Economics 12: Chapter 1 Scarcity and Opportunity Costs

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11966993

Summary:

As people worry about the shortage of oil, they do not realize that water supplies around the world have a more serious problem. Unlike oil, water cannot be substituted by something else. As a matter of fact, some think that water is too low-priced. Statistics show that water usage has been doubling every 20 years. Out of all the activities that take place, consumption of water is used by agricultural activities. The quality of the water is just as important as the amount. As a result, many companies such as Dow have reduced their usage of water by 29% from 1997 to 2006. Countries such as Beijing have made goals to clean up the polluted wastewater by 2010. Overall, many countries and companies strived to keep the usage of water to a limit.

Chapter One Connections: Scarcity

Many people in the article have thought of water as a resource that would not deplete, but water is actually beginning to become scarcer. This connects to chapter one because scarcity is one the two major topics in the chapter. When a resource becomes scarce, we try to find a replacement for it. However, there is no substitution for water. Since there is no replacement for water, countries started to clean the wastewater. Thus, it is like finding another replacement for water. Since this is becoming a major issue, companies in China have started to cut back on the use of water. However, Canadians have not decreased their use if water, but instead increased it. A decade ago, Canadians used 49,683,984,000 litres a year which is two times more than the Europeans. Now, Canadians increased the usage of water to about 25% more which is about 25,000,000,000 litres a year. If China and other parts of the world can decrease the amount of water they use, why can't we? As a matter of fact, people are starting to question about the price of water. Since it is said that when a resource is more scarce, the price of the item should go up. However, it is not happening. The goal everyone has right now is to make water less scarce by using it wisely.

Personal Reflection:

Vancouver is known for its heavy rainfall it gets each year. Eversince i was born, I have lived in Vancouver and I have never thought that water would become scarce because of the abundant rain we get. In my opinion, it is human nature to use all the resources that are available to us. We just take what we have for granted and do not realize we are actually using more than we need. Many people in the world have enough water just to survive while people like myself do not realize the waste of water until the problem surfaces. After reading this article, I am convinced that the world has a major problem with the scarcity of water; therefore, I am going to reduce the amount of water I use when it is necessary.