tagged w/ Global Water Crisis
-
Looks like the letters, petitions, and protests will have to get louder on this from those of us who see the dangers of genetic modification. This I suppose would also mean he would oppose labelling of our food to disclose to consumers that they are eating test tube food as well as independent testing being disclosed on the safety of this fake food. This entire world will be polluted with Round Up glyphosate with farmers beholding to multi nationals for their own seeds that are not even theirs, and transgenic contamination will kill biodiversity in this world and agriculture as we have klnown it for centuries will be dead.
I surely hope Obama is not the same as Bush on ag policy. But if he is, he is going to hear it loud and clear from many about how genetic modification of our food is nothing more than a profit making scheme designed to once again subjugate the poor to the whims of the rich few. Very disappointing if you really believed his spiel about change. Even I thought he would at least have enough smarts to realize that there is enough to feed this world if the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other NWO organizations in league with governments to hold back food to raise prices were taken out of the picture and farmers allowed to cultivate their own crops tradititonally and naturally.
I REFUSE TO LIVE IN A MONSANTO WORLD.Looks like the letters, petitions, and protests will have to get louder on this from... more
-
-
Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday.
Wong Poh Poh, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told a regional conference that global warming was disrupting water flow patterns and increasing the severity of floods, droughts and storms — all of which reduce the availability of drinking water.
Wong said the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that as many as 2 billion people won't have sufficient access to clean water by 2050. That figure is expected to rise to 3.2 billion by 2080 — nearly tripling the number who now do without it.
Reduced access to clean water — which refers to water that can be used for drinking, bathing or cooking — forces many villagers in poor countries to walk miles to reach supplies. Others, including those living in urban shanties, suffer from diseases caused by drinking from unclean sources.
At the beginning of the decade, the World Health Organization estimated that 1.1 billion people did not have sufficient access to clean water.
Asia, home to more than 4 billion people, is the most vulnerable region, especially India and China, where booming populations have placed tremendous stress on water sources, said Wong, a member of the U.N. panel.
"In Asia, water distribution is uneven and large areas are under water stress. Climate change is going to exacerbate this scarcity," he told the two-day Asia Pacific Regional Water Conference attended by policy makers, government officials, academics, businessmen and consumer group representatives.
Scientists have said global climate change takes many forms, causing droughts in some areas while increasing flooding and the severity of cyclones in others. Droughts reduce water supply, and floods destroy the quality of water. Rising sea levels, for instance, increase the salt content at the mouths of many rivers, from which many Asians draw their drinking water.
"As human civilization develops, the environment is increasingly affected in negative ways. Floods, drought, changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are signs of our misdeeds to nature," said Rozali Ismail, head of a state water association in Malaysia.Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because... more
-
-
Water restrictions, higher prices, and wildfires that are more ferocious brought on by climate change are changing the landscape of California and the lives of those who have farmed there for decades. Is California another Australia in the making? The only section of California that is not currently in drought is the very Northern tip. Much of the area now experiencing these wildfires and fiercer winds as last year is experiencing moderate to severe drought.
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_state.htm?CA,WWater restrictions, higher prices, and wildfires that are more ferocious brought on by... more
-
-
Severe drought and food shortages have caused thousands of people to leave their villages in Afghanistan's north and west to find work and aid. Many more are expected to move in desperation as winter approaches.
Provinces such as Badghis, Faryab, Jawzjan, Ghor, Saripul, Balkh and Samangan have been hard hit by a harsh winter earlier this year, followed by a debilitating drought and poor harvest. The production of wheat an Afghan staple is reportedly down by 36 percent compared to last year, while the Ministry of Agriculture has said the country is facing a deficit of 2 million tonnes of mixed food items over the next six months.
Soaring global food prices have exacerbated the problem of food insecurity. A UN appeal in July reported that the prices of wheat and wheat flour have gone up by 200 percent countrywide over the past year. The worst affected people are the small farmers, landless people, nomads and casual labourers.
"There's no rain this year," complains Qadir, 25, who left his village in Balkh three months ago to find work in Kabul. "Back home, I own a plot of rain-fed land and grew wheat on it. It's small but was enough to feed my family until the drought. I just left the land. It's useless."
snip
The numbers of the drought-displaced vary. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that more than 6,500 Afghans have left their homes in the north and west as a result of the drought this year. The International Committee of the Red Cross believes some 280,000 people are suffering from its effects, and that thousands of families could leave their homes in search of food and work as winter looms.
In the last six months, UNHCR has reported the displacement of more than 2,700 families (approximately 19,000 people), mostly from or within Badghis, Balkh, Saripul and Samangan provinces. Some have gone to district centres like Mazar-e-Sharif, to nearby provinces like Herat, or to neighbouring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. All were forced to move because of food insecurity, drought or poverty.
Some families leaving Keshendeh district in Balkh dismantled their houses, indicating they had no intention to return. Those who remain said that without food and water assistance, 70 percent of the population or some 500 families could leave the area. UNHCR is working with other UN agencies and the government to start bringing water tankers as soon as possible.
