Phoenix is an empire built on an ongoing war for water - the water that floods our lawns, flows from our faucets and fills our swimming pools.
For most of the metro area's residents, the harsh reality of the desert is a distant and rather unpleasant footnote to their address, occasionally encountered in newspapers like this one or in visits to the world outside of the city.
Yet, we are not so far removed from a time when the desert and its scarcity was a violently lived experience for the people of Arizona.
Today, that experience continues for billions around the world where access to water cannot be taken for granted.
Water scarcity does not just threaten our winter lawns and water parks - it threatens any illusions we may have of a peaceful world in the future. From Darfur to the Middle East, blood flows where water does not.
As residents of one of the most successful desert settlements on Earth, Arizonans have the opportunity to lead the world forward in an era of water scarcity. If we move into the future with open minds, our decisions will secure the future of our own state and reverberate throughout the world.
Whatever one might say about the results of Arizona's war for control of water resources, the state moved boldly and revolutionized the way the world thought about the desert.
Yet, it should not be forgotten that thousands died of thirst and conflict before people could think about swimming pools in the desert.
Today, history repeats itself, and as often happens when no one listens the first time, history is getting louder. The struggle for water pervades the world's most violent crises.
Water, perhaps as much as religion, keeps the conflict between Israel and the rest of the Arab world alive, with rights to agricultural irrigation and drinking water acting as imposing subtexts in each negotiation for peace.
At its core, the conflict in Sudan is also a conflict over water. The simplest telling of the ongoing struggle involves a slaughter of thousands when a drought exacerbated interethnic water conflicts.
As populations expand and resources diminish, these struggles grow more frequent and deadly. If the 20th century was the era of oil, the 21st century may be the era of water.
We must be far bolder than simply washing off old public service announcements. Even over the course of decades, turning off the faucet while you brush your teeth yields only a few drops in the bucket.
Instead, we must respond with radical changes to the way we think about growth, just as Arizonans changed the way we thought about arid lands. Today, we have the chance to pioneer new methods of managing water holistically, considering demand as well as supply and quality.
As a state, we should invest in researching innovative systems of water conservation and purification.
Still, if we have a city of 10 million in 30 years, technology is unlikely to be sufficient.
The state must create innovative incentives to encourage higher population density so that our water is used to quench our thirst, grow our food and keep our industries running rather than being locked up in suburban yards.
We should also look at ways to slow growth so that the current lifestyles aren't threatened by millions of Americans immigrating from the North, demanding the same grassy lawns they enjoyed in Minnesota.
We live in a world desperate for leadership in solving the problems of water. Leadership means being willing to part with old ways of life, to direct energy toward taking real risks and trying new things.
Arizonans' willingness to continue with our predecessors' spirit of enterprise will determine whether we lead a thriving, stable world, or whether, like the namesake of our capital city, we are forced to rebuild from ashes.
Taylor Jackson is a biology and society graduate student. He can be reached at Taylor.Jackson@asu.edu.
