| CYNTHIA BARNETT, journalist and author of Mirage and Blue Revolution, has suggested five guiding principles for a Florida water ethic. We support these guidelines and encourage you to discuss them with your families, friends, co-workers and members of your religious faith.

• Floridians value water, from appreciating local streams to being willing to pay an appropriate price for water.
• We work together to use less and pollute less.
• We try to keep water local in order to avoid the financial, environmental and energy costs of long-distance transfers.
• We avoid the two big mistakes of our history: over-tapping our natural supplies and over-relying on the costliest fixes that bring unintended consequences to future generations.
• We leave as much as prudently possible in nature – aquifers, wetlands and rivers – so that our children and grandchildren, with benefit of time and evolving knowledge, can make their own decisions about water.

Read more about the idea of a water ethic for Florida in Barnett’s white paper, Our Water, Our Florida, that she prepared for the Collins Center on Public Policy.

Barnett listed similar principles for an American water ethic in Blue Revolution, named one of the top 10 science books of 2011 by The Boston Globe.

To encourage wide discussion about the idea of a water ethic, two readers’ guides to Blue Revolution have been developed for faith-based groups.

• For Christians, here is the Adult Education Resource and Study Guide that was developed by the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program.
• For interfaith and other faith-based groups, here is Creating a Water Ethic at Your Place of Worship.

For more information about Cynthia Barnett and her work as a journalist and author, visit www.cynthiabarnett.net.