Peter Friedman
Lawyer
Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity
The Great Lakes Union: a great idea that just keeps getting better
One year ago I made the following proposal: “The states and provinces bordering the Great Lakes should secede from the U.S. and Canada, form their own country (the Great Lakes Union), and exert exclusive control over the water in the Great Lakes. In other words, we’d “go OPEC” with respect to water.”
Steven Solomon, in Freshwater Scarcity: The Greatest Crisis Most Americans Have Never Heard Of, lends my idea some credibility. Solomon writes:
“Today, for the first time in human history, the global well is starting to go dry — and we are all about to learn the painful lessons of what happens when societies run short of history’s most indispensable resource.
“Freshwater is overtaking oil as human society’s scarcest critical resource. And just as oil transformed the history of the 20th century, freshwater scarcity is starting to re-define the geopolitics, economics, environment, national security, and daily living conditions of the 21st century.
“What is happening, essentially, is that under the duress of the voracious demand of our global industrial society that uses water at twice the rate of our rapid population growth, there is simply not enough available, sustainable supplies of freshwater in more and more parts of the world on current trajectories and practices, to meet the needs for food, energy, goods and accessible safe drinking water for our 6.7 billion, much less the 9 billion we’re becoming by 2050. Due to the uneven distribution of population pressures and water availability, global society is polarizing into water “Haves” and “Have-Nots.”
The G.L.U., Superpower of the 21st Century
With all the talk out of Texas about secession, I’ve been thinking. The Great Lakes contain 20% of the world’s fresh water. In the undeveloped world, fresh clean water is perhaps the greatest need, but there’s no doubt that even in the fastest growing areas of the U.S. water is not only in short supply; there seems no answer to the problem.
So here’s my idea: the states and provinces bordering the Great Lakes should secede from the U.S. and Canada, form their own country (the Great Lakes Union), and exert exclusive control over the water in the Great Lakes. In other words, we’d “go OPEC” with respect to water. The rest of the country is ready to let our economies go to hell. When is the last time you heard a politician outside the Midwest talk about the importance of saving the economies of Ohio and Michigan? Well, we’ve got the most valuable resource of all. Let’s see what they say as the deserts spread.
Make Cleveland Better!
Cleveland Ideas is a new site dedicated to harnessing Clevelanders’ creativity to make Northeast Ohio a better place. Have an idea? Let them know. All they ask is that you keep it positive:
Have an idea you think can make northeast Ohio a better place to live and work? Let’s
see it. Post it here. Others will see it, comment on it, build on it. No bashing. Just brainstorming.
Short on ideas? Just view others, comment, and vote. We’ll put the top vote-getting ideas in front of business and community leaders and you might just see one of your ideas come to life.
My first idea? Redevelop Burke Lakefront Airport as a residential and commercial neighborhood with a lakefront park. I’ve written about the idea before, and the fact the city has often “studied” it. But nothing has ever come of the thought, and to this day I have no idea why.
Wind of Change: Wind turbines on Lake Erie soon?
St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. Seattle has the Space Needle. Cleveland has . . . wind turbines on Lake Erie? That’s the iconic vision that could lead to a new industry in offshore wind and possibly thousands of new jobs, leaders of a Cuyahoga County energy task force say. . . . That’s according to a yearlong feasibility study the task force released Friday in a media briefing at the Great Lakes Science Center.
The task force would like to see the turbines constructed within 3 years. The study demonstrated that neither ice nor migrating birds will pose obstacles to the project. Migrating birds fly at heights above the turbines, and the design would divert ice floes.
Not only would the project give Cleveland the lead in developing wind power projects in the Great Lakes Region, it would also be an enormous boost to local manufacturing. Timken, the Canton-based manufacturer of ball bearings and alloy steel, “already earns tens of millions of dollars supplying bearings to turbine makers,” and, according to the task force, “Ohio has hundreds of companies supplying parts to the wind industry.
In short, as Norman Tien, the dean of the engineering school at Case Western Reserve University stated, the project “has the potential to dramatically change the economic landscape of the region.”
And even more good news for a wind powered Cleveland future: according to the Chicago Tribune, investors are bullish on wind energy. “Wind has jumped ahead of other green energy sources because innovations in turbine technology (think: windmills) have improved the efficiency and made systems the most cost effective alternative.”