucratic approach, which seldom leads to good management.

Ms Shiva, too, grows ever more ardent. Mr Hoffmann is a “market fundamentalist”, in her view, who ignores the requirements of nature and of subsistence farmers（自给农民） in his rush to embrace the market. Whereas he thinks of water as a realm of pumps, engineering and companies, she thinks of it as a world of women, children, snowflakes and raindrops. She argues that access to water must be enshrined as a right, and that governments should enforce that right without recourse to markets.

But while there has been no meeting of minds between our two lead debaters, some of the other participants have been edging towards a compromise. Several commentators have suggested that a minimum amount of water should be considered a right, to be provided to all near, at or below cost under government supervision, but that any consumption beyond that should be paid for at a market price.

Several of our featured participants have made similarly nuanced suggestions. Michael Hanemann, of the University of California, says “it would be a mistake to rely on pricing alone”. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute believes that water can be both a fundamental right and an economic good. The important thing, in his view, is not whether a government or business provides water, but that they do it well.

Whether such arguments boil down to a vote for or against the motion is an open question. There is no “maybe” option, and no more time for sitting on the fence. Vote now, before the polling closes.

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The proposer's closing remarks
Oct 8th 2008 | Mr Stephen J. Hoffmann

In closing I want to make sure that my position is well explained. Let us break down the statement into its constituent parts.

The statement is generalised but the intent of the subject is clear, that is, should the price of water charged to end-users be based on a market-driven methodology or should it be based on some other, most likely institutional, mechanism.（用于argu引出他因时） An institutional mechanism in this instance would be predicated upon governmental intervention independent of the reality of economic interrelationships.

The price of water is the monetary consideration that a given user is charged for the water that is used. Users are broadly defined as residential, industrial, commercial or agriculture. The ultimate uses are more varied: drinking water, irrigation, process water, power generation, ecological or recreational.（关于水的消费者和用途。也不算例子吧呃。写得挺好。背来~） And the applications are an even greater combination of the uses and the users.

Participants in the debate have understandably questioned the meaning of market value. The definition is critically important because the price charged for water goes well beyond mechanical computations based on cost to encompass broader social goals and objectives. I am in no way denying the importance of those social imperatives. Indeed, it is because of my belief that the human species must reconcile its drive for a higher standard of living with safeguarding ecological systems that I advocate the pricing of water at its true value. Placing the word “market” in the phrase does not need to imply something insidious.

What is the market value of water? Let us start with what it is not.这种开头不错！ It is not simply a willingness to pay, as Ms Shiva suggests. It is not an arbitrary metric derived by capitalists to profit from scarcity. The market value of water should be a reflection of all the factors that make water a prerequisite for life and for living. Contrary to what Ms Shiva would like us to believe, it can encompass ecological stewardship, biodiversity and sustainability in use. It also encompasses all of the costs associated with achieving those results: regulations, marginal supply costs and advanced treatment technologies.这段的写法很棒，整段背！

I am ardently opposed to bottled water both as a sustainable solution to the lack of access to potable water and as an application that has dire environmental consequences. Bottled water has become an alternative to safe tap water because the social institutions upon which Ms Shiva so adamantly relies have failed to provide a safe, cost-effective alternative. China is industrialising and urbanising in anticipation of a higher standard of living. It has an increasing middle class as a result. And the consumption of bottled water in China is increasing exponentially. While the middle class of China could be spending pennies per thousand gallons for safe tap water, they are increasingly spending dollars per litre for water in a bottle. They are doing so because governmental officials in China have failed to allocate water as a public good. If the largest, centralised, socialistic government in the world cannot mandate an effective allocation of a public good, then what hope do we have that any other country can do so? This is the practical failing of Ms Shiva’s emotion-laden argument. Do not blame Coca-Cola for meeting an unmet consumer need. Blame the public sector for not creating an alternative, cost-effective, market-driven solution.总觉得中国这个例子放在这里怪怪的~

Ms Shiva states that “the value of a public good vital to life is allocated by society on principles of ecology and justice. The value of a commodity is allocated by the market.” These statements are incredibly naive and have no practical application.

Witness the following points.
• Vital to life does not make a good a public good. A public good is one that exhibits specific characteristics. Is food not vital to life?
• Just how does society allocate water based on principles of ecology and justice? A blanket statement is not a solution.
• There is nothing intrinsically wrong with treating water as a commodity in some respects. But it is not a commodity in the market sense of the word.
• Market mechanisms will play a key role in the management of water resources in the 21st century; be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Another conclusion from viewing the observations of readers is that although many want to believe that markets can contribute to resolving the water challenges that we face, there is a reservation that the most difficult challenges will be ignored. In other words, the invisible hand may be too invisible when it comes to the world’s most disadvantaged populations. （太抽象了，看不懂。。。）With those I must agree. But again the philosophy of charging the market value for water extends to the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa. It must be recognised that public (governmental) or other social institutions must address those costs and then make a policy decision to distribute scarce water resources differently.

The Millennium Development Goals established by UNESCO include the reduction by half of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. The key words in this statement are ”sustainable” and “access”. Sustainable does not mean some artificial public-sector allocation that is subject to the whims of the current political regime. And access equates to the infrastructure needed to provide safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The mandate refers to the development of permanent investment in water infrastructure to cost-effectively deliver safe water.

While I choose to look for solutions by incentivising the free market, many like Ms Shiva simply blame everyone else for the problems. They are blinded to any solution that involves the profits that keep the process advancing. As a scientist I am perplexed by Ms Shiva’s lack of knowledge of the relationship between the hydrologic cycle and the science that permits economic solutions. We are advancing market mechanisms to alleviate global warming which is caused by the interplay of the carbon cycle with anthropogenic activities, yet Ms Shiva refuses to apply the same methodology to the hydrologic cycle. Does the fact that air is a public good allow us to pollute it without consequence?

If we follow the irrationality of emotional decisions, as Ms Shiva suggests, we will forever be dumbfounded by the fact that millions of people are needlessly suffering from the lack of safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Quite simply, the resolution of the planet’s water resource challenges must have a market component to ensure access by all people and to preserve ecological integrity.

=================还是换人的分割线================
The opposition's closing remarks
Oct 8th 2008 | Dr Vandana Shiva


Good science constitutes being able to discriminate between spheres（学科，领域subject, discipline, field, domain, realm） to which a specific theory applies and spheres to which it does not.

Applying the principles of Newtonian physics to the quantum world is inappropriate, as is applying the principles of mechanistic science to complex self-organising living systems（写作手法~）. Applying the principles of the market economy of trade in commodities to the ecological and social world of our living and precious water resources is similarly inappropriate. Blind adherence to false assumptions is ideological. In fact this is what makes for various hues of fundamentalism And Steve Hoffmann exposes himself as a market fundamentalist by repeating the false assumptions that market principles can be applied to how water is managed and distributed, without causing harm to people and their human right to water or to ecosystems and their ability to provide ecosystem services in perpetuity.

Market fundamentalists do not recognise that there are not one, but three economies: nature’s economy, people’s sustenance economy and the market economy. The first two can survive without the third, but market economics are dependent on nature’s ability to provide ecological services and societies support systems—the invisible work of women, of third-world people, the human relationships beyond markets which support markets and market transactions. One could not bring up a child on market principles, just as much as one cannot conserve water resources or share them equitably on the basis of market values set by the greed of water corporations or the willingness to pay of the privileged in society.

Market fundamentalism applied to seed has given us terminator technologies to create sterile seeds, seed monopolies and seed famine. It has driven 200,000 farmers to suicide due to debt.

Market fundamentalism applied to water will create water monopolies and water famine. It will aggravate water scarcity for fragile ecosystems and vulnerable communities.

Water privatisation cannot respond to the diversity of water systems needed to adapt to the diversity of ecosystems to ensure sustainability. Markets support and are supported by uniformity and the one-size-fits all mentality. Markets are also built on resource extraction, not on returning water to ecosystems. They are linear not cyclical.

And the drivers of markets are corporations, not people or nature. Mr Hoffmann confirms this when he says: “If the market value of water is not charged to end users what incentive does Badger Meter have for developing automatic meter reading technology to measure real-time consumption demands, what incentive does ITT have for developing efficient water pumps, what incentive does IDE Technologies have for engineering integrated watershed management programmes? Mr Hoffmann’s water world is companies, water meters, pumps, engineering. My water world is women, children, rivers, lakes, snowflakes and raindrops.

