I’ll be honest that I haven’t yet read the advance company of Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought
We desperately need a word that conveys to everyday citizens that we just don’t have enough water to waste like we do. It’s a struggle. I often see nature protection and pollution control people using the phrase “running out of water,” but researchers find that it strikes the everyday citizen as apocalyptic and far fetched…
Running out of water is something that most people have not considered and do not believe — communicating something that is unbelievable is ineffective.
Source: Texas Water Development Board Focus Group Report, 2004
And when I’ve sat in on focus groups myself, I’ve noticed that many attendees actually can’t distinguish between water pollution and water supply issues. They tend to see that the consequence of “too much pollution” is “not enough clean water.” And they see water everywhere, but wonder if enough of it is clean to meet human’s and nature’s needs.
But that there’s just flat out not enough water at all? Even in places like Arizona, Colorado and Texas, that strikes many as preposterous.
Reflecting that, I’ve put the phrase “enough clean water” on the Words That Work list, but I recognize it’s a bit clunky, somehow.
So what do you think of “permanent drought?” Did the author nail it? How about “artificial drought?” or “man made drought?”
Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought
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“Permanent” seems a bit hopeless. “Artificial” seems easy to manipulate and manufacture. If people can still make a difference, I like “man made drought.” In this phrase, if people are the cause, they can be the solution. It’s the same idea behind global warming.
“Permanent Drought” is a good start. It can bridge us to whatever term we’ll ultimatley use, and I’m not sure what that is just yet. For the young Suburbanite, Permanent Drought may mean watering the lawn or washing the car on alternate days is a reality — forever. Permanent Drought may mean to angry picketing farm workers that they will have to come up with a solution long-term, not just rally and write their congressman this week.
But until we reach the point where people don’t have water to flush their toilets, the reality of water scarcity will remain what it is now: an enigma, an apocalyptic cry of enviro-alarmists and one of The Unimaginables. In the U.S., we assume clean drinking water is a right, yet do nothing to protect it. Life wihtout water is unimaginable. Even those areas plagued with repetitive drought years are coping…
Here in the Catskills, we’re at the other end of the spectrum — too much water and regional flodding more often than not these days. This recent memory overshadows any call-to-arms for water conservation. Our area provides clean drinking water for nine million NYC consumers. I’d say our residents are pretty savvy about water in general. But Permanent Drought is not a term I’d be using any time in the near future. I do wonder at what point our water-rich area will be called upon to provide water recoures or those less unfortuante miles away. We are, after all, Americans and will come to the aid of our parched compatriots. We have yet to reach that point of realization that water is not in the tap or in the toilet bowl.
I like the concept of Permanent Drought because it gets to the point…Once we’re there, there is no going back.
The problem is with the word drought since it implies there’s a beginning and an end to the water shortage. Adding permanent before drought, creates a phrase that contradicts itself. That’s why I think it sounds clunky.
As a communications professional in California, I do appreciate this discussion.
It kind of reminds me of “long emergency” It conveys a specific message about a bad situation. It also gets your attention. Those are its good qualities. I see some bad ones, though.
1. Its kind of an oxymoron. A drought is periodic weather pattern characterized by less than normal rainfall. This makes “permanent drought” something of an oxymoron. Chronic shortage is probably more precise.
2. A drought is a weather pattern. It suggests a condition we can’t do anything about but perhaps endure. People tend to avert their eyes to big problems with no end in sight.
3. It places the emphasis on a resource shortage. The problem is not too little water, its too much wasteful overuse. A message should place the emphasis on the demand side of the equasion where we can do something sensible about it and individual actions matter.