Thus The New York Times today. “Higher water prices are essential to induce conservation and investment in water-saving technology to combat scarcity,” elaborates the newspaper. The focus of the article is on the drought-plagued American west in the context of climate change and population growth. For instance, California’s water authority declared this summer that wasting water was a crime. Markets are essential in this matter, though. People use less water when it costs more and the other way around. The chart in the article shows the cost of water by comparison with volume used in a wide range of countries. Denmark leads the pack with the most expensive water and lowest usage, while Canada is on the opposite side of the spectrum. America is close to Canada in this respect. The point is well taken, no doubt. But the acute scarcity of water still looms in the American west and elsewhere across the country. Markets can go only so far in mitigating the disaster. What will happen once they fail, though? This is left to the reader’s imagination.