In India 25 different water conservation and management systems have been built to provide water. The eri, keri, kunta, kulani, ahars, bandh, bandha, khadins, bundhies, sailata, kuthi, bandharas, low khongs, thodu, dongs, tanks, johad, nade, peta, kasht, paithu, bil, jheel and lakes are only a few of them. To this day, these ancient systems are the mainstay of survival in ecologically fragile zones.

In the desert of Rajasthan, human care and efforts have provided water through the huin, kuan, kundi, kund and tanka. Since every drop of rain has to be conserved, the indigenous knowledge is based on the sensitive observation of rainfall and its patterns. The first drop of rain is called hari. Rain is also called meghphusp (cloud flower), vrishti or birkha; water drops are called bula and sikhar. It is not markets but sophisticated knowledge and sensitive care which have made Rajasthan the most vibrant desert of the world.（知识的获取往往是由特殊环境背景下人的基本需求带来的） People invest their labour and care to provide water. Thus investment is not based on the market value of water but on its pricelessness. It is not based on profits but on the gift economy. Our communities are water keepers, not water privateers. If markets define the “relationship between mankind and the environment”, as Mr Hoffmann states, mankind is not humanity. It does not include women, children or the vulnerable members of society. It is the sub-sect of humanity that defines the world through the lens of Wall Street, because Wall Street is their world.

Mr Hoffmann also explains the current financial crisis as stemming from the public policy directive that home ownership is tantamount to a right and that everyone, even if unable to afford it, should be able to buy a home. This is totally false. Market fundamentalism led to public systems withdrawing from providing affordable housing, on the assumption that the poor can be left to predatory banks to meet their housing needs. Wall Streets created the subprime crisis. The human right to housing would have ensured affordable housing for all, just as the human right to water is the only way to ensure water for all. The predatory market has left thousands homeless and it will leave millions waterless.

That is why I work with our communities to keep water and other vital resources beyond the greed of the market. In the 1970s women in my region started the Chipko movement because commercial logging was leading to deforestation, and deforestation was leading to floods and droughts. They fought against the rule of the market over their forest. They hugged trees so that the greed of the market forces would not dry up their springs and streams and they would not have to walk miles to water. Women are not walking additional miles to water because of the absence of the market, as Mr Hoffmann suggests. It is the women who walk long miles for water who are leading the movement against the privatisation and commodification of water. They are building the movement for defending water as a public good and a human right. They know their water security lies in protecting, conserving and sharing our common and precious gift of water.

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Featured guest
Dr Ashok J. Gadgil


It is interesting to see how much passion this proposition has provoked.

I believe that there is no disagreement that water (fresh water, safe to drink) is a precious scarce resource. About 2 billion people (one-third of us) do not have access to it, and 2m children (mostly below age five) die annually from lack of such access. Safe water for drinking is the foundation of good health and well-being. Populations who lack access to safe drinking water are the very same ones who survive on daily wages, do not have sick leave, paid vacation or even a regular job. Their daily earnings are tied to their ability to perform physical labour. To what extent should we price such foundations for survival and well-being at their full market value?

In all industrialised countries, some basic necessities for survival are made available to the population at the cost of the whole society, witness free and compulsory school education, primary health care (even in the United States there are county hospitals paid for by tax monies), food stamps for the poor and life-line rates for limited but below-cost access to domestic electricity and gas and even telephone services.

The two extremes of the position are: first, a basic right to water that is enforceable by demanding it in a court of law from the government (as the representative of the general society), and second, a free-market fundamentalist position that asserts that those who cannot afford safe drinking water at its market value can and should be left to the dogs. To the proponents of the first position, one asks what are the limits on the quantity of water that can be demanded as a fundamental right? At what consumption rate does your right end and trampling on the rights of others (and of the voiceless—other species and the environment) begin? Beyond safe water for drinking, are you asking for a right to raise water-intensive crops (like sugarcane and rice) and for luxury consumption (to fill my swimming pool) even when there is a drought? To the proponents of the second position, one asks where are the human values in a “civilised” society that only looks to charge full market value for basic necessities such as literacy, and the prevention of diseases and famine. At some essential level, we lose our humanity if we let members of our own society perish because they cannot afford a basic necessity, by viewing them only as fodder for the market.

In many developing countries, the promise of safe drinking water for all is a tired mantra repeated by every government that comes to power, decade after decade. Once the elites in the country get adequate pressurised safe drinking water piped to their urban communities (often via mega-projects funded with huge loans from multilateral banks), their passion for providing adequate safe drinking water for all evaporates rapidly.

Furthermore, most technologies for disinfecting water to make it suitable for drinking rise steeply in unit cost as the scale becomes smaller and smaller. This need not be the case, if there is suitably focused research and development, bearing in mind the real-world conditions where such technology must remain effective and also affordable. Compared with what we spend on R&D for the next-generation razor for a smoother shave, or a new fragrance for the next exciting shampoo, such research can be much less costly and far more rewarding—not only profitable, but also in human returns on the investment.

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

Winner announcement--Decision

October 10, 2008
Mr Edward McBride


THE votes have been counted and the results are in. The noes have it. This house does not believe that water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value. Vandana Shiva prevails.

The no vote had been ascendant from the beginning, although the final margin—60% to 40%—was narrower than in some previous debates. Judging by the number of comments along the lines of “What next, pricing the air we breathe?”, the weight of participants who were simply appalled by the notion of free-market water was just too great for Michael Hoffmann, of the proposition, to overturn. We owe a great debt of thanks both to him and to Ms Shiva for the vigorous but courteous cut and thrust（肉搏战） of the past ten days.

I am also very grateful to all our guest participants and commentators. There have been lots of contributions from around the world, many of them pearls. Take Ashok Gadgil, of America’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who wrote, “Once the elites...get adequate pressurised safe drinking water...(often via mega-projects funded with huge loans from multilateral banks), their passion for providing adequate safe drinking water for all evaporates rapidly.” Or Global Water Intelligence, who wrote, “Everywhere in the world people are experiencing rising marginal costs of water. In many parts of the world, this coincides with growing fiscal deficits. The two cannot coexist without increased water tariffs（关税制度） for long.”

The Economist is sympathetic to water pricing, although it also believes that governments round the world need to do much more to advance rural development and to help people out of poverty. If nothing else, the outcome of the debate illustrates how important it is to make the case that these two goals are not incompatible. The outpouring of views during the debate suggests that there is plenty of appetite for further analysis of the subject, and we will aim to provide it in our coverage.

Meanwhile, for those whose appetite for debate is not yet sated, our next one begins next week. The motion before the house will be: “This house believes that it would be a mistake to regulate the financial system heavily after the crisis.” Please join in.

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

COMMENTS

Uniontory wrote:
Who is this house to decide on prices? If you get government involved the price of water would increase; Surely the easiest way to ensure clean and fresh water is to leave the free market in charge of it.
posted on 16/10/2008 17:03:01 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse


sowi wrote:
I disagree. Water should be priced according to the capacity of people to pay. And this involved government. Should the water source is abundant, the government even can export at whatever price deemed right. Such as Malaysia exporting water to Singapore. Because water is most basic necessity of life, also is air. Will someone sell air we breathe at market price? Of course not. Water is the same thing, it cannot fall under free regulation of free market, which is driven by greed and fear.
posted on 16/10/2008 14:38:09 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Ahmed Bin Abdelkader wrote:
The implicite question is: "should life be priced according to its market value?".I can't help thinking it will produce GENOCIDES(种族灭绝):at least controlled,at worst in freewheel...The proposition makes me remind Murphy's law:"If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way."In fact,specially nowadays,every stock market show how panic or stress can make prices shares evolve; so after rice and wheat rise, another basic life ingredient? Wars will happen for the water management. Again, deaths in perspective（显示在脑海中）. Moreover,speculating could make genocide decided in the stock market. Who would be responsible? Todays decision makers...Therefore,if we want a global Malthusian policy,controlled by the traders mood, what about discussing it clearly...
posted on 15/10/2008 21:22:25 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

greentea10 wrote:
Dow is sponsoring this! How ridiculous! Dow has poisoned the water from Louisiana to Colorado to California to Bhopal, India. www.truthaboutdow.org
posted on 15/10/2008 14:37:28 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

anyrandomargument wrote:
I actually voted "pro" for this motion. Even though water is an intrinsic need for humans - and all life for that matter, we have to accept the fact that water is a scarce commodity that needs to have a shifting market value. For that, there has to be institution/s that can 1) Provide good quality service in transmission of water and 2) set standards for the equity of distribution. "Equity" meaning by type of usage and needs. Governments, especially those in developing countries, can hardly provide a decent service with all the corruption and beureucratic redundancy that they are facing. As much as 30 % of the water supplies get diverted or are lost because of the inefficiency of the public system. Considering that the public sector cannot provide the service, it is up to the private sector to improve the process. Hence it has to have market value. Market value drives innovation, and research（赞同）. It also gives a constant indicator of how critical it is to both industry and individuals. It seems the only remedy, as of present. It is not pleasant to think of water as valued and commercial commodity but really it is - as far as population and scarcity is concerned. Market value has more to do with managing resources effectively than a question of equality (so far as the value of service is concerned). Mr Hoffmann gave us a workable solution in which water can be regulated, at the same time, be more efficiently distributed.
posted on 15/10/2008 14:20:48 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

satsangi wrote:
In fact water is a natural resource a benevolent gift of the God to the mankind alike. Today we are trying to price it because we are misusing it the most and want to continue the misuse by affluent few who are proposing it to be priced it like a commodity to earn money from the free natural resource.
posted on 15/10/2008 11:07:56 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

