canada: finding soft paths for
water
david
brooks, foe canada
In the mid-1970s, Friends of the Earth
proposed a new approach to analyze energy
futures. This “soft path energy analysis”
was largely conceived by Amory Lovins, then
with FoE United States. Today, the effects
of soft path analysis can be felt around
the world, and the largest source of energy
has been found right where Friends of the
Earth said it would be: in greater demand
efficiency, not new supply.
It is time that we applied the soft path
analysis to water. Just as soft energy path
analysis demonstrated the feasibility of a
decentralized, democratic and non-nuclear
energy future, so could soft paths for
water demonstrate the feasibility of
decentralized, democratic and nondammed
water futures.
Soft paths go beyond water efficiency.
Soft path policies ask not only how to use
water more efficiently but why use water at
all. Not just lowflow toilets, but why is
water necessary in toilets at all? And not
just more efficient irrigation, but how can
food be grown with rain-fed techniques, or
with supplemental irrigation alone?
In contrast to typical economic
approaches, policy analysis for soft paths
challenges patterns of water use. Does
watering lawns or washing cars make sense
in a world increasingly short of water?
Even if it does, should water for such uses
be potable in quality? Does it make sense
for nations in arid regions of the world to
use the bulk of their water to grow food?
Even if it does, is it sensible to grow
crops for export, which is an indirect way
of exporting water?
The essence of soft path analysis can be
reduced to three principles. The first is
to resolve supply-demand gaps in natural
resources as much as possible from the
demand side and think of innovative ways to
satisfy human demands for water. The second
principle is to conserve the quality of
water as well as the quantity. High-quality
water can be used for many purposes,
low-quality water for only a few. But,
happily, we need only small quantities of
potable (high-quality) water but vast
amounts of irrigation (low-quality) water.
The third principle is to turn typical
planning practices around. Instead of
starting from today and projecting forward,
start from some defined future point where
we want to be and work backwards to find a
feasible and desirable way (a “soft path”)
to get there.
Following our success with soft energy
paths, Friends of the Earth should lead the
world in finding soft paths for water. And
however much efficiency of water use is
increased, we should insist that water
management also achieves greater equity in
water use and more democracy in water
decisions.
more information:
Friends of the Earth Canada:
www.foecanada.org
Rocky Mountain Institute:
www.rockymountaininstitute.org
The Soft Path for Water, Gary Wolff and
Peter H. Gleick:
www.pacinst.org
Tomorrow’s World, FoE England, Wales and
Northern Ireland:
www.foe.co.uk
