You may not pay a lot of attention to how much water you use if you have a well, yes.
On the other hand, if you live in northern Arizona, and you have to pay to have water trucked in, you pay REALLY close attention to how much water you use. I may not waste water by average standards, but by the standards of a person that lives in a desert, I waste enormous amounts of water.
People tend to be less zealous stewards of resources when their lives aren’t directly impacted when they personally waste those resources. When resources are managed in some way, people tend to exploit them until they’re gone or destroyed. A very real example is the deer population in Georgia; prior to the institution of game control, white-tail deer were hunted into extinction in the state. It took >40 years, and the unwavering efforts of a single DNR employee, to reintroduce white-tail deer back into Georgia.
This isn’t me saying that capitalism makes the most efficient use of resources, because it obviously doesn’t. But resources that belong to all–like clean air and water–need to be managed in some way so that they continue to be available to all.
You may not pay a lot of attention to how much water you use if you have a well, yes.
On the other hand, if you live in northern Arizona, and you have to pay to have water trucked in, you pay REALLY close attention to how much water you use. I may not waste water by average standards, but by the standards of a person that lives in a desert, I waste enormous amounts of water.
People tend to be less zealous stewards of resources when their lives aren’t directly impacted when they personally waste those resources. When resources are managed in some way, people tend to exploit them until they’re gone or destroyed. A very real example is the deer population in Georgia; prior to the institution of game control, white-tail deer were hunted into extinction in the state. It took >40 years, and the unwavering efforts of a single DNR employee, to reintroduce white-tail deer back into Georgia.
This isn’t me saying that capitalism makes the most efficient use of resources, because it obviously doesn’t. But resources that belong to all–like clean air and water–need to be managed in some way so that they continue to be available to all.