Climate Change: Seattle Drought 2005
"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
-- Dick Cheney, Vice President, BushCo

While it's true that a comprehensive energy policy should not be predicated upon voluntary efforts by individuals and industry to conserve resources, conservation can still play an important part in setting the tone. If a community is given the facts of impending resource depletion and understand the consequences, habits can change. And here's a great example from this week's Seattle Weekly about this year's drought. We've seen it coming since the winter, when the mountain peaks of both the Cascades and Olympics looked as they do in the middle of summer, with hardly any snow collected on them. Seattle's water supply comes largely from mountain run off, and when we don't have adequate precipitation (and stored snow) during the winter, we're in trouble. The last big drought came in 2001, and since then the water utilities have become much smarter in managing the flow and storage of water (the crux of the article). But we'd be in a heap more trouble if Seattle residents hadn't modified their water usage since the last drought:

Another big difference from 2001 is that water consumption is much lower. Seattle residents have embraced conservation techniques. According to Seattle Public Utilities, 400,000 more people are living in the metropolitan area, but water usage is back to what it was in the early 1970s. That conservation can be traced to public awareness campaigns and rebates to consumers for purchasing appliances and fixtures that use low amounts of energy and water. The utilities have also decreased consumption within their own organizations during this drought—for example, reducing the amount of water used for reservoir cleaning and limiting the number of spills done to maintain water quality.

Take that, Dick.