JT9 wrote:
There is no contention in the fact that freshwater is a very important and a scarce resource and not every individual on this earth has easy access to it. Local water resources have to bear the burden of populations around it. But it also important to see what use that water is being put to. Water for life...how can you charge it? Water for producing Cola...how can you not charge it? I might be suggesting a very biased pricing for the resource, but not all uses are of the same importance. Industry uses a large amount of water in processing and even a lot more in cooling and secondary procedures and developing countries are providing industries with water when people are dying because of the lack of it. How can one assess the true market value of a resource so important.
posted on 15/10/2008 10:15:49 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Mansoor Khan wrote:
For the 90% of the things to make economic sense it is actually important that a few do not. If everything is sold at its intrinsic value then the door is wide open for socialists to attack the entire capitalist system. One can imagine them saying “What good is a system that allows people to die just because they are poor and can not afford drinking water”. By going to such extremes as providing basic necessities at true market price there are bound to be a lot of 'converts' to socialism or at least to its promise because having life after all is more important than having 'a good life'.The argument that unless corporate capital is pumped in the water resources would not be developed is weak at best.（这个证据只有在这笔合作资金用于没有被改善的水资源上才是站得住脚的。谢谢北的指点~~） In countries where this problem is acute most companies will not want to go in for fear of weak profits which might not even allow them to even out（均衡）, as most people there will not be able to afford company processed water. If they paln to export out of the country that is mere exploitation of the host country. It is therefore up to the local governments and UN to provide water and the processing plants in these regions. Even is a region where the average income may be high care should be taken so that this basic necessity maybe provided to even the poorest sections. If the government can utilize taxpayers’ money for supporting financial markets it can as well do so for providing drinking water.The capitalist system cannot afford to deprive millions of a basic right as clean drinking water simply based on the premise that in a free market everything should be sold at its market value while maximizing profits. Anyway after the $700b aid to the US capital markets that cannot be argued with as much ferocity now.The point is tough the capitalist system has served the world well it shouldn't dismiss age old wisdom as a mere cliché - An excess of anything is bad.
posted on 15/10/2008 08:24:03 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

sandifer wrote:
I don't see how we can get passed the need for price signals from the free market. Those who wish to distribute water to those who cannot aford it should pay market prices, to avoid the inevitable relative misallocation that will otherwise result. Governments and/or large NGOs and/or coalitions of NGOs can pool resources and increase purchasing power, but the water must be bought at fair mater？ prices.
posted on 14/10/2008 18:15:52 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

njvwchris wrote:
In reviewing both parties arguments, I would probably have to vote "con" and take sides with Dr. Shiva. The reason for this being that although water is getting ever more scarce, it still, as she states..."is viewed as the basis of life across cultures." More people today are in need of clean reliable water than ever before and the numbers are only continuing to grow as water gets more scarce. Now, it is understandable that if water was able to be traded and treated as a commodity that perhaps those who can afford it, like the developed nations of the west, would be more conscientious about where the water is going and how it is being used. Mr. Hoffman does explain that by regulating the cost by use of markets it would be easier to get cheaper water to those who truly need it, but as we all have seen over the past centuries especially now with the markets failing due to the immense（tremendous） greed of many companies would this necessarilly be the right answer? "More than 30 countries already face water stress and scarcity."(Barlow, 1) Most of the people in developing contries today are forced to use water that is already insufficient and not up to at least base-line health standards. Further, the idea of making water a commodity would inhibit even more severe problems in the future just as we are already seeing today with oil, natural gas, metals, and other commodities. Take for example, South Africa. "With liberation from many government regulations, neoliberal water industry actors began pushing for deregulation and privatization. South African officials say the change in policies has helped expand water services to 8 million of 13 million people who did not have water when apartheid ended. But the statistics have not added up to progress in many poor communities, which have won their first reliable water services but now struggle to pay for them." (Bond)It is through this evidence that this type of privatization would only inhibit further struggles and possibly war in the future as water becomes more scarce around the world. "The US National Intelligence Council, a group that reports to the CIA, warns that water will become the main resource-scarcity problem by 2015 and that the instability created by water shortages "will increasingly affect the national security of the United States." (Barlow) Take as another example, "in 1997, Malaysia, which supplies about half of Singapore's water, threatened to cut off its supply after Singapore criticized Malaysia's policies. In Africa, relations between Botswana and Namibia have been severely strained by Namibian plans to construct a pipeline to divert water from the shared Okavango River. In the water-starved Middle East, the late King Hussein of Jordan once said that the only thing he would go to war with Israel over was water because Israel controls Jordan's water supply" (Barlow). If these are not enough "red-flags" for the proposition's side, I cannot give more clear example of the problem within this proposal. It is understandable that Mr. Hoffman's argument could make good sense in a perfect world, however this is not the case. Greed and unjust will prevail over the proposed solution to this growing problem. Water is a natural "free commodity" for all of us on this planet to share and use conservatively. Barlow,  Maude. “Water Incorporated: The Commodification of the World’s Water” Earth Island Journal. Vol.17, no.1 Spring 2002 Bond, Patrick. “The battle over water in South Africa.” Africa Files. 2003.
posted on 14/10/2008 15:54:02 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