"Meeting humanitarian needs in areas of origin is the best way to prevent food and drought-related displacement," said Ewen Macleod, the UN refugee agency's acting representative in Afghanistan. "This means pre-positioning aid before snow and the cold weather cut off access to some of these areas."
Returnees have been affected too, including 183 families who returned from Pakistan to Saripul last year and recently left again for Quetta in south-western Pakistan. In the central Afghan provinces of Logar and Ghazni, food insecurity meant that returnees were too busy trying to support themselves to complete construction on their UNHCR-funded shelters. The agency worked with the World Food Programme to provide food to 700 families so that they could focus on finishing their homes before the onset of winter.
As security deteriorates in parts of the country, the UN has appealed for humanitarian access to allow aid workers to distribute food to needy communities ahead of winter. A recent report by British think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, warned that a looming famine in Afghanistan could pose a greater threat to international efforts to rebuild the country than the conflict there.
_________________________
And we will commit even more troops to this already drought and poverty stricken wartorn region to do what exactly? Precipitate more poverty and terrorism? Doesn't look as though our presence there is doing any good now.
Severe drought and food shortages have caused thousands of people to leave their... more
-
-
Water can bring peace because it is the essence of all life on Earth. While it is sad to see so many people without it, this particular action that took place in Central African Republic brings hope that people can work together for a common purpose and that change begins with us. This is what we need to do to make sure all people have clean water in a sustainable environment. It is also what we must do in regards to the climate crisis to make sure all people live in a world where resources are not exploited for profit, but a world where human rights are respected. Water is a human right.Water can bring peace because it is the essence of all life on Earth. While it is sad... more
-
-
By the end of this year a first-time record of 3.3 billion people, more than half of the world's population, are expected to live in urban areas according to the UN.
This was announced in a documentary entitled Eco-Cities, Sustainable cities for the Future launched by IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature West Asia/Middle East Regional Office and Ministry of Environment during the Eco-Cities of the Mediterranean 2008 conference held in Jordan from 18-20 October, 2008.
The idea about this documentary, funded by the IUCN global Water and Nature Initiative (WANI), came from the pressing need to address the concept of sustainable cities or eco-cities as a solution for all the environmental and economic challenges facing cities in the Middle East and North Africa.
The film focuses on the environmental challenges, current actions and future plans in Jordan and Egypt. Highlighting the issues of water quality and scarcity, solid waste, urbanization and air pollution the documentary also tackles the solutions and actions to face those environmental challenges such as renewable energy, water treatment and harvesting, solid waste management and recycling and the results of those solutions not only on the environment, but also on the economy and society.
I think all of us have responsibilities to look very seriously at the impacts of our actions on the environment. And if we don't, then the future of our children and grandchildren will be bleak, HRH Prince Hamza bin Al Hussein of Jordan said in the Eco-Cities documentary.
The cost of environmental degradation in Jordan and in the Arab World is around 5% of the GDP, so once we reduce that through better environmental management, we improve our economy, according to HE Khaled Al Irani, Jordanian Minister of Environment.
I believe eco-cities is a process rather than a product; it is a way of life. It is an approach that people need to change their lives and worldviews in order to make sure that harmony between nature, people and markets is taking place, says Dr Odeh Al-Jayyousi, IUCN West Asia/Middle East Regional Director.
According to the 25-minute documentary, Jordan's annual water supply is 900 MCM, while the demand is 1500 MCM. The majority of the deficit comes from the unsustainable groundwater use. More than 65% of our water in Jordan is used for irrigation, says HE Khaled Al Irani, Jordanian Minister of Environment.
16 million people living in Cairo depend on the Nile. Yet its river basins are subject to untreated sewage and industrial effluence. We are trying to save the quality of water of the Nile, but our main concern is industrial waste, says Dr Mawaheb Abul Azm, CEO Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. Before 2001, 100 MCM of untreated industrial waste were dumped into the Nile each year according to governmental figures. However, inspections and enforcing environmental laws have stopped industries polluting the river.
By the end of this year a first-time record of 3.3 billion people, more than half of... more
-
-
Parts of the world may have to be abandoned because severe water shortages will leave them uninhabitable, the United Nations environment chief has warned.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said water shortages caused by over-use of rivers and aquifers were already leading to serious problems, even in rich nations. With climate change expected to reduce rainfall in some places and cause droughts in others, some regions could become 'economic deserts', unviable for people or agriculture, he said.
Steiner argued that only urgent action to combat global warming and poverty could prevent the creation of thousands of 'environmental refugees'. Previous UN agreements to reduce global warming emissions and the Millennium Development Goals on poverty had not been met. His warning echoes those of other environment leaders, who have said that water shortages could be the greatest threat posed by climate change.
'In many ways [water] is the most dramatic expression of mismanagement of natural or nature-based assets,' Steiner said. 'The day a person or a community is bereft of water is the day that your chance of even the most basic life or livelihood is gone and economic activity seeps away.
'Unchecked climate change will mean that some parts of the world will simply not have enough water to sustain settlements both small and large, because agriculture becomes untenable and industries relying on water can no longer compete or function effectively. This will trigger structural changes in economies right through to the displacement of people as environmental refugees.'
