Water Scarcity // Current

India water demand set to double by 2030

Just in time for the Himalayas to melt away... And yet, people don't think this is... more

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Bolivia: Lake Titicaca at dangerously low levels

Water evaporation due to climate change is responsible for Lake Titicaca dropping an... more

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6 days ago
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Black carbon adversely effects climate and water supplies

Nobel Laureate Al Gore has warned that black carbon emissions from the kerosene... more

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28 days ago
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Fleeing drought in the Horn of Africa

Reporting from Dadaab, Kenya - For centuries, Adam Abdi Ibrahim's ancestors herded... more

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"The human existence depends on the top six inches of soil." By Dervaes - Watch video too.

We are the Organic movement! Organic agriculture and beyond can combat deforestation,... more

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Mapping future water stress

"Having forecast the availability of water and the demand from industry, it was then... more

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Kashmir glaciers shrinking at alarming speed

Rising winter temperatures are shrinking Himalayan glaciers in Indian Kashmir at... more

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The other inconvenient truth: the crisis in global land use

It’s taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change. Collectively, we are beginning to acknowledge that our long addiction to fossil fuels — which has been harming our national security, our economy and our environment for decades — must end. The question today is no longer why, but how. The die is cast, and our relationship to energy will never be the same.

Unfortunately, this positive shift in the national zeitgeist has had an unintended downside. In the rush to portray the perils of climate change, many other serious issues have been largely ignored. Climate change has become the poster child of environmental crises, complete with its own celebrities and campaigners. But is it so serious that we can afford to overlook the rise of infectious disease, the collapse of fisheries, the ongoing loss of forests and biodiversity, and the depletion of global water supplies?

Although I’m a climate scientist by training, I worry about this collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems. Learning from the research my colleagues and I have done over the past decade, I fear we are neglecting another, equally inconvenient truth: that we now face a global crisis in land use and agriculture that could undermine the health, security, and sustainability of our civilization.

Our use of land, particularly for agriculture, is absolutely essential to the success of the human race. We depend on agriculture to supply us with food, feed, fiber, and, increasingly, biofuels. Without a highly efficient, productive, and resilient agricultural system, our society would collapse almost overnight.

But we are demanding more and more from our global agricultural systems, pushing them to their very limits.

Continued population growth.The massive environmental impacts of our agricultural practices rival the impacts of climate change.(adding more than 70 million people to the world every year), changing dietary preferences (including more meat and dairy consumption), rising energy prices, and increasing needs for bioenergy sources are putting tremendous pressure on the world’s resources. And, if we want any hope of keeping up with these demands, we’ll need to double, perhaps triple, the agricultural production of the planet in the next 30 to 40 years.

Meeting these huge new agricultural demands will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. At present, it is completely unclear how (and if) we can do it.

If this wasn’t enough, we must also address the massive environmental impacts of our current agricultural practices, which new evidence indicates rival the impacts of climate change. Consider the following:

Ecosystem degradation. Already, we have cleared or converted more than 35 percent of the earth’s ice-free land surface for agriculture, whether for croplands, pastures or rangelands. In fact, the area used for agriculture is nearly 60 times larger than the area of all of the world’s cities and suburbs. Since the last ice age, nothing has been more disruptive to the planet’s ecosystems than agriculture. What will happen to our remaining ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, if we need to double or triple world agricultural production, while simultaneously coping with climate change?

end of excerptIt’s taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting... more

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Global brands refuse to endorse 'slaughter of the Amazon'

Great work Greenpeace! As posted previously cattle ranching is a major driver of... more

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Water Sucking Solar Farms Breed Water Wars

"If you thought there were water wars brewing before, just wait. The sun is often... more

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At Boston University, former G.E. Leader Calls for Water Sustainability

'innovations are not enough where water scarcity is concerned; solution will need... more

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2 months ago
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Drought brings struggle for survival in Kenya

You are watching one of many news stories to come on the effects of global warming as... more

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2 months ago
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Weather worsens Mexico City's water shortage

I wish "people" cared as much for this as they do about legalizing drugs. Excerpt:... more

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2 months ago
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Kenyan farmers watch their livelihoods-and their food supply disappear

This is a human and human induced tragedy. These are the climate refugees we were told... more

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2 months ago
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Concerns over deforestation may drive new approach to cattle ranching in the Amazon.

The picture you see is the sharp contrast between forest and pasture in Mato Grosso.... more

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3 months ago
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Iraq's new war is a fight for water

Iraq’s devastating water shortages have three main causes: upstream dams in Turkey... more

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3 months ago
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Explore Water

Man's impact on water is global. http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

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Water tops climate change as global priority

As the world turns its eyes toward Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Conference in December and how to engage the public on these massively complex issues of planetary survival, it might look to water as a universal solvent. According to our new Circle of Blue GlobeScan public opinion survey, WaterViews, we now know that people globally care most about water.

This seems like commons sense. Water flows through each of world's most significant challenges of the 21st century, from drought and food supplies, health and pandemics to economic despair and sustainable development. And, of course, we'd simply die without water.

This comprehensive and independent global public opinion survey on attitudes about fresh water sustainability, management and conservation finds that people around the world view water issues as the planet’s top environmental problem, greater than air pollution, depletion of natural resources, loss of habitat and even climate change. We published the results Tuesday at World Water Week in Stockholm. (Circle of Blue is the independent, nonpartisan journalism, science and communications organization I direct that's reporting the global water crisis.) The data is fresh and we didn't know the outcome until the numbers were in little more than a week ago.

My colleague Keith Schneider writes:

The fierce impediments to clean water and sanitation, and the millions of premature deaths from water-related disease, are seen as having a greater influence on quality of life and the planet than air pollution, species extinction, depletion of natural resources, loss of habitat and climate change.

Opinion is powerful stuff, and it may be catching up to present-day reality. The encouraging news for those working on water issues is that people — a high 93 percent — want to be empowered with more information to do something about the crisis.

What does this mean? Simple. As an issue, climate is gravely urgent. But it's a surpassingly complicated story built on scenarios and slow fuses. If it can be broken down into its concrete impacts on such things as water, then it becomes understandable and real.

We surveyed 1,000 people in each of 15 countries, and probed 500 in each of the following countries on specific questions: Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. (We are awaiting data from ten more countries.) Water pollution and fresh water shortages ranked first and second while climate ranked sixth.

A closer look at the results shows that people around the world view water pollution as the most important facet of the fresh water crisis, and that shortages of fresh water are very close behind.

end of excerptAs the world turns its eyes toward Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate... more