Fear is used to sell almost everything: cars, tires, and life insurance are classics. But clever marketers also use it to sell breakfast cereal and deodorant. As a result, we purchase all sorts of things that a generation ago were considered unnecessary: antibacterial soap, alarm systems, vitamins. The list goes on and on…
— from the article “The Most Powerful Motivator” by Robert Evans Wilson Jr. on the Psychology Today website, September 2009.
As innumerable commentators have noted, fear is a powerful motivator.
On the web page where, on March 21, the Walton Family Foundation publicized certain portions of a recent survey of registered voters, conducted by research firm Morning Consult.
The story starts like this:
Ahead of World Water Day, a poll conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the Walton Family Foundation highlights the pressing need to invest in climate change solutions…
…The Walton Family Foundation, in collaboration with Morning Consult, released a poll today revealing that 74% of Coloradans are worried about climate change and water scarcity, with at least 3 in 5 voters saying that drought, increased temperatures, wildfires, extreme weather and flooding are a product of climate change’s effect on water resources.
The survey began with general questions about the respondents’ main concerns, and as we might expect, the largest group — 62% in Colorado — said they think “the country” has gotten “off track” (62%) as compared to “going in the right direction” (38%).
The poll also asked:
Now, thinking about your vote, what would you say is the top set of issues on your mind when you cast your vote for state offices like Governor or state lawmakers? Please select one.
Nine possible sets of issues were offered.
About 42% of the respondents picked “Economic Issues – like taxes, wages, jobs, unemployment, and spending.”
But of course we didn’t learn much from that question… because the respondents might be concerned about taxes and wages and unemployment…
…but they might also be concerned only about taxes. The number of respondents (300) was ‘statistically significant’ but the resulting data isn’t always terribly meaningful.
The second-place concern (14%) was “Environmental issues – like climate change, increased temperature, drought, flooding, extreme weather, wildfires”. Here we have the same problem. Are 14% of Coloradans concerned about climate change and drought and flooding and extreme weather and wildfire?
Or are they concerned only about wildfire? No way to know.
We do know, meanwhile, that the Walton Family Foundation has concerns about climate change and drought and water demand, because the Foundation has been generously supporting non-profit organizations and news outlets who are willing to study water issues and promote certain water policies, with a particular focus on, for example, the Colorado River… and water markets.
Nearly all of the remaining questions in the Morning Consult survey dealt with ‘climate change’ and ‘drought’.
These two ideas — ‘climate change’ and ‘drought’ — have been successfully entangled with one another, over the past 20 years, via news stories like this one, for example, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
“NOAA’s Spring Outlook predicts prolonged, persistent drought in the West.”
This entanglement of two meteorological variables, in the minds of the public — warmer temperatures and drought — has been an easy task, because here in the temperate zones of North America, we generally experience warmer temperatures when the sky is clear and sunny, and cooler temperatures when it’s raining or snowing.
Warm = Dry
But taking a more global perspective, we find that some of the driest places on Earth are also some of the coldest places, and conversely, some of the places with the most abundant rain are in the tropics.
On Monday, in Part Three of this editorial series, I would like to share some research about drought, based on data available at the National Integrated Drought Information System, a NOAA agency, that you might find interesting.
‘World Water Day’ — sponsored by the United Nations organization ‘UN Water’ — took place the following day, March 22. This celebratory annual event was proposed at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the first World Water Day was observed the following year, with each successive year having a particular theme related to water.
The theme for 2022: “Groundwater: Making the invisible visible.”
From the World Water Day website:
Groundwater is invisible, but its impact is visible everywhere. Out of sight, under our feet, groundwater is a hidden treasure that enriches our lives.
Almost all of the liquid freshwater in the world is groundwater.
Unfortunately, many of the world’s major underground aquifers have been on a steady decline… including, here in the U.S., where about 20% of water for drinking, crop irrigation and everything else comes from underground water. We might seldom think of aquifers as being “endangered,” but that’s actually the case, as we continue to overuse their water… and pollute them with chemicals.
The great Ogallala Aquifer, beneath the Great Plains, supplies 27% of the nation’s farmland with irrigation water; it has undergone decades of depletion through over-pumping. California’s Central Valley aquifers are also being rapidly depleted to irrigate the nation’s fruit and vegetable demand. The massive aquifers that supply New York and New Jersey are being drained, and polluted.
Ahead of World Water Day, the Walton Family Foundation-funded poll of Colorado voters may have had little connection to groundwater depletion. From what I can tell, the Walton Family Foundation’s focus, for the past several years, has been surface water… in particular, the Mississippi River… and the Colorado River, supplying water to perhaps 40 million people, with its headwaters located primarily in Colorado.
Is the future looking warm, and dry? Maybe not.
Would some people like to see us paying more for our water? Maybe so.