salehaj wrote:
This is the only thing that poors can afford even when they dont have anything to eat for the whole day long. huh what am i saying they dont even get it in a pure form. Fisrt provide the water to them in its purest form and then think about it.
posted on 14/10/2008 11:04:25 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Abdulla Al-Khalifa wrote:
It is understandable and acceptable that oil, Tabasco and Pepsi are priced according to their market value. But not water. Water is the essence of life. It is not only necessary to life, but there is no life without it. Today, a barrel of water costs more than a barrel of oil, milk or Coca Cola. The price of water is increasing dramatically. Over the past five years, water rates have increased by an average of 27% in the United States, 32% in the United Kingdom, 45% in Australia and 50% in South Africa. It is known that the price of water is determined by four factors: the price of transport from its source to the user, total demand for the water, price subsidies and treatment to remove contaminants. But even though, these factors should never deny the fact that every human being should have access to safe drinking water. Let us all not forget that one of the UN's eight Millennium Development Goals is to ensure environmental instability. And one of their eighteen targets is to "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". All of us agree that this is a very challenging target. Today, in the Sub-Saharan Africa, 300 million people lack access to improved water sources. The World Health Organization and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council are performing tremendous (immense) efforts to reach the above target. I believe that everybody should believe that this target is attainable. And the last thing we want to ask ourselves is: would or could this target be probable or even possible if water was to be priced according to its market value? I genuinely believe that if the matter was so, the above target will need much longer than 2015.
posted on 13/10/2008 23:04:41 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Ohio wrote:
Without a (regulated) market price, there will be no private investment. Those 2 billion people without clean water will be waiting for their governments to provide it, probably for a very long time. Most of those same 2 billion would willingly pay what it costs to provide them clean water. Human rights are easy to declare, hard to deliver. If this group can't understand the basic economics of this issue, I have little hope for those 2 billion.
posted on 13/10/2008 19:15:51 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Old Bryan wrote:
The deregulation of water pricing, excuse me, the market pricing of water will work as effectively as the deregulation of the electricity marketplace and the crude oil markets. The value of water is only dependent on its use and availability. The value of water is up to $3/liter in sporting and other venues where no other source of water is available. I guess municipally supplied water would have to be priced at the highest and best use, that required to sustain life, and just below the price of alternatives, i.e. Starbucks, juice, tea and of course, bottled water. Using that as a starting price for water, the federal government ought to be able to retire the national debt and meet the goal of eliminating all taxes in a relatively short period of time. Since virtually all water comes from "waters of the United States" there should be no problem with the United States selling the raw water to the wholesale suppliers. In short, you can't allow market pricing when the demand is inelastic. Water demand is almost inelastic, similar to energy. With energy there is the luxury of switching forms of energy. With water there is no other alternative. We can use less, we can use it more judiciously, but we still have to have it.
posted on 13/10/2008 16:39:58 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Kiket wrote:
I think water should be priced relatively to its cost of provision. For decades countries have lacked good resource management because of policies that wanted to provide this good as a right. This could be still be done, but with minimal cost recovery. Otherwise we end up with the common tragedy of the commons.
posted on 13/10/2008 14:38:23 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Sebalicious wrote:
I am "pro" pricing water at market value, in the context of my own country, Australia (maybe not with respect to developing countries). People in Australia are generally wealthy, but still we have water subsidies when this is the driest inhabited continent. We also currently have water restrictions. Although I feel that some regulation is necessary to prevent hoarding or monopoly, or the 'terminator technologies' of which Vandana speaks, water is a scarce resource and it is important that those in at least the deveoped countries realise this. I feel this undervaluing of water has lead to a more wasteful culture, at both an individual and industrial level. Pricing of water that reflected its precious nature would thus be a good idea. It would encourage better use of water and further innovation in water-saving technology, an industry in which we have already seen significant growth.
posted on 13/10/2008 12:02:25 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Girija Shanker wrote:
Dear Sir, I am tempted to vote "pro" on this debate - being a firm believer in principles of capitalism. Water is a precious commodity and yet it's stored, distributed, used and consumed as if it's free. At the same time, I realize that water is "Water" and if financial institutions globally are so systemtic that taxpayers' money is needed to save them at the cost of saving repackage-garbage-earn-bonus species, then water ought to be free. May be regulated but free. By regulation I do not necessarily mean rationing (although that might be an idea) but some way to ensure that water is used conservatively irrespective of user's ability to pay. So that someone doesn't have stand in queue at municipal tanker while other continues to water lawns!
posted on 13/10/2008 10:57:09 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

so not mice wrote:
No comment on the outcome itself (the subject is more complicated than a simple yes or no answer can deal with ) but on the debate could I make a couple of suggestions:1) that all comments be restricted to a maximum (of 100? 250? ) number of words - that would enforce a strict discipline and economy of expression on participants and mean that everybody's say决定权 carried more weight. 2) that it is somehow made easier to find responses to one's own postings (and one's responses to others' postings). The problem with this sort of online debate is that it becomes a series of discrete comments by a series of Robinson Crusoes, each secure in their own small island, but having little chance of listening to each other (because there are so many responses to trawl through...)
posted on 12/10/2008 22:25:18 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Ziggy_me wrote:
Being an absolute necessity for survival, I believe water should not be priced according to its market value. However real international discussions should take place in order to regulate individual water consumption.
posted on 12/10/2008 22:21:24 pm

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

comment

tchrans wrote:
Basic economics states that the use of a binding price floor（最低限价） creates shortages of all goods. Water is one resource that is no different, however a shortage of water creates a much larger problem than a shortage of most other goods as water is an absolute necessity for life. The advent of city water and sewer lines has created an artificial convenience and low cost associated with water. As recently as 200 years ago, one had to walk to a well and manually pump water from the ground in order to gain access to the resource. The cost of labor associated with obtaining the water led to an efficient and effective use. Large scale industrial use of water was almost nonexistent, and agricultural use of water was much less. Fast forward to the present day, and clean water is much more accessible. Technology has allowed for water to clean water to be removed from the ground at great depths, or moved across incredible distances for a multitude of uses. One only needs to turn on a faucet and water is delivered instantly to the location. This convenience distances people from the actual resource of water and does not allow for them to fully understand how valuable water is as a resource as they are isolated from the relative scarcity of it. The only way for society to fully understand the value of water, is to remove all types of price ceilings（最高限价） associated with them, and allow for the price of water to be set based on the principles of supply and demand. People understand the concept of higher prices, and many will begin to conserve and cutback their usage. Immediately, wasted and inefficient use of the water will quickly decline. For example, it is estimated that 14% of all household water usage is wasted down the drain, and that simple inexpensive changes such as changing to a more efficient shower head can greatly curtail water consumption (EPA Watersense). The government can help offset the cost of certain upgrades by providing tax benefits to people who choose to use these upgrades. It is also suggested that, “To encourage water-saving innovation, domestic (and industrial) water prices should be increased. Generalized subsidies should be replaced with subsidies targeted to the poor. Water providers should charge low prices for a basic entitlement of water, with increasing prices for greater amounts of water” (Rosegrant, Cai, Cline 23). This principle of the subsidy allows for the price of water to increase, without fear that the lower income families will no longer be denied the basic human right of clean water for drinking and sanitation. The largest use of water is for agricultural purposes. Higher prices for water will greatly affect the actions of farmers. Suddenly a great effort will be made to conserve water and “encourage investments in improved efficiency” (23). Farmers would experience an urgency to reduce costs, and a great effort would be placed on making technological advancements. The government could also place certain tax credits and other monetary incentives on development and use of these technologies to help offset the increased price of agriculture. Our current supply of freshwater is currently under a considerable amount of pressure with the combined effects of pollution and inefficiency. The continued use of a price ceiling will only exasperate the latter problem. Rosegrant, Mark W., Ximing Cai, and Sarah A. Cline. "Global Water Outlook to 2025:Averting an Impending Crisis." International Water MAnagement Institute. September 2002. Watersense. 09 Oct. 2008. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 12 Oct. 2008 .
posted on 12/10/2008 18:33:19 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

lazywavetrader wrote:
If it is so valued, then eventually the inverse valuation can take place, so that money is gauged by its value in liters or gallons of water. Which is just about where we are now. It's a moot point for countries that have money. It will create hell in countries that don't.
posted on 12/10/2008 18:07:34 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

BoomerU wrote:
Water used to grow local food should be free. See the benefits in "Farmer in Chief"(Michael Pollan)http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
posted on 12/10/2008 17:52:33 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

William Baldwin wrote:
privatize, because only the rich deserve clean water! Stephen J. Hoffmann is a would-be robber baron.
posted on 12/10/2008 16:19:10 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Water001 wrote:
Clean water should be priced in relation to a persons wage bracket; the poor should be absolved of any price on such a substance. Maybe the G20 countries could implement a staggered scale pricing system for trade, in this way you could help bridge the gap between rich and poor in allegedly developed countries. For a free priced product for the poor and a quantified priced product for the rich would allow market forces to create an eventual equilibrium. It would act as a means of quenching the crunch on a minute scale for those really suffering if nothing more. Also if the prices were kept residual (for the rich who would be the only ones paying) it would amount to no classist discrimination further then the mere price of your water bills (if a cap was established on market prices) a sort of mini-trade venture for those with little wealth. Just an idea of the top of my head nothing more.
posted on 12/10/2008 14:43:51 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

maksud wrote:
Free things are misused freely....so needs control...and control..isn't free...
posted on 12/10/2008 14:33:40 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Sya'myr wrote:
Water, like food, being a basic need for humans' survival, should not be treated as a commercial commodity. That is to say, people should have free access to water, if it is to fulfill their desire to survive or to be hygenic. But at the same time, to avoid any negligience, it should be priced as well, but nominally. However, the communities should keep on monitoring the water storage they have and start restricting if there is massive "unwanted Usage" of water, like Australia does with its water restriction policies. Meanwhile, small portion of water should be commercialised and money earn should put on the poor parts wherer people still struggle to get clean water. I beleive current Australian system is best.
posted on 12/10/2008 01:23:53 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

sekrpeace wrote:
how is it that every natural resource is grabbed and held by someone with power and then abused in such a way as to make it dearly priced, and unrecognizable from its original free-flowing form? water as a resource necessary to life for all species must be free and available for use by all.
posted on 11/10/2008 23:38:14 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

