The Colorado River District article we quoted in Part One of this editorial series, about that District’s new communication strategy, is titled, “New Messaging for the Next Era in Water.”
It can certainly feel like we are moving into the next era of water policy, when intelligent people are making a strong case for tearing down the Glen Canyon Dam and draining Lake Powell, the second largest man-made water reservoir in the United States… and at the same time, other intelligent people making a strong case for paying farmers and ranchers to stop producing food, so their irrigation water can be used to refill Lake Powell… to allow farmers and ranchers in California and Arizona to access the additional water. (The money to pay these Colorado farmers and ranchers would apparently come from you and me.)
Whichever way this debate turns out, it will likely feel like the “Next Era in Water”.
Over the weekend, a Daily Post reader sent me a link to a highly entertaining 15-minute video, on English actor Russell Brand’s popular YouTube channel, originally posted on January 30. In an installment titled, “WHAT? The Great Reset is Not a Conspiracy!” Mr. Brand quotes extensively from a news article posted to Bitcoin.com by reporter Jamie Redman, which is in turn titled, “Wall Street Giants Want to Be Your Landlord – Data Shows Megabanks Are Buying Up All the US Real Estate”.
Our Daily Post reader wondered if we are seeing Wall Street giants buying up all the single family homes and apartment complexes in Pagosa Springs?
That might be a good research project for a future editorial.
But the image I’d like to share this morning is the one shown below… because Mr. Brand used it as an illustration in his January 30 video… about ‘The Great Reset’ currently being promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF)…
This image comes from a 90-second video produced by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2017, portraying eight predicted changes to the world economy certain experts expect to see by the year 2030. The first prediction, as illustrated in the image above, is that “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
(I could not find a link to this video on the WEF YouTube Channel, although I did find the Spanish language version there, “8 predicciones para el mundo en 2030”. But the English language version is being shared on various other YouTube channels.)
We might wonder at the strange prediction that we (the ordinary people who appear to be the subject of the prediction) could ever be happy if we ended up owning nothing in 2030.
The rest of this seemingly dystopian video was not shared by Mr. Brand, however… because WEF explains what they actually meant:
“Whatever you want, you’ll rent…”
An interesting prediction. That we will be simply renting everything we want. We won’t own a car; we’ll purchase a ride, whenever we need one, in an autonomous vehicle. We won’t own a computer or an iPhone; we will rent the latest model whenever it comes out. We won’t own a couch, or a dining room table, or a bed; these things will be rented as needed. We won’t own a house; we’ll rent a house whenever our needs or location changes.
Most Americans, I imagine, would find such a world disturbing to even think about. We’re so accustomed to the idea that “wealth” is intrinsically tied to “ownership”, and that a person who doesn’t own their own home, and car, and TV set, is by definition impoverished. No red-blooded American wants to be impoverished.
But whether WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ is a corporate conspiracy, or simply a well-meaning philanthropic effort to make the world a better place, is not the subject of this editorial series. We’re talking about water, in the New Era.
Something very interesting about water, in Colorado. Our state constitution defines the resource known as ‘water’ in a rather unique way, in Article 16.
Section 5. Water of streams public property. The water of every natural stream, not heretofore appropriated, within the state of Colorado, is hereby declared to be the property of the public, and the same is dedicated to the use of the people of the state, subject to appropriation as hereinafter provided.
Colorado citizens and corporations cannot “own” the state’s water. We’re able to use it, for irrigating a crop, making soup, doing a load of laundry, washing our car, filling bathing pools for a hot springs resort, engaging in hydraulic fracturing, and many other purposes.
But where water is concerned, here in Colorado, this image might already be quite applicable:
No person or corporation is allowed — according to our constitution — to “own” water. We can only “use” water, when it’s available. (In theory.) Yes, if we want to jump through the legal hoops, we can obtain a “water right” which allows us priority access to water when supplies are insufficient to meet everyone’s water demands. But we can obtain a water right only if we are going to put the water to a ‘beneficial use’. We cannot, in Colorado, merely ‘horde’ water without using it for a definite purpose that somehow benefits the people of the state. (In theory.)
This is a different situation from almost every other physical object or resource that Coloradans use.
Wall Street giants can, for example, take ownership of an apartment building and leave it vacant, hoping to someday flip it for a profit, even in a community suffering from a housing crisis. An oil company can stockpile crude oil, waiting for the price to rise. I can own a house, and a car, and a TV, without any requirement that I ‘use’ them.
In Colorado, water must be used, beneficially, or left in the river. That is to say: you can rent, but you can’t own.
In terms of water, we own nothing… and perhaps we’re happy that way?