Steiner said it was not possible to identify specific places at risk, but said vulnerable areas were those which were already considered to be 'water scarce' because of dry weather and a lack of infrastructure to store and transport water. Last week a study of the water footprints of 200 nations led by conservation group WWF warned that 50 countries were already experiencing 'moderate to severe water stress on a year-round basis'.
This week experts from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification meeting in Turkey will warn that high food prices and endemic droughts are jeopardising the lives of hundreds of millions of people, particularly in Africa.
Some of the most dramatic examples of water shortages this year include conflict-stricken Sudan, the dramatic drying of Lake Faguibine in Mali on which 200,000 mostly nomadic people depend, fatal clashes over drying boreholes in northern Kenya, and economic and social crisis on the sparsely populated border between Bolivia and Argentina, according to Unep. Oxfam has estimated that 25 million people have been affected by the most recent drought in Ethiopia.
Rich nations are not immune. California has declared a state of emergency over water shortages, Australia has committed billions of dollars to cope with drought, and governments in Europe have been forced to ship in water to stop communities running dry.
'A plant, never mind a human being, simply cannot live without water,' said Steiner. 'It's not a matter of how we can live for three years without some water; these are not the kind of things we can do for a while and recover.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/02/climate-change-desertification-water-drought
Parts of the world may have to be abandoned because severe water shortages will leave... more
-
-
Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the United Nations to be presented today.
New evidence suggests that organic practices – derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad – are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. The head of the UN's Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the report "indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world maybe far higher than many had supposed".
The "green revolution" in agriculture in the 1960s – when the production of food caught and surpassed the needs of the global population for the first time – largely bypassed Africa. Whereas each person today has 25 per cent more food on average than they did in 1960, in Africa they have 10 per cent less.
A combination of increasing population, decreasing rainfall and soil fertility and a surge in food prices has left Africa uniquely vulnerable to famine. Climate change is expected to make a bad situation worse by increasing the frequency of droughts and floods.
It has been conventional wisdom among African governments that modern, mechanised agriculture was needed to close the gap but efforts in this direction have had little impact on food poverty and done nothing to create a sustainable approach. Now, the global food crisis has led to renewed calls for a massive modernisation of agriculture on the hungriest continent on the planet, with calls to push ahead with genetically modified crops and large industrial farms to avoid potentially disastrous starvation.
snip
The research conducted by the UN Environment Programme suggests that organic, small-scale farming can deliver the increased yields which were thought to be the preserve of industrial farming, without the environmental and social damage which that form of agriculture brings with it.
An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries found that yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used. That increase in yield jumped to 128 per cent in east Africa.
"Organic farming can often lead to polarised views," said Mr Steiner, a former economist. "With some viewing it as a saviour and others as a niche product or something of a luxury... this report suggests it could make a serious contribution to tackling poverty and food insecurity."
The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming. It also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought. And the research highlighted the role that learning organic practices could have in improving local education. Backers of GM foods insist that a technological fix is needed to feed the world. But this form of agriculture requires cash to buy the patented seeds and herbicides – both at record high prices currently – needed to grow GM crops.
Regional farming experts have long called for "good farming", rather than exclusively GM or organic. Better seeds, crop rotation, irrigation and access to markets all help farmers. Organic certification in countries such as the UK and Australia still presents an insurmountable barrier to most African exporters, the report points out. It calls for greater access to markets so farmers can get the best prices for their products.
_______________
Let's REALLY feed the people and give the power back to the farmers. GMOs are not the solution. Giving farmers the tools they need to grow natural food and the mechanisms to get them is.Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and... more
-
-
There is increasing competition for water due to a combination of numerous environmental and political factors, including climate change, poor local planning and lack of adequate financial and material resources to bring running water to poor communities.
In rural Zimbabwe, lack of clean water has become a reality for many communities, in addition to other hardships, such as food shortages, insufficient health services and lack of sanitation.
Poor rains and government’s failure to provide adequate resources to reduce water scarcity -- including skilled water experts, fuel for field technicians to reach remote areas, drilling machines to make boreholes and water purification chemicals -- have worsened water woes.
After president Robert Mugabe embarked on a violent land reform programme, expropriating white-owned commercial farms in 2000, new farm owners have done little to maintain the infrastructure and facilities they inherited when taking over farms, including water systems and irrigation dams.
According to Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a unit set up by the Commercial Farmers of Zimbabwe (CFZ), an organisation that represents the legal interests of dispossessed farmers, wells have dried up throughout the country and no efforts have been made to drill more boreholes to provide water to both humans and livestock.
This is particularly significant since such infrastructure used to provide water for the surrounding communities as well as the farms.
Plumtree
For one rural community, buried deep in the tropical forests between two southern African countries, Zimbabwe and Botswana, the water plight has been particularly harsh when their main water source, a river running between the two countries, almost dried up.
In Plumtree, a poor, drought-prone rural community located about 160 kilometres southwest of Zimbabwe‚s second largest city, Bulawayo, a hostile fight has broken out between neighbouring communities around access to the few remaining water sources.
The Ramakgoebana River has become a major source of conflict for villagers from both sides of the border, Thabiso Mkwena, a 36-year-old man who lives in Tshitshi, near Plumtree, told IPS. "This is a dry area and we have to walk for many kilometres to the fast-drying river. This has led to disputes with villagers from the other side of the river who are accusing us of finishing the water," said Mkwena.