GoldenMean wrote:
Every living being has a right to have clean water. Governments should strive to make water for drinking, cooking and hygiene available to its citizens for FREE. However, use of water for other extraneous purposes such as car wash, gardens, pool, etc. should be priced at a market value.
posted on 11/10/2008 23:32:47 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Mixed breed wrote:
Pricing water according to its market value is the only way to guarantee present and future availability for mankind.
posted on 11/10/2008 17:27:47 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Abdi Malik wrote:
Coming from a country where water is precacious, I believe water should be regarded as a basic human right and that not only goverments should be responsible but international bodies such as so called UN should be made responsible for its provision.
posted on 11/10/2008 14:26:06 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

sanmartinian wrote:
Sir, May you ask Leucippus how many days could he survive without putting his feet on a solid surface or go without food? Even those on hunger strikes have to take water with a little salt. Are we going to give salt for free to anyone?
posted on 10/10/2008 22:53:23 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Leucippus wrote:
Not every scarce resource is immediately necessary for the continued existence of life. Water is the only one without which you would die after a few days. As such, its value is priceless. It is not a commodity, but a necessity, and therefore not to be entrusted to the vicissitudes of the market.
posted on 10/10/2008 22:30:52 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

sanmartinian wrote:
The outcome of the debate did not surprise me. What surprised me was the lack of knowledge of basic economics apparent in many Con supporters’ comments. The commonest argument “water is the essential for living so it should belong to everyone” is as hollow as a football. Apart from a few who live permanently in the clouds, nobody survives for more than a few hours without stepping on dry land and even sailors go ashore every so often. So dry land is as essential to life as water.Yet a square foot of dry land in Manhattan, Piccadilly, the Champs Elysées or Copacabana is a little more expensive than many square miles on the Sahara.Would anyone like to have their governments give for free space in the centre of their largest cities?Come on, be realistic!
posted on 10/10/2008 22:13:30 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Ithaca402 wrote:
"Ergosumcausa" says 'While I think any claim to "fundamental human rights" is suspect...' Excuse me? So people don't have the right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness? So it's ok to have slaves, it's ok to kill somebody? Or at least, any "rights" in that regard are suspect? I guess then that the lawyers and bankers who flew out to take over the water supply of Cochabamba, Bolivia and hand it over to Bechtel Corp. are lucky that they didn't end up swinging from lamposts on the road back to the airport. In the circumstances, I guess we should be especially grateful for Ergosumcausa's "con" vote, whatever the reasoning. We all know that corporate lawyers steal from the poor to give to the rich, that's understood. But stealing from the world's desperately poor to give to the world's ludicrously rich, that's a bit much, don't you think?
posted on 10/10/2008 22:06:12 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Ithaca402 wrote:
Who among you think that you own water in the first place? It flows from high in mountains through rivers that run through different countries and other types of "property". Or it runs underground, without regard to the land "property owner" above. It is even less yours than land or the sea: top soil and sea water move around, but at least somebody can draw a line on a map and proclaim ownership. That is not possible with flowing water. This is madness.
posted on 10/10/2008 21:04:36 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

mcmizu wrote:
given the recent global economic events I believe it is best to exclude water from the private markets. due to its paramount role in life, this finite scarce resource should be managed by the public.
posted on 10/10/2008 20:43:16 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

ergosumcausa wrote:
This is a rather disconcerting proposition. While I think any claim to "fundamental human rights" is suspect, this is an expressly normative issue. One can claim they are value-agnostic in some sort of markets vs non-markets debate. But espousing markets as a solution to these allocation issues *IS* a normative claim. Now, its the battle of norms. In that debate, which I think is the honest one, I would have to side with "Con" argument.
posted on 10/10/2008 15:01:31 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

lgamez wrote:
Water pricing in most developing countries is highly subsidized in many different levels, including environmental. End users are not internalizing the real cost NEITHER the cost of watershed / groundwater conservation NOR wastewater treatment. Water pricing is severly distorted. Pay attention to the price of bottled water in these countries: The price of half liter of bottled water can be three or four times the price of a daily supply of 1000 liters in through public utilities in Central America (minimal quality diff). Why is the willingnes to pay for public supply of water has to be so much lower than for marketed bottled water?
posted on 10/10/2008 14:52:15 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Federal Farmer wrote:
Sir, cr williams insists that I have tried to move the goal posts. If I did, I rather think it was more towards his team, but once again the pro side is condemned if we do or we don’t. Surely readers will be able to tell from my earlier posts and the sources cited that the voluntary arrangements that started so promisingly on the American frontier with respect to water rights were eventually undone by the application of eastern rules and practices ill suited to the newer environment. This was done by those of their day who again, as now, insisted on an orthodox one size fits all approach. Today, many of the problems of the west are the direct result of these ill conceived interventions into local affairs, so the situation is far from settled but actually greatly muddled (McCloud, by the way, is in California). We must now deal with these issues as best we can, and I have consistently favored more local resolutions that make use of sound economic reasoning and local knowledge. But this is disallowed by the opposition, not on grounds of reason but something else… Ms Shiva and others may not be the old line progressives and socialists of yesteryear, but they display something with which those earlier movements were quite deeply imbued: religious enthusiasm. Mr. Hoffmann very clearly noticed this as well in his final comment. Those who have been espousing a market based approach have been pilloried for being fundamentalists of a sort. In reality this allusion to religion has been proffered to obscure the highly religious nature of Ms Shiva’s opposition. We are not merely wrong, but are sinners against a rising faith. This is not true of all who have posted. Indeed, Perguntador, has made some very astute uses of economic reasoning to argue the contrary, but the overwhelming number of allusions to the sacred, leaves little doubt that quite a few here seek to relegate markets and economic reasoning to the outer darkness of the profane. Well, so be it. I for one choose not to be a servant in their version of heaven.
posted on 10/10/2008 14:48:58 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

COMMENT

crespo521 wrote:
Water will be used everyday,and it has the inner value.When put in the market, water is the goods, it should have the use value.
posted on 10/10/2008 13:35:41 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Pruz wrote:
Reading the proposition of the house, the debaters and comments, one tends to think that Water is actually not commercialized, and priced per market - that water is available freely for anyone to (mis)use - and thats hardly the case!Water is actually priced *as* a commodity. Water use, whether for drinking, irrigation, general use is actually priced as a generic commodity - and the quality provided is usually atrocious. The proposition believes that water needs to priced per market, so Pepsi or Coke would sell water effectively at more than 10 times what it costs them to package/transport it. As someone resident in India, here's a look at the stats:1 ltr bottle of Kinley/Aquafina costs approx 12 Rs in cities, and upto 20 Rs in distant towns (street price) - average earning per day in India (for poor people - 300 million people)? Rs 35. Spend 50% of earning on 1ltr of water?That is the option the market price is giving the poor.And on reports of water quality being better because of market coming in - one should only read consumer test reports to ascertain that. The kicker? Municipal water (at least in India) actually tests better than the packaged mineral water. The other problem is, for eg., in places like the US/UK - the municipal water quality is rather bad compared to packaged water. If your water is not being used by a majority of people, where's the incentive to refine it??
posted on 10/10/2008 13:23:50 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Lucacinclus wrote:
water is a foundamental right of each person. I think that we must fight against who would transform it in a business.
posted on 10/10/2008 10:30:58 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

god bless us wrote:
Shiva’s argument is quite piercing and powerful, her analysis really hits the nail on the head. Just as what she said, H2O can not be treat as the same as other ordinary commodities and the privatisation and commodification of H2O can not be handled by the blind and irresponsible market itself as we all know its failure in distribution of public goods. H2O can be blacker than oil. The original intention of water commodification is to tackle its inequality of spacial and temporal distribution, but from the start of this plan, it is surrounded by fallacious fantasy of the people and malicious purpose of the rich. The privatisation of water is a war between the rich who want to completely control the whole process of water recyle and snatch superporfits and the poor who begin to aware this severe situation and want to escape from this control in hope of maintaining their basic survival right!
posted on 10/10/2008 08:55:00 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Wasserwirt wrote:
In developing countries, 90 percent of available water is used in agriculture. If water is priced at opportunity costs, small farmers (majority) will go out of business. It will subsequently cause substantial political unrest. The possible solution is to assaign water rights to farmergroups and allow them to sell the water rights in the water market.
posted on 10/10/2008 07:38:23 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

waiahole wrote:
Water is a shared resource that must be managed for a wide variety of purposes that pricing alone can not capture or convey. Pricing is a reductionist logic. It loses information, characteristics, and relationships essential in the complex rebalancing of the natural world, our physical health, our communities, and our shared social and economic lives. Markets fail; water is the source of life itself and can not be appropriated for any single purpose alone.
posted on 10/10/2008 07:36:41 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

