I do not see a logical way in which all water would be privately owned. If air is not privately owned then by your argument it will not be taken care of even though we all have to breath it.

And yes the air and water quality now compared to the 70s and 60s is much better and this has to do with EPA standards and regulations.[/quote]
So, because you do not see a logical way in which water could be privatly owned, this means it will never, and can never happen?

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

So, because you do not see a logical way in which water could be privatly owned, this means it will never, and can never happen?[/quote]

If you have a serious proposal for a way for it to happen then I'm willing to listen. I just have not heard anything to convince me it can easily be done and be beneficial.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

George W. Bush.

Why couldn't parts of the ocean be marked off? We certainly have the technology to do this. Sam goes for rivers and streams.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Assuming one could then what motivation would they have to limit pollution since their profit would likely stem from charging people to navigate through it? That doesn't require it to be clean and the more profitable traffic through it the more likely it is to be polluted.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A few things should be considered. First, with the privitazation of oceans, comes the privitazation of fish. Now, fish will essentially be like cows, herded in a place in the ocean and raised. Given the fluid nature of water, pollution in one part of the ocean can easily find it's way to one of these oceanic fish farms. This would be in violation of the property rights of the owners of the fish farms. Second, an owner of part of the ocean will have an incentive to keep the ocean clean because passengers probably do not want to be on a ship going through black, muryk, oily water.

Also, worth noting is that the owner of some passages for ships will not neccesarily own a column of water descending to the bottom of the ocean (though I guess it would be an inverted cone, and not a column, wouldn't it?) He will only own that part of the ocean which he has homesteaded. Just as we do not own all of the space above out houses, he will not own all of the space below the passages. So, if it takes 50' of depth to have ships go through, then he will only own 50' down.

The problem is that no one owns the ocean. When someone makes an oil mess, he is not held completly liable for his actions. He must pay for the clean up, but what about the damage to the enviroment? And, to go on another note, we have a tragedy of the commons with resect to ocean life. Animals are hunted and killed at high rates because no one owns them. No one has an incentive to save animals so that they can reproduce. If people could raise whales, sharks, and other fish, the populations of these animals would increase, not decrease, as their owners tried to make money selling the fish. Also, because oceanic fish farming exists, there will be competition, a higher supply of fish, and more efficent means of harvesting fish; these will lead to lower prices for the fish.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

It seems like if somebody is polluting then it may not be detected right away and it may be too late to locate the source.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

From what I understand, we do not currently have the technology to trace pollution to the source. However, if private property rights were protected, indeed allowed, it would make sense that forensic scientist type people would develop this technology. Now, there is no incentive to develop this technology so it does not exist

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

There is plenty of incentive. If the public put enough pressure on representatives then there would be that incentive and there would at least be public accountability in this case. Private owners are not accountable to the public and if somebody buys enough enough ocean then they could pollute all they want and just block it off from anybody that might sue. This doesn't really do the planet any good and has many problems that could come up with sea life.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

But the public representitives have no incentive to actually ensure that the water is not polluted or to determine where pollution comes from. The rich guys who pollute can simply buy off the public representitives.

Ok, well if they own a part of the ocean they certainly have this right. Under the current system, no one has an incentive to block off the polluted part of the ocean. But, why would someone want to just pollute the ocean? Are you suggesting that someone will buy part of the ocean just to pollute it? Why is the ocean any different from land? Do you think that land should be onwed by the government? After all, someone could buy a large piece of land an pollute it, while ensuring that no pollution leaves his land.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Yes and they can then be voted out of office. That's the public's responsibility.

No but they could run say an oil rig and not really worry about making sure spills do not happen since it's their part of the ocean and they can do what they want. Maybe Carnival buys it's own area for cruises and doesn't really worry about dumping since it's theirs. The passengers do not really go into the water so a certain amount of pollution wouldn't be noticed. Just a few thoughts.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

First, I think it is much more likely that a private ocean owner would sure another private ocean owner than for people to hold an officeholder accountable for anything. How do you account for two Bush terms?

Second, this might increase their disregard for the enviroment, and other things. If an officeholder knows that he is going to be able to hold office for a small ammount of time, he will grab as much as he can as quickly as he can.
Well, if they own that part of the ocean, then they can certainly pollute it. However, when their pollution escapes, they must compensate the owner of the property that they damaged. And, if there is private ownership, people will be able to raise species if fish and increase the populations. Plus, I think it is highly likely that there would be oceananic zoos which would serve to increase the populations even more. So, I am sure that there would be polluters, but I think the goods of private ownership would outweigh any bads.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Overstressed fishstocks and rampant garbage dumping.

Of course democracy doesn't always lead to wonderful outcomes but the same can be said of private relationships as well so cherry picking examples like Bush or greedy people that screw customers, employees, or share holders doesn't really give a good broad picture of everything overall. Sure some politicians will be bad as will some owners or managers. But from what I can tell pollution in the past came from industry and the cleaning up of the last few decades came through regulation and legislation.

You assume that the suit will be able to tell who is doing the dumping and where. If after a storm in the ocean some toxic waste shows up in your water then it may be hard to tell exactly where it comes from. Granted we can never know what systems could be in place so the argument is really valid anyway unless we could see an alternate reality where a private system exists but from my experience private owners (particularly business) are the ones that do the most polluting. Exxon is already paying out the ass for it's oil spill so I think this system really punished them as much as the one you propose. The problem is that in a suite the cost of it to pay for the damage to another owner would not be as much as oil companies make anyway dong what they do so it wouldn't stop a thing. They would just price it into the cost of doing business and these things would still happen and the environment would be no more protected.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Considering a possible speculation from one model, then inapropriately using that speculation like it is fact as data to make speculations in another model, then using that skewed result for another model etc...etc..until it eventuallly leads to the "global catastrophe", "sky is falling".. therefore we must take your money argument.

That is what the whole Global Warming cult is doing.

But they still can't explain why there is so many mosquitos in Minnesota.

__________________
... ..................
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.