He said residents from the Botswana side of the river have claimed parts of the river as their own, threatening those from the Zimbabwean side with assault if they come to fetch water.
What has heightened tensions even further, Mkwena explained, is that out of desperation, villagers have started to bring their livestock to drink from the river too, as there is no alternative water source for animals.
"The Batswana say we must not bring our livestock here, but we cannot let our cattle die in this heat," Mkwena said.
Letting livestock drink from the same water source as humans has exposed locals to a number of water-borne diseases. Earlier this year, medical staff at the public hospital in Plumtree reported an outbreak of diarrhoea caused by contaminated drinking water.
Above from original link:
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=44294 There is increasing competition for water due to a combination of numerous... more
-
-
THERE is a frenzy among policy makers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) fronting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to be elevated to the first priority in government's realm to addressing challenges to reduced agricultural productivity in the country.
The thinking is that with the numerous pests and diseases out breaks in the fisheries, livestock, forestry and crop sectors, products of genetic modification will do a wonder and correct the situation almost at once.
Their argument is that GMOs are superior, because they are developed with exact desired traits like milk and beef production in the livestock, but also diseases and pests resistance in crops, as opposed to other conventional means like hybrids.
For the last ten years, this school of thought is spending colossal sums of money in luxurious hotels toying with this idea, at the expense of a dwindling agricultural productivity.
Their actions and influence are overshadowing the Government's strategy and competitiveness to develop tangible interventions in the agro-sector. While I agree that GMOs are good, they are not necessarily superior. My submission is that while GMOs shall offer some help to farmers, it's being over glorified.
The short to midterm problem with the agro-sector currently is the inability of policy makers to focus attention where it is due. The bureaucrats, who hide in technicalities, often blow out GMOs as the immediate saviour, which I like to differ.
snip
Look at the banana bacterial wilt problem, which the country is grappling with. While the policy makers were still demanding for billions of shillings to address the problem through research, ordinary farmers were already carrying out "survival" farming practices. It has indeed come to be understood and accepted in scientific circles that with good agronomical skills like tendering to the plantation, mulching, cutting off the male bud to avoid bees visiting reduced the wilt prevalence in Mukono and other areas. These formed part of the survival practices.
Indeed, a GMO banana variety, as the researchers note would take the next about 10 years to materialise. The gene, which the scientists at Kawanda are researching, is only targeting one disease - the black sigatoka. This implies that other disease and climatic challenges, will still stay, requiring closer farmer-to extension officer interaction to better farming. Will the dwindling soil fertility, disappearing rangelands, pastures and bush fires also be addressed through genetic modifications? Certainly not.
My view is that farmers are ahead of scientists when it comes to planning for the direction of the sector - which is a dangerous precedent. But you wouldn't blame the farmers.
Look at the numerous league of new crops being indiscriminately introduced without clear policy planning like moringa, jatrophaa neem tree, aloe vera and silk warm.
A few profit driven multinatinationals often conspire to promote the crops, with a hope of a ready market. But in a few months, they disappear. While the immediate escape route for the so called technocrats is that Uganda is a liberalised market economy, my conviction is that the policy makers do not the right varieties introduction studies.
snip
Indeed GMOs cannot be our first line of defense. Poor policy development and execution is the bigger problem.
______________________
THERE is a frenzy among policy makers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)... more
-
-
The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to Western Canada, researchers say, but will extend thousands of kilometres away to the Great Lakes, threatening water and air quality around the world's largest body of fresh water.
In a new report, the University of Toronto's Munk Centre says the massive refinery expansions needed to process tar sands crude, and the new pipeline networks for transporting the fuel, amount to a "pollution delivery system" connecting Alberta to the Great Lakes region of Canada and the U.S.
It warns that the refineries will be using the Great Lakes "as a cheap supply" source for their copious water needs and the area's air "as a pollution dump."
The report, which is being released today at a conference at the university, says that as many as 17 major refinery expansions around the lakes are being considered for turning the tar-like Alberta bitumen into gasoline and other petroleum products. While not all will be undertaken, enough of them will be to have a regional environmental impact.
Proposed pipeline and refinery projects around the lakes are expected to lead to total investments of more than $31-billion (U.S.) by 2015, spending similar in scale to expenditures at many oil sands projects. For this reason, the report says the various projects, when taken together, threaten to "wipe out many of the pollution control gains" achieved around the lakes since the 1970s.
The massive expenditures are needed because typical refineries can't process heavy crude derived from tar sands without costly upgrades.
"This expansion promises to bring with it an exponential increase in pollution, discharges into waterways including the Great Lakes, destruction of wetlands, toxic air emissions, acid rain, and huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions," it says.
Most of the projected spending is on the U.S. side of the lakes. Only one major refinery project has been announced for the Canadian side, but that expansion, at a Shell refinery in Sarnia, was put on hold in July because of surging costs.
However, two big Canadian companies, TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. with its Keystone project, and Enbridge Inc., with its Alberta Clipper project, are vying to build pipelines to bring crude from the tar sands to U.S. refineries around the lakes.