AM Nieto wrote:
I have just read the statement of Mr Steve J. Hoffmann and while reading I was thinking that it was me who was speaking, so I can not be more in pro of those principles for water management, nevertheless, I must add that this way of thinking only can work in places or countries free of corruption, bribes and so on.
posted on 10/10/2008 06:52:08 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

c r williams wrote:
Sir Once again FF tries to move the goalposts by questioning the " ...fully adequate means of establishing property rights in the usual legal and commercial sense." Isn't this one of the battles fought and won by FF's forefather pioneers in opening up the Wild West to cattlemen and croppers. Riparian rights have stood the test of time through the courts, so why is it only now that FF deems these rights to be less than "fully adequate"? Perhaps they're only inadequate when the residents of Mecosta County, Mi are asked to present their case to the US Congress. It's not as if McCloud, Mi residents pulled the wool over Congress eyes, as the President and International CEO of the Bottled Water Association, as well a Professor of Law from Wayne State University also testified to US Congress. It's all here, http://www.savemiwater.org The market-driven behemoths will no doubt mount court challenges whenever another community tries to emulate the good citizens of McCloud,MI. But to say that the current property rights regime is less-than-adequate, that is doesn't provide the corporates with sufficient legal certainty, is certainly trying to muddy the waters. Morally, the citizens of McCloud, MI shouldn't have needed to go to court- they had time-honoured rights. But corporate legal counsel set about undermining these rights in the name of grotesque profits. Shame on them. Let the Great Lakes Compact and the struggles in McCloud, MI be testament to a fresh start. The moral dimension here requires corporates to start to behave with a social (as well as a shareholder) responsibility. Time to lift your game, as the people of Plachimada, India also concluded in their website, http://www.cseindia.org/dte-supp ... 40215/non-issue.htm (see page 8).
posted on 10/10/2008 05:58:25 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Jrubiano wrote:
Inequitable access to markets does not allow to impose rules that benefit a restricted group of players
posted on 10/10/2008 05:26:23 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Federal Farmer wrote:
I appreciate the article in Business Week that Perguntador and cr williams referenced in their postings and I especially appreciate Perguntador’s thoughtful comments. I think the article illustrates the complexity of having a resource over which there can be no fully adequate means of establishing property rights in the usual legal and commercial sense. Under such circumstances, governments must be more active in the creation of the rules that are to coordinate the uses of such a resource. The recent Economist article on ocean fisheries is just such a case, where the commons problem can be effectively handled by rules that take proper cognizance of incentives. (See: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story id=12253181) Water is an even greater challenge, however, because of the highly localized differences that characterize each source. Consequently, the proper level of government should be the most local and representative. Only then will you get the kind of intensity and concern that puts all the issues on the table such as occurred in McCloud, CA. The critical information in such a case is by its nature subject to the constraints of time and place and unfortunately can only be learned in this sort of messy fashion, but the means toward bringing together real economic opportunity with fair and environmentally sustainable management seem to have been ultimately realized. What Ms. Shiva is saying, however, amounts to a complete rejection of markets altogether. She cites ancient practices and traditions and something of modern science, but this begs the question of how the political decisions are to be made. If it is government all the way down, who determines which needs are to be met, what uses are to be approved, what environmental concerns are to have priority? Does tradition mean the absence of change? If not, what then are the criteria for determining change and who decides? If we are not going to have prices, how do you control for population? Or do you control it by command, as opposed to incentive? How do you decide what uses are worthy and which are not? What organizations and orders of persons will be favored with plenty and which ones will be deprived? Doesn’t the logic of Ms. Shiva’s prescription ultimately come down to planning all of human life to conform with her particular understanding of what is sacred? And it doesn’t help to say that in every instance a majority vote will decide. In the absence of market incentives to coordinate the dispersed and disparate ends of everyone in society, some other organizing principle will need to be established, and I fear it will look and sound much like tyranny.
posted on 10/10/2008 03:22:14 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Nelson72 wrote:
I&acute;d like to answer to the proposition&acute;s "Who is John Galt?": A price mechanism is the only sound way to ration finite resources.And will do with a question: What is more finite, the human life or hidrogen with oxigen?The problem is education and respect to the other that drink the water that I do not use.
posted on 10/10/2008 03:08:30 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

enriquedcb wrote:
As brilliantly stated by Ms Vandana Shiva, markets reallocate resources based only on money. In my beautiful country Bolivia, I’ve seen certain indigenous grains such as Quinua not affordable anymore for the people in many communities. The cause, simple, somebody was paying more money in another part of the world. The same would happen if we allow markets to control water resources. Humankind must realize that we are more than just slaves of money and markets. These kinds of issues clearly need for us to reconsider our values. Respect for both people and nature are crucial.
posted on 10/10/2008 00:20:28 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Who is John Galt? wrote:
Yes. It absolutely should be priced according to its value. An individual who doesn't have to account for the value of the resource they are using, there is no reason to limit the amount they should use. I think it would make sense that water rights be included in some sort of temporary social saftey net so people don't die from a lack of water, but that's as far as 'government provided water' should go. As the general rule, people should have to pay for what they use. A price mechanism is the only sound way to ration finite resources.
posted on 09/10/2008 22:40:57 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

jessie0403 wrote:
I am not a economist by any means, I just don't agree that it should be priced according to it's market value. Water is a requirement for all living things in this world.
posted on 09/10/2008 22:26:03 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Laura B Antoniazzi wrote:
water should be priced according to its market value, but not limited to this. Of course other issues as payment capacity and social benefits should be considered.
posted on 09/10/2008 21:26:02 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

nauger wrote:
Water is a requirement for life and an indispensable resource for productive economies. The vital nature of this resource alone establishes access to water as an essential human right and warrants some sort of provision to guarantee subsistence consumption. At the same time, water services, and supporting infrastructure systems, are very costly to develop and maintain. When water rates are not priced to cover these costs, the gap in funding is closed inevitably by public transfers (financed by taxpayers). While many important characteristics of the water sector--distribution through natural monopolies, positive externalities, and basic necessity--will continue to ensure a necessary public sector role, it is important for pricing to reflect the true value of water services. Cost-recovery pricing of water improves the overall sustainability of water infrastructure systems and helps keep consumption and wastefulness down in areas of limited supply. When affordability issues pose a significant obstacle to cost-recovery, a common approach provides access to a subsistence level of consumption at a reduced cost by increasing tariffs for consumption beyond that level. So…I’m sort of in between. I think that water tariffs need to cover costs and necessary investments, but at the same time a base level of consumption for subsistence needs to be affordable to all...
posted on 09/10/2008 20:50:53 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

c r williams wrote:
Sir Re Swamp Creature (14;58),there are two gaps worth filling. Firstly, people in non-capitalist countries also get thirsty, so the outcome of this debate has worldwide appeal; for the oligarchs in Russia, for the socialist regimes in Vietnam and South America, and for those countries still struggling with feudal fiefdoms for whom the starkness and brutality of capitalism doesn't necessarily offer a panacea to their everyday woes. Secondly, to correct a misconception still held be some on the Pro side, but increasingly being rejected by the Featured Participants and free-thinking debaters. As much as they would wish, Swamp Creature's primary water motivator is not money. As so many lucid debaters have revealed, you can't drink money, it doesn't quench any thirst. No, the primary water motivators are need and greed, and that has been the essence of this debate for me. There is no 'money bubble', except perhaps in the minds of those who still try to drink money.
posted on 09/10/2008 20:44:30 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

gzalileo123 wrote:
Say that is a condition to talk about water as a human ressource is like forbids to talk a sick person about diseases because is not a doctor.many bad called " primitive" societies by the first anthropologist in XIX Century has show in the last Century that has complex mechanism of ressources 500 years ago as Inca culture and in this times economist dont exist.A tempation of any branch of sciences is believe that is a exact science,economy es more a human science,and a fail of many economist is think that economy works by rules established as the only true.This explain the facts that are many good explanation about economic cathastrofes happens in the past and so few solution to real and actual economic crisis.
posted on 09/10/2008 20:15:07 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

