This post takes its inspiration from my good colleague and fellow geographer Tim Forsyth. His book,
Critical Political Ecologies (2003, Routledge) is an under-utilized resource in most natural and social science disciplines, probably because it attempts to address and bridge both big groups. But a number of recent stories, in the press and across the blogosphere, have prompted me to use his 2003 concept of "environmental orthodoxy," to address stories about water. Basically, the concept is simple: an
environmental orthodoxy (EO) represents the 'dominant conventional wisdom' on a process we think we understand. So, as one example, how about the term "
desertification." Does this mean the spread of sand dunes, or generally the decline of vegetative life-forms from larger tree-like species to scrubbier shrubs? It depends on the user and the point of the author or document, but its range of use is, let's just say, generously wide and flexible.
So here goes...
We lead off with inkstain, John Fleck's blog, and
why blaming "drought" as an EO for water issues in the Southwest may be a misnomer. If low precipitation and high variability of annual precipitation define the terms "arid" and semi-arid, then is "drought" really a good term to use in the Southwest? Food for thought - even if we have no simple answer to this.
In many ways, addressing the impact or use of "drought" is a bit like trying to prove that
deforestation affects climate, rather than just local weather. Here's a not so
recent story about that particular tie, and how complex it is. There's no new conventional wisdom there - but let's just say that the old Colonial-era logic of "trees gone = rain down" doesn't apply so neatly.
Invasive (or "
exotic" or "exotic invasive")
species are also a problem in many parts of the world, yet the late 20th century stategy of clearing out, say, Tamarisk (salt-cedar as it is regionally known in some parts of the Southwest),
may have serious effects on the evapotranspiration balance in streams. The costs and benefits, hydrologically-speaking, are a bit more nebulous than previously thought.
Finally, two stories courtesy of Aquadoc on
bottled water and
rural water merit mention. So the EOs, respectively, are about
whether bottling water is really such a "healthy" thing - challenged by P. Gleick - water may be better than Coke for human beings, but what about the externalities of plastic bottles? And rural water challenges have their EO, ably tackled in this publication about the
7 myths of rural water supply.
So there you have it - does that framework make sense? Is the concept of environmental orthodoxy a useful one for you? There are many more that could be posted here: public vs private water suppliers (with champions and detractors all along that continuum of supply source), carrying capacity, population pressure, soil erosion (vs degradation).
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