The report says the environmental effects in Alberta from tar sands development - from dying ducks caught in tailings ponds to massive carbon dioxide emissions - are well known, but the implications for the Great Lakes "are less well-understood and less extensively explored."
Policy makers around the lakes, in both Canada and the U.S., are largely unaware that the tar sands will lead to massive industrial development in their region, and consequently have no strategy to minimize the environmental impacts, it says.
Some of the harshest criticism is for the Ontario government, which it characterizes as "remarkably unengaged" over how tar sands oil will affect the province and "doesn't seem to even be asking the key questions, let alone contemplating the possible policy answers."
There has been one major dispute in the U.S. over a tar sands-related refinery expansion, at a British Petroleum facility at Whiting, Ind. The company proposed a $3-billion refinery modernization that would raise discharges of two pollutants by about 35 per cent and 54 per cent respectively. But it backed down and pledged not to increase the pollutants after a public outcry.
The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to... more
-
-
In my opinion the World Bank has precipitated much of this crisis.They have been giving loans to countries in the third world at exhorbitant rates that they cannot pay back. This only perpetuates the cycle of poverty and hunger and keeps them enslaved to the system. There must be a way to provide assistance to small rural farmers in developing countries to be able to have the tools necessary to grow natural food for their people without the intererence of all of these foreign markets and speculators causing the prices to also be out of the range of affordability for the people who need them the most.
Any conference regarding food or any crisis surrounding it must also include discussion of the global water crisis. You cannot grow food without water, and in many areas of the developing world especially in Asia and Africa water is a resource that is becoming harder and harder to come by due to mismanagement, waste, pollution, climate change, privitization, and population increases.There is also too much power concentrated with organizations like the World Bank and the corporations they are in collusion with. When you have a central bank controlling everything, it appears more people have nothing.
This food crisis could be addressed much more effectively if there was more regulation regarding loaning these countries money in regards to the rates they are charged on top of the loan along with other stipulations that make their contracts hard to fulfill ( such as agreeing to loan money to lay water pipes on the stipulation that their water will be privitized.) How about forgiving all third world debt for a start? That in and of itself would free up funds that could then be used for sustainable development (solar and wind etc.) in these countries and allow people to gain access to small loans such as those provided by the Grameen Bank to start people in their own businesses. Making their own income not accountable to some World Bank that seeks to run their lives and tell them they must plant genetically modified foods to make their benefactors like Monsanto more profit would also ease much poverty in these areas and start people on the road not only to sustainability but life. Isn't that freedom?
I don't claim to be an expert on any of this nor to have the answers. I do know however, that the food and water crises we now find ourselves in the midst of is the most important thing in concert with the climate crisis that all ties in together that we now face in this century, and we need new answers as the old ways do not appear to be working any longer. It is simply unconscienable to me that with the billions upon billions of dollars we have in this world to spend on bailing out greedy bankers, wage illegal wars, and continue to support corrupted systems that actually perpetuate these crises, that we can't find some of those funds along with some compassion and political will to for once do the right thing. No child in any country should have to die because some pencil pusher in a government organization or a world leader a world away is holding back the food that child needs because of political or economic expedience.
Feed the people, and give them water. There is more than enough. What we need to do now is find that moral and political strength to do it and do it equitably. It shouldn't be hard if you have a heart and a conscience.
OK, getting down off my soap box now. ;-) In my opinion the World Bank has precipitated much of this crisis.They have been... more
-
-
The Ein Gedi spa, built 40 years ago on the shore of the Dead Sea -- the lowest point on Earth -- now offers a tractor shuttle to carry bathers across the kilometre (more than half a mile) of salt flats that separate it from the water's edge.
A few kilometres (a couple of miles) up the shore, a campsite that used to rent out cabins by the sea has been sucked underground by the opening of cavernous sinkholes, some more than 30 metres (yards) wide.
The first one burst open in 1998, swallowing a cabin and a cleaning woman.
"The earth swallowed her up. She fell nearly 10 metres. They made everyone leave that day and closed the camp down," says Gundi Shahal, an Israeli environmentalist who came to Ein Gedi from Germany in 1979.
"Since then it hasn't stopped. The whole campground looks like a moonscape," she says as she walks past the massive holes, one of which contains the rusted shell of a car.
Across the street are rows of dead trees, the remains of a date plantation that was closed because of the danger of the sinkholes.
Scientists have documented some 2,500 such holes, with an average of 300 new ones opening up each year.
As the Dead Sea shrinks, the level of groundwater drops and as it retreats under the surface it dissolves layers of salt, creating underground caverns that eventually collapse into the sinkholes.
The Dead Sea derives most of its water from the Jordan river, which over the past 50 years has virtually disappeared as a result of massive upstream water projects in Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
For Mohammed Saida, a farmer in the Palestinian village of Al-Auja some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Ein Gedi, the Jordan river vanished completely when Israel fenced it off after seizing the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War.
The land his family once owned along the river is now in a closed military zone and they have to rely on village wells and a seasonal underground spring.
During the winter, the spring spouts up to 2,000 cubic metres (70,000 cubic feet) of water a day but in the summer and early autumn it is reduced to a squalid puddle.
