What Is Goin’ On?

For those who are trying to figure out whether or not there is an answer to the water problem, you might want to read this commentary by Greg Bluestein (AP) in the Macon Telegraph Online. Greg points out that reservoirs are not the answer to the water problems, neither in the long term or the short term. Why?

Short term: They take years to build. They are also very expensive. According to the article, a new reservoir costs about $4000 per 1000 gallons. Dang!

Long term: More reservoirs = More water = More buildings = More people = Same problem 30 years down the road.

Now, this may sound a little naive, but when you think about it, the real problem here is deciding what quality of life we want to have in Georgia 30 years down the road. Think about this. Why do you like

to go to Wyoming? It is the 10th largest state in land size and the least populated state, less than 500,000 per the 2000 census. As beautiful as it is, as nice as it is to visit, why the heck aren’t there more people in Wyoming?

I am not exactly sure when it was in vogue, seems like decades ago, but I remember when you heard a lot about zero population growth as a goal because the world had too many people.

I don’t know anyone that actually wants Atlanta to get bigger. I don’t know anyone that wants more concrete for roads and parking lots in Metro Atlanta. I don’t know anyone that has any idea how to solve the traffic jams and transportation nightmare that is Atlanta.

Could the answer actually be that we decide that Georgia is big enough? Can we decide we have had enough growth, enough population? Can we choose to slow down so that the Georgia we knew and loved when we were kids (open spaces, natural streams and stuff like that) is actually preserved so that our grandchildren can enjoy it? Or will they look back and wonder how we could have been so stupid to have failed to make the hard choices and preserve the best in this state? Will they wonder why we left it to them to solve problems that could have been more easily solved by us in this day and time?

It sounds strange to contemplate a conscious decision not to grow and grow and grow. It sounds strange, but it has the ring of wisdom to it. Look at China. An industrial slum that will destroy its future, if not the world’s. It sounds like one of those things that we may regret not giving serious consideration to 30 years from now.

One thing is for sure, without any shadow of a doubt, Georgia can only hold so many people and building and roads. If you compare 1950 with today, it is not hard to imagine that in 50 more years, life in Georgia will not be anything like what it is today. That may have been an exciting thought in the past when running out of space and water and open spaces was not really a concern, but now it is a little scary to think of Metro Atlanta as being twice as big as it is today. When I think of that I see those weird cities in the science fiction movies where the city is all inside another building.