gzalileo123 wrote:
Replace market by a "market" of consensus ideas or rules accepted by the international comunities incorpored in constitutions of all countries where access to water id a human right as basic premis. This water consensus must determine what human activities must be priorized an establish general principles to rule the inter countries contraversial issues mecanism of solutions. As water is a scarce resource activities low in priorities must pay a tax and destined to a fund to find new water sources.This fund could be managed by a ONU institution as a Water Bank destined in implement as priority the search en poor comunities.
posted on 09/10/2008 19:52:48 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Kroneborge wrote:
Well it's clear at last, the majority of the Economists readers are certainly not economicsts, nor do they have an understanding of how markets work to allocate scare resources. Tis a sad day,
posted on 09/10/2008 19:05:36 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

jessicaluluUID: 2471730

COMMENT

SwampCreature wrote:
This debate illustrates “the gap” between cultures which live by abstractions or resources such as “markets” or “money” and cultures which live with through more direct interactions with community and ecosystems. Each approach has evolved to respond the conditions created by population densities within a given geographical area, and is neither “right” or “wrong”. In the gap between the two approaches ideas mix and the potential for solution emerges. As our diverse world shrinks and populations increase, healthy discussion of all ideas will generate new solutions. Both threads of discussion have several assumptions in common – that water should ultimately be managed “for the greater good” of people, and that people have the right to choose how to supply and distribute water. Although not explicitly stated, the discussions appear to assume capitalism is the primary economic system in place in the areas discussed. (If it is not, the opinion should state this.) The primary point of disagreement is basically about the best social and economic approach to use to provide water for the greater good. “How to” provide water starts with the question of what motivates people to manage water for the greater good. One argument is that money motivates people to construct and manage “private” water management systems. (Money being an abstract, “token of trade” with real value only when it is traded for other goods.) Others are motivated by the direct tangible interaction with water, ecosystems, and community. Again, neither motivation is right or wrong, but each is more appropriate depending on the social/hydrologic conditions of the population to be served. The more densely populated an area is, the more need there is for abstract token of trade (money) to achieve transactions. Where population densities allow for identification of a “community” and understanding of the watershed features outside the populated area, other options exist. The debate points out the importance of learning to speak each others languages – the language of economists, of hydrologists, and of community planners. Each brings unique strengths to the discussion. Missing in the debate so far is discussion of difficult water management issues which are increasing emerging around the world. Should water only be distributed within the “watershed” – and of what scale watershed? What degree of trans-watershed diversion is acceptable? Who owns the rainwater? Should effluent be “sold”, and valued based on its quality? How would instream flow rights be managed and valued; for example should the instream water needed to transport sediment to a delta area be “privately purchased” – and if so by whom? There are also related social questions such as: why do some government water distribution programs work and other’s not. Perhaps this has more to do with the benefits provided to government employees than in the structure of water management agreements. Perhaps answering some of these other questions will lead to identifying the appropriate allocation mechanism, which may be different for different cultures, population densities, watersheds, and geographical areas. And perhaps “the solution” for any area should be designed to adapt to the changes needed to accommodate increases in population density in the future. The other important point is the artificial distinction between “private” and “public”. This distinction becomes blurred when we talk about government regulation of private markets. There is ample evidence that public regulation of the “markets” is needed. As we have recently seen with deregulation of energy markets, and financial markets, government regulation is essential to moderate the behavior of “extreme capitalists” whose ambitions lead to the creation of “money bubble”. Regulation can provide the sideboards needed to create stable, long-term markets. If we remain open to the idea that differing ideas may also be complimentary ideas solutions can be larger and better.
posted on 09/10/2008 18:58:08 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

ketlux wrote:
I think the abysmal level of this debate is summed up by one of Steve Hoffman's closing remarks: "I advocate the pricing of water at its true value." Yes, well I think everyone agreed with that.
posted on 09/10/2008 17:55:38 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Nelson72 wrote:
The invisible hand of spectre haunts the land of Europe. It is a water hand.
posted on 09/10/2008 16:28:19 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

universal export wrote:
Recall Adam Smith's lesson of the "Invisible Hand"?
posted on 09/10/2008 15:44:53 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

hugo vz wrote:
For domestic use there are perfectly workable solutions that recognise rights to water and put a price on water that can't be considered a right. In South Africa each household gets a free allocation of water each month to meet basic needs in recognition of 'the right to water'. For most municipalities, any use beyond this level is then charged for at exponentially increasing rates in recognition of this waters nature as a commodity that has costs associated with its delivery.
posted on 09/10/2008 14:03:02 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

PGHviaDC wrote:
fact: underpriced resources will run short.
posted on 09/10/2008 14:00:44 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

OLDIE wrote:
MARKET DOES NOT RESPECT LIFE. A very good example is the coke plant which was taking water where it was cheap, and did not realize(because it had no interest in the issue) that it was taking resources from the most needy whose prospective of buying a bottled drink was as remote as it is for you to drive a luxurious 150 meters yacht,( and therefore were invisible to the market observer) . On the other hand when a village community has succeeded in bringing water to its members, it has all interest in limiting the use of that water to cost efficient use, but only after having provided life supporting and sanitary use to all, eventually asking them to provide for maintenance. The lesson is there: before applying market rules (or absence of rules), you have to be sure there is a market. First solve theit sustainability of life, transforming them in potential customers, then you have a market. Remeber the story of the two shoe salesmen send to sub saharian africa: the first telexes (in those years there were no satellite dishes) "No way people wear no shoes here" and the other telexes "What a wonderfully prospective market, people here don't even now what a shoe is!!" The free market would be a wonderful thing if it included large incentives for long term profits rather than short term bonuses. The world finance is presently busy learning it the hard way, so let us hope we can take that lesson into account.
posted on 09/10/2008 13:18:26 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

williamemarks wrote:
Even though I find fault with some of Mr. Hoffmann's views as I delineate in my comments of today and of October 3, I respect and give praise to Mr. Hoffmann for his enlightened statement: "I am ardently opposed to bottled water both as a sustainable solution to the lack of access to potable water and as an application that has dire environmental consequences."
posted on 09/10/2008 11:10:33 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

williamemarks wrote:
I have read every pro and con word of this water debate – many thanks to “economist.com.”Contrary to Mr. Hoffman’s closing position – China did not fail to allocate water as a public good. However, China has failed to safeguard their once free and abundant clean sources of public water supply. Today, over 400 of China’s 668 cities have declared water shortages; at least 20-million Chinese lack access to running water while another 200-million experience shortages or rationing. More than half of China’s 700 major rivers are polluted, while 90 percent of urban area lakes, rivers and reservoirs are undrinkable. Just imagine how much freshwater would be available to China’s growing population if its waters were pollution free? The pollution of China’s waters, as in Europe and other regions, is often the result of market greed making saleable product from natural resources without the product reflecting the true cost of its production. Thus, a product’s true cost is dumped into our world’s waters as a price for others to pay.Today, more than 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation, and about 1 billion lack access to safe drinking water. Given these numbers, it is no surprise that the World Health Organization estimates that 80% of all illness in the world is due to waterborne diseases.As cited in my earlier comment and example of October 3, when per-capita clean water minimums are not available for free, a region’s population can quickly slip into contagious disease. And, such disease is far more costly to a country’s economy and stability than the market monies collected for water as proposed by Mr. Hoffman. Obviously, we are now entering a phase of human evolution where our survival will be determined by our wise management of freshwater. Thus, it is incumbent upon our political leaders; captains of industry, and our social leaders to work in harmony so as to prioritize the allocation of diminishing freshwater resources for our survival and the survival of other life forms.
posted on 09/10/2008 10:21:57 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

dgoel_msft wrote:
I agree with Vandana.
posted on 09/10/2008 09:07:46 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

c r williams wrote:
Sir They question I would pose to Professor Werner (edgarkid, 8 Oct 15:54) is hypothetical. For the sake of argument, say the allocative function is provided by non-market means. That still leaves the dilemma of funding new and replacement infrastructure. A chord that seems to resonate amongst many debaters is that a penalty for pollution, obvious waste and, perhaps, failure to undertake necessary water conservation measures seems warranted, and this penalty needs to be excessive. Does economic theory offer such a device? I am thinking of my home-town where, by popular consent, the fines for breaches of the (road) speed limit are inordinate. We know they are a means of revenue raising for infrastructure investment that taxpayers would otherwise fund as a petrol of vehicle registration surcharge. But, by singling out undesirable human behaviours (ie, something we do have control over) we've cut the death toll on our roads to 1/3 and, better still, the younger generations have a better appreciation than we oldies that "speed kills". Can economic theory accommodate such a surcharge on undesireable human behaviours, as a means of funding sustainability?
posted on 09/10/2008 08:31:10 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