"This valley floods every year, but we have no dams so it all goes into the Jordan," Saida says. Israel restricts the building of dams and drilling of wells by Palestinians in the West Bank.
At the foot of the valley sits a water pump freshly painted blue and white like the Israeli flag. Inside an engine pumps water for Israeli settlers and Al-Auja residents.
Per capita water consumption in the West Bank stands at 50 litres (around 13 gallons) a day, according to a World Bank report published this month, about two-thirds less than the target recommended by the World Health Organisation.
Israel uses around 83 percent of the water originating in the occupied territory, with the rest going to the Palestinians, whose annual water extraction has dropped by around 10 percent in the past decade, according to the same report.
"(The Israelis) took the entire river, their share and ours, they took the land, and now they are drilling wells to take our water," says Hussein Saida, Mohammed's cousin and a village councillor. "How can there be peace?"
Shahal and the Saidas belong to Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), a group of environmentalists from Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank.
They have long lobbied for a project to rejuvenate the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea by using desalinated water from the Mediterranean to meet upstream demands.
But the idea getting the most attention, and dividing scientists and environmentalists, is the proposed construction of a massive canal between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.
The Ein Gedi spa, built 40 years ago on the shore of the Dead Sea -- the lowest point... more
-
-
Most people may drink only two litres of water a day, but they consume about 3,000 if the water that goes into their food is taken into account. The rich gulp down far more, since they tend to eat more meat, which takes far more water to produce than grains. So as the world's population grows and incomes rise, farmers will if they use today's methods need a great deal more water to keep everyone fed: 2,000 more cubic kilometres a year by 2030, according to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a research centre, or over a quarter more than they use today. Yet in many farming regions, water is scarce and likely to get scarcer as global warming worsens. The world is facing not so much a food crisis as a water crisis, argues Colin Chartres, IWMI's director-general.
The solution, Mr Chartres and others contend, is more efficient use of water or, as the sloganeers put it,; more crop per drop;. Some 1.2 billion people, about a fifth of the world's population, live in places that are short of water (see map). Farming accounts for roughly 70% of human water consumption. So when water starts to run out, as is happening in northern China, southern Spain and the western United States, among other places, farming tends to offer the best potential for thrift. But governments, whether to win votes or to protect the poor, rarely charge farmers a market price for water. So they are usually more wasteful than other consumers even though the value they create from the water is often less than households or industry would be willing to pay for it.
The pressing need is to make water go further. Antoine Frarot, the head of the water division of Veolia Environnement, a French firm, promotes recycling, whereby city wastewater is treated until it can be used in industry or agriculture. This costs about a third less than desalination, and cuts pollution. He expects his recycling business to quadruple in the next decade. Yet as Mr Frarot himself concedes, there are many even cheaper ways to save water. As much as 70% of water used by farmers never gets to crops, perhaps lost through leaky irrigation channels or by draining into rivers or groundwater. Investment in drip irrigation, or simply repairing the worst leaks, could bring huge savings.
end of excerpt.
__________
I believe that irrigation holds the solution to a great part of the global water crisis. In many parts of the world sprinkler irrigation is still the most used method of irrigation because it is the most available and least expensive. This method however is very wasteful, and using it in places where pervasive drought is common is not cost effective. In order for us as a species to mitigate the crisis we will surely face regarding water if present behavior persists we will have to change how we do things. Regarding the irrigation of crops it will be how they are irrigated, when they are irrigated based on changing weather patterns, and also in focusing on areas looking towards less water intensive crops in drier areas.
It is unfortunate that the very places where the most water intensive crops are grown such as cotton, rice, and corn (India, China, Africa, and the Southwest US ) are experiencing the most pervasive droughts and desertification now. As population increases towards 9 billion and resources become scarcer, farmers will most certainly have to devise ways of conserving water to get optimal growth and yield from a limited resource.
Through shifting the emphasis on crop varieties grown in these areas if possible and by changing irrigation methods from sprinkler to drip irrigation, trillions of gallons of water could be saved. Also in places where weather patterns are changing and are seeing more rain, rain catchement systems will be invaluable in helping to catch excess rain and use it for irrigation purposes.
more at the link.Most people may drink only two litres of water a day, but they consume about 3,000 if... more
-
-
"While touting his plan to wean us off foreign oil, Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens says little of his intention to market fossil water. Thanks to help he obtained from the Texas Legislature, he has stacked the board of a tiny water district and by the power of eminent domain also granted him by the Legislature, he can force landowners to sell him rights to a 320-mile strip of land by which he will pipe the water down the same corridor to Dallas that he plans to use transmitting his wind power. But Pickens is just one of thousands of capitalists who sell precious Ogallala water for private gain. Like him, they are aided by government.
Pickens shouldn't be allowed to sell 65 billion gallons a year as he proposes, but neither should Plains farmers be allowed to pump 6.2 trillion gallons annually, over half of which is poured onto corn. With populations increasing and global warming likely to cause widespread drought, we should redirect the billions we spend on corn subsidies and take control from local water districts. Under federal or state control, we could end Texas's 'right of capture' policy, which parcels water to the landowner with the biggest pump."
