Saturday, November 17, 2007

Water ‘conservation’ idiocy


This survey today reminded me of another of my pet gripes - idiotic conservationsim.








A perennial bugaboo of the local Victoria press, politicians and enviro-nuts is the state of the fresh water supply. The Regional water Nazis restrict water usage during the dry months and hector the populace year round to conserve. UVic and the local newspaper recently teamed up to publish a conservation bulletin just chock-full of nifty recommendations for cutting down on water use including: multiple toilet uses before flushing, halving time spent the shower, not running the tap while brushing teeth, etc.

As Glenn Beck would say - this is a load of conservationist bullcrap!

There is no shortage of water! This is the Pacific Northwest for God’s sake! We get 5 feet of rainfall every year. We’re surrounded by rain forests. If there were a shortage of anything (and there isn’t, except for common sense) it would not be water but water storage capacity.

If we don’t use the stuff it collects in the reservoir which overflows in January every year (December last year) and flows into the frickin’ ocean. So instead of flowing out our taps, down the sewer pipes and into the ocean, it just flows over the top of the reservoir dam and straight into the ocean. With the amount of available fresh water it’s not possible to ‘waste’ it. It’s an annually renewable resource.

So why the phony hype about conservation - as if using it today is somehow robbing future generations? I don’t know. It’s hard to figure except that it gives the Regional government ‘authorities’ a chance to yap about what wonderful ‘stewards-of-the-earth’ they are. In my estimation, given all the fresh water that falls out the sky here, the Regional authority’s principal job is to make sure that enough of it is collected in reservoirs and avoid having to hector us with stupid ‘conservation’ suggestions.

5 comments:

hunter said...

I asked some people the other day, (after seeing a news piece on Greenlands glaciers melting, where they showed gallons of fresh water a minute flowing into the ocean) shouldn't we capture that fresh water and sell it? It would "save" the planet from the supposed raising of the oceans water level that global warming believer's tell us is going to happen. It would also help drought ridden areas.

They were stunned into silence. How could I propose to SELL our fresh water? Go figure!

Anonymous said...

Some of these doorknobs should conserve oxygen by stopping breathing.

Anonymous said...

Um, Hunter, I don't think it was necessarily the idea of selling water that stunned your audience into silence. =P

hunter said...

Oh anon2, now what would you mean? That we should just do nothing but whine? Watch the polar bears drown? Gore told me that's whats happening. Oh, right, send billions to China so they can fire up more coal furnaces.

Easy to do drive by slurs, obviously you have nothing of real importance to convey. I'm thinking a lefty, unable to use facts to make their case.

Anonymous said...

I'm always amused to hear people talk about water conservation like it's oil--as if it diappears forever once you use any. Sure, there is a cost to collect, treat, distribute and generally manage the water supply, so we must keep that in mind and not waste it stupidly, but that doesn't mean we should stop living life in an effort to save every last drop of water.

Water is an infinitely renewal resource, unfortunately much like Canada's supply of socialist and enviro nuts. Too bad we can't sell them!