god bless us wrote:
Water is essential to life, it got to be priced according its character of prerequisite which promises the availability of everyone to ensure the basic right of survival. Because of this, you can’t price water just base on the convergence of equimarginal value and marginal cost, absolutely free market doesn’t exist in reality and it is just an relative conception in theory compared with plan economy in which price doesn’t exist and every commodity is distributed according central planning, it will cause further severer sparsity of water in poor region where water is unavailable and further deepen the inequality between the poor and the rich.
posted on 09/10/2008 08:03:56 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

smittal9 wrote:
WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE ALREADY PAYING A MARKET PRICE FOR WATER. WE DO NOT GET WATER FOR FREE. SO WATER IS ALREADY PRICED AT ITS MARKET VALUE. IN FACT THERE IS A PARADOX OF THRIFT. OIL WHICH IS ALSO A NECESSITY IS PRICED AT A VERY HIGH VALUE, WHILE WATER, WHICH IS ALSO A NECESSITY IS GIVEN SUCH A LOW VALUE. WHY IS THIS SO? OIL IS SCARCE BUT SO IS WATER DUE TO HIGH POLLUTION LEVELS, BUT ONE THING THERE IS THAT WATER IS A RENEWABLE SOURCE WHILE OIL IS NON RENEWABLE.
posted on 09/10/2008 07:45:55 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Barbara Schreiner wrote:
There are two concerns that I have in relation to this question. The first relates to the concept of economic efficiency as introduced by Hoffman - the problem with economic efficiency is that it does not take into account human beings and the environment - often an allegedly economically efficient answer results in the poor being even more marginalised - it may be economically efficient but it is socially unacceptable. We need a different measure for how we want water to be used. This pertains in the water sector, where the issue of pricing has to be handled remarkably carefully in order not to force pricing related water scarcity onto the poor while the rich have plenty of water simply because they can pay for it. Remember - water is necessary for life, health and dignity - it is not like a new pair of shoes that you can choose to do without. The second issue relates to what is being priced. Many of the comments refer to "charging for water" - I think we should be a little more rigourous and recognise that what needs to be paid for is the cost of getting reliable and safe supplies of water to people, both infrastructure and management costs. These costs have to be covered from somewhere - the real question is how you choose to cover these costs and what the social, environmental and economic implications of these choices are. Costs can be covered by user charges, from general taxes, by levies etc, or a mixture of the above. The challenge is to do this in a way that covers the costs fully, in terms of operation and maintenance costs, refurbishment, and new infrastructure costs, while also protecting the poor from prices that they can't afford. This is why South Africa introduced the concept of Free Basic Water - so that the poor will always have a basic amount of water provided free, in order to guarantee their human right to water. (Let me add that there are significant challenges in implementing this approach.) Free Basin Water is covered from the fiscus, while other water use must be paid for by users. I have no doubt that one has to cover the real costs of water infrastructure and management, the question is where the money comes from and how, in the process, you protect the poor and guarantee their right to water.
posted on 09/10/2008 06:35:18 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

NeverThirstPatFerraro wrote:
Recently, a insightful letter was published in the San Jose Mercury News. It was a short but powerful statement. It said "I'll believe there is a drought when they stop issuing building permits."I have spent 35 years in water management, 23 as an elected member of the Santa Clara Valley Water District.I have watched this District surcharge water rates so current residents pay for water systems that will be used to serve future growth, while discounting agricultural rates 90% to farmers, until they sell to developers and make millions on the land that many would like to keep in production as a local food supply.I have been through several droughts and have watched businesses and residents respond to both voluntary and mandatory rationing. Despite all these admirable responses, people did notice that building permits continued to be issued without any concern for the shrinking water supply. Because public entities are often separated between land use agencies and water agencies, there is no nexus to control this problem.If you want public support for achieving more water use efficiency, I would suggest that we work with the California legislature to find other ways to pay for the State's future growth than on the backs of its current residents and businesses, many of whom have already reduced their per capita water use to minimal levels.
posted on 09/10/2008 05:54:15 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

hardnose wrote:
It is not a black and white issue. In developed world, it is all fine to use market mechanism to price water. In developing and underdeveloped world, it is a basic necessity to survive for millions of people, steeped in pverty. Yet, these developing world governments need to find a mechanism to guard against misuse of water by large corporations/urban population. Free water availability will lead to many more cases of large coffeee chains (as recently reported in newspapers), which let the cafe taps running throughout the day in the name of keeping their cutlery/crockery hygienic.
posted on 09/10/2008 05:07:08 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

perguntador wrote:
I owe an answer to Federal Farmer, who has been such a brave and considerate debater.The trouble with water analogies is that they only make sense in a narrow way. They cannot be stretched, beginning with the food analogy favored by the Pro side (no need to stress the differences between a finite mineral resource and a renewable, cultivated crop). This is true with my own take, of course. I brought in labor only to highlight how transnational companies are mobile, and need not take into account local interests, think long-term or worry about conservation of natural resources, if they don't want to (as opposed to small scale businesses and indivduals whose livelihood depends on a local resource).I do not wish to say all multinationals have to be predators, I only say they have every incentive to be, particularly when absent and faraway investors/shareholders demand quick returns to their investment. I know that to treat water for a town is not the same as to bottle water from a spring, but it is a difference only of degree. The short-term pressure can be the same. The Business Week story cr williams brought to our attention is excellent in its depiction of how a big company can bully a small community.(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08 15/b4079042498703.htm)And please, take note:a) this is Business Week, not the Tree-Hugger Sentinel nor the Worker's Tribune.b) this is rich, well-educated, environmentally-aware California. Other cases are from Maine and Michigan. If towns in the biggest capitalist country, with a strong civic culture and a 200-year-old functioning democracy, find it so hard to get a fair deal, what can we expect from these companies in a poor country with a weak government, usually undemcratic rule and mostly uneducated citizens?The Economist had a debate on "Sustainability and corporate responsibility". A bit surprisingly, 73% of the hall agreed to the proposition that "Without outside pressure, corporations will not take meaningful action on sustainability." Sadly, effective outside, political action to tame the animal spirits of capitalism is often lacking where it is most needed. That's what we have been talking about. In the end, this debate turned out to be as much about power and politics as about economics.I guess most people sensed there was something scary about the proposition, no matter how sensible it could be in a narrow economic sense. Ms. Shiva saw this; the Pro Side failed to acknowledge it properly and has not been able, so far, to move the hall.
posted on 09/10/2008 04:43:27 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Nelson72 wrote:
I give an example like a Modern pulp mill that use liters of water to make paper. The cost of the water today is free. This Pulp Mill procese the water to revert to the river. If this Pulp Mill do a good job the people in the community will be glad with this company. However if this company doesn&acute;t proceses the water dumps in the river, the same community will expulse this pulp mill. The problem is who control this Company? Other problem is who have the money to inspectors and courts? The only answer is the same community. Then there are another problem. Who controls who? Then the trust is esencial. Like life. Dont price the water, rewared the stocks company that proceses water. Price not how Mr Hoffmann speak, reward how he do.
posted on 09/10/2008 03:58:20 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

ispeak wrote:
Water is absolutely necessary factor for sustenance. Since water is a "thing" unlike other must factors like love, affection, it is priced and sold. It is exploitation of human need to sell water. Adding a price value to it even worse.
posted on 09/10/2008 02:49:24 am Recommended (0) Report abuse

Diablo Cyclery wrote:
I'm afraid the way the proposition was phrased unnecessarily polarized the debate. Is there anyone who doesn't realize the basic necessity of water to humans, indeed all species? At the same time, the question as to how it will be allocated must be addressed. By governments? By price? By war? Any one of these approaches will work and there are probably others as well. One advantage of pricing water - and there are many different ways to do this - is that is will enable private capital to determine whether or not the price is sufficient to reward investors for the risk. This is important. As the events of the last few weeks show, credit of any type is becoming scarcer by the day and government funds are increasingly being committed to stabilizing the banking and housing sectors. While private capital also is tightening up, it will respond to appropriate risk/reward returns. Why would anyone who values the need to provide potable water for commercial, agricultural and residential uses look this gift horse in the mouth? I don't believe a serious review of the regulatory framework governing water, or for that matter wastewater, provision would find that it is anything but stringent worldwide. It is not a question of the private sector profiting inappropriately from the world's need for potable water, rather the proper question is in the absence of private investment, how will the world's demand for safe, potable water be met? Hint: there's just not enough government money, especially now, to do it.
posted on 09/10/2008 02:31:09 am Recommended (0) Report abuse