Julene Bair is a writer and author of One Degree West: Reflections of a Plainsdaughter. She will soon complete Where Rivers Run Sand, a personal account of the crisis facing the Ogallala Aquifer.
From article byJulene Bair.
______________
How outrageous is this? That one man could use his wealth and political favors to secure ownership of what is a human right in order to sell it for his own profit. This is a blatant example of using the current water crisis we face for personal gain. People like T. Boone Pickens have no soul as far as I am concerned, and we now know the real story behind his so called green wind initiative.
Water for this plan would come from the panhandle section of the Ogallala Aquifer. As one of the largest underground aquifers in the world, the Ogallala runs from Texas to South Dakota and a century ago was said to hold more water than Lake Huron. Since then, cheap electric pumps gave farmers the power to bring water up hundreds of feet, and the depletion began. This aquifer waters a little over one-fifth of the nation's irrigated land, and is steadily being depleted due to population growth, overuse, ineffective agricultural methods that waste trillions of gallons a year, and now global warming/climate change in the form of drought. See my previous entry on this: Devastating Drought Settles On The High Plains. It is a ripe area for exploitation, and that is exactly what T. Boone Pickens is doing. He is hoping to sell this scarcer water at a high price to make a profit from it. A green venture? Hardly.
And the Ogallala isn't the same as rivers or lakes. There is no source of replenishment. It holds "fossil water" which has been sealed underground for hundreds of thousands of years. Once it's gone it's gone forever... again, forever. However, as the Ogallala Aquifer's water level continues to decline, Pickens is looking to expand its usage and more than likely that includes making even more profit agriculturally from ethanol production.
So the wind mills... a diversionary ruse on the part of an oil man posing as a green convert who supported George W. Bush to the hilt and is now being repaid for it at the expense of a precious resource now more precious than oil? A resource of the Ogallala that should not belong to him exclusively, or any one farmer over another. This is why Texas' 'right of capture' policy must be stopped in order to preserve the declining water level of the Ogallala Aquifer and to protect it from vulture capitalists who seek to steal it.
These states need to stand up for their water!"While touting his plan to wean us off foreign oil, Texas billionaire T. Boone... more
-
-
These metal fingers are the source of a fierce debate that has gripped this small town and others across Maine, forcing residents to choose between Poland Spring - a company with a century-old history in the state - and their newfound environmental and social sensibilities.
For more than a hundred years, the company has drawn waters from Maine springs and marketed it to the world as just possibly "the best tasting water on earth." But now McMahon and others are part of a growing movement raising questions about the homegrown company's corporate parents - Nestlé Waters North America purchased it in 1992 - and the very concept of bottled water, which uses plastic and oil to deliver a product that many can get from their faucet.
As the company seeks to tap new springs, a number of towns have begun to push back against locating water-extraction sites on their land, forcing this quintessentially Maine company to consider the once unthinkable: looking to other states for its water.
"We're a Maine company," said Mark Dubois, Poland Spring's natural resource director. But if the industry continues to grow, he said, the company is going to need more water.
"We might have to force our hand," he said.
Later this month, Shapleigh residents will decide whether to put a moratorium on water pumping, which would freeze Poland Spring's plans to test the town's water. In Ogunquit, selectmen are considering a citizen petition they received in opposition to water extraction. Nearby Wells residents are set to vote in November on a 180-day moratorium, much like the one in Shapleigh, while they prepare an ordinance that would set ground rules for pumping.
But the issue is greater than extraction alone. Poland Spring, the nation's third-leading brand of bottled water, after Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo, is facing mounting pressure on other fronts.
Take Back the Tap, a national organization that encourages people to eschew bottled water, recently launched a campaign in Portland.
Activists in Kennebunk are boycotting Poland Spring in protest against Nestlé, after the company tried to purchase water from the local water district for bottling. At a war protest in early August, organizer Jamilla El-Shafei asked participants not to bring Poland Spring water.
"There is definitely a movement afoot," El-Shafei said. "They're trying to corporatize and commodify water. . . . Water should be in the public trust."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nestle' like other multinational companies doesn't care one whit for the citizens of these towns. All they care about is profit. They place their pipes in the ground that does not belong to them and suck the lifeblood out of it to make their wallets fatter. It is great to see residents of these towns standing up to them as they think because they are corporations their size entitles them to anything they can buy off. I am sure the vote to take place there will be close, and actually, I am wondering who they may be applying pressure to to allow Nestle' to win this vote. Of course, if they are actually frozen out of Maine there are other states they will target. And people will have to stand up to them anywhere they go in this country. We can no longer afford to give our precious water away to hungry greedy companies considering that water is becoming more precious to us in many areas of this country due to drought and waste and the fact that it is a public trust not a private commodity.These metal fingers are the source of a fierce debate that has gripped this small town... more
-
-
I am not one to really ask anyone for anything. However, if I may, I would like to ask all who see this to go to the link and take a look at my sponsor page for Water Partners International through Firstgiving. With freshwater resources becoming scarcer in many parts of our world, and with many denied clean water due to waste, pollution, privitization, and now climate change which is precipitating more pervasive droughts, organizations like Water Partners International are much needed in working to bring safe clean water to those who need it most. Once you look at my sponsor page, should you decide to help me out in reaching my goal it would be greatly appreciated. I believe our mission on this planet is to do all we can to preserve it and to help those in need. Thanks for reading this, and thanks Current for this avenue to get out information.I am not one to really ask anyone for anything. However, if I may, I would like to ask... more
-
-
As the 21st Century begins as the Age of Drought, a look at three places--Florida, China, and Nevada--where dryness has gone big. In Florida, the world's most famous swamp, the Everglades, has been turning into a salt flat. In China, vast problems with water pollution have been compounded in some areas by problems of having no water. And Nevada's Lake Mead, once the largest reservoir in the world, now is given a 50% chance of drying up completely in the next dozen years.As the 21st Century begins as the Age of Drought, a look at three places--Florida,... more
-
-
Water and sanitation problems cause more casualties worldwide than any war claims through guns.
Thirsty?
Flow, a documentary that opens September 12 and from which this stat comes, hopes to open your eyes to the dire state of the world's water supply.
The film focuses mostly on developing nations and the corporate takeover of water systems in those countries. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, we see footage of the water wars, which erupted after the privatization of the municipal water system.
In Africa, we see families who were uprooted from their homes so that a hugely expensive dam could be built to control the flow of water.
And in India, the threat of water privatization looms.
The filmmakers make the argument that the privatization of fresh water is unethical. Water is a basic human need, a fundamental right, and that the privatization of water systems would mean decisions based on profit rather than sustainability in a community.
The director wants to you think of water as a commodity that's as precious as oil--blue gold, as they say. Blue Gold is also the title of a book by Maude Barlow, an activist who is featured in the film, fighting against the corporate takeover of water systems. Whoever controls water, has power, she says.
But before you think the issue is far-removed from our well-hydrated land, remember we actively contaminate our water stateside with pharmaceuticals, industrial pollutants, and other junk.
Though our tap water is pretty regulated, we insist on buying bottled water (in one particularly troubling tale, Nestle is selling Michigan water back to citizens of the state in bottles for a fee). Barlow and Tony Clarke refer to the bottled water industry one of the fastest-growing and least regulated industries in the world.
Barlow says California has 20 years of water left, Arizona has 10 (but with the way they're building golf courses, she says, they could reduce it to five).
You'll definitely leave the film thinking of water as the precious resource that it is.
The directors urge viewers to sign the UN petition that would make access to clean drinking water a basic human right.
Until then, don't forget to turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth.
Flow opens in select cities September 12.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Article 31:
Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.
Please join us. Water is a right, not a privilege.
Sign the petition to adopt Article 31:
http://article31.org/Water and sanitation problems cause more casualties worldwide than any war claims... more
-
-
Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in some places like India these disasters have already had an impact at a global level, they are a disaster in the making.
It is therefore unscientific, illogical and irresponsible for the Environmental Minister Mr Woolas to say that Prince Charles must provide "proof" that a disaster has happened.
I would imagine that he is aware of the environmental principle on which the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change rest.
The principle is called the Precautionary Principle. It is based on the recognition that when an activity or technology has the potential to cause harm, and there is no conclusive evidence to establish the harm that can be caused, then policy and decision making must err on the side of caution.
The Environment Minister also said "Government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: 'Can GM crops help'?
Minister, if you could travel with me through Vidarbha and see the tears in the eyes of farmers' widows, you would be compelled to ask the question:'Can GM crops harm'? That is your moral responsibility.
It is also your responsibility to sincerely base your decisions on real science, not pseudo science. Science based policy would recognise that an agriculture that conserves biodiversity also produces more food and nutrition per unit acre.
Science based policy would recognise that if farmers fall into debt, it is not an instrument for ending poverty, but a recipe for ending the lives of small farmers.
A science based policy would not blindly spread GM crops to Africa without assessing their role in India's agrarian crisis. A science based policy would not be based on unscientific principle of "substantial equivalence" which has prevented independent and serious testing of GM foods and crops.
That is why the Supreme Court of India has served notice on the Government of India to ask why a GMO moratorium should not be imposed till proper testing protocols and tests and facilities for biosafety are in place.
end of excerpt.
``~~~
Dr. Vandana Shiva is one of the most passionate and knowledgable scholars and environmental activists on the topic of GM foods, the global water crisis, Monsanto ( bio technology), sustainability, and environmental democracy. I trust her words and her judgement on this implicitly as I too have done the research. The world needs to listen to and read her words as she speaks truth about the monopoly taking form to control both our food and water in the guise of companies stating they are pushing GM organisms on us for our own benefit, when it is really for their own.
GM foods and the poisons sprayed on them that are in our water and food are not sustainable and will not save this world from a food crisis, but may well perpetuate it especially in areas of severe drought. We have all the conventional food we need to feed this world save political corruption (World Bank) and those in power looking to deny it to those who need it most to suit their own political, economic, and ideological agendas. I hold Dr. Shiva in the highest esteem and take her word on this based on her years of experience over anyone looking to defend the monstrous crime being perpetrated by these biocompanies on our environment and our health.Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in... more
-
