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Environmental conflicts to increase: Africa science news
When Ugandan soldiers opened fire on Turkana herdsmen from the neighbouring Kenya who had crossed the borders into their country last Sunday in the eye of diplomats, public servants called it a diplomatic breach but scientists say the aggression is an attribute of the environmental conflicts.
Environmental experts say that armed conflicts would rise in the future to unprecedented levels due to competition for meager natural resources which are already under pressure due to climate change.
As is tradition for nomads, herders migrate in search of pasture and water for their livestock because drought which is dictated largely by climatic variations sets in.
Prof Richard Odingo who has spent 20 years doing research on environmental changes with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said at the University of Nairobi that the pace for armed conflicts in the developing world would soar as global warming increase due to unchecked anthropogenic activities.
Odingo predicts that both internal and trans-boundary wars on water and other resources will increase unless deliberate collective measures are taken to avert the crisis.
Already there is war in many areas. Look at our border with Somalia, people are always fighting for water, others are fighting because they want grazing land, In fact among them are nomads of the East Africa and even in West Africa. There is always what one can call small scale warfares. But now in the future even water would be a big problem, we will not have tribal wars, maybe we will have regional warfare, we might even have Somalia coming to attack us because they are looking for water, Odingo said in his paper : The impact of Climate Change in Africa and its implications for peace and security.
He says that Africa lacks foresight for solutions to the problems of the future. For example look at the water of River Nile, it is so important for all of us, Egypt also depends on it he said.
Odingo warned that if Climate changes continue uninhibited and coupled with the destruction of Mau Forest and other catchment areas, Lake Victoria would automatically be interfered with and this will be a clear recipe for war with the Egyptians. When Ugandan soldiers opened fire on Turkana herdsmen from the neighbouring Kenya who had crossed the borders into their country last ... more -
Desert is claiming southeast Spain
Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses - 54 of them, all built in the past decade and most in the past three years - give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.
There is only one problem with this picture of bounty: This province, Murcia, is running out of water. Spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development, swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert.
This year in Murcia farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting each other over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a burgeoning black market.
"Water will be the environmental issue this year," said Barbara Helferrich, spokeswoman for the European Union's Environment Directorate. "The problem is urgent and immediate."
"If you're already having water shortages in spring, you know it's going to be a really bad summer."
Southern Spain has long been plagued by cyclical drought, but the current crisis reflects a permanent climate change brought on by global warming and it is a harbinger of a new kind of conflict, climate scientists say.
The battles of yesterday were fought over land, they warn. Those of the present center on oil. But those of the future, a future made hotter and dryer by climate change in much of the world, will focus on a much more basic resource: water Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers... more -
Is water becoming the new oil?
Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water – and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.
Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.
Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”
Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies – notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.
Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.
But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say.
“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need – water – is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”
Will “peak water” displace “peak oil” as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising.
end of excerpted article noted in entry.
My comments;
This is a scenario that some including myself have been warning about for the last twenty years. The prognosis that increasing population and lack of proper maintenance of infrastructure along with destructive corporate policies that pollute and waste this precious resource will culminate to bring us to a point where there will not be enough potable water to sustain this world's population.
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The water justice movement in this world is now just starting to make headway with bringing people to that consciousness regarding water and the impending repercussions we will most certainly face upon not giving this crisis the attention and action it deserves on a global scale. Drought (caused by waste but now also caused predominantly by climate change and the burning of fossil fuels at a rapacious pace unprecedented) is a silent killer that is creeping across this planet very stealthily in search of more land to suck dry, which is now putting the lives of millions in the Horn of Africa and in other parts of this world including the United States at risk. And in that process, where will that leave the poorest in our world? At the mercy of corporate conglomerates that will charge them unsurious rates to have a substance they cannot live without? How can anyone claim this is even moral let alone legal?
more at the link. Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers... more -
Water Wars In Africa
While Americans fret over rising gas prices and global tension over oil, the world’s poor are struggling to secure access to another, even more basic resource. Water scarcity in East Africa is fueling conflict and thwarting development while growing in step with local populations and rising global temperatures. While Americans fret over rising gas prices and global tension over oil, the world’s poor are struggling to secure access to another, ... more
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In focus: water wars in Ethiopia
World Water Day on March 22 reminds us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack access to the water most of us take for granted. Global climate change is making that struggle worse, as we see in this report from the rugged region of southern Ethiopia, where drought is drying up wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict.
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The most crucial environmental crisis future generations will face. World Water Day on March 22 reminds us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack access to the water most of us take for granted. Glo... more -
How To Avoid War Over Water
This is a must read article. It also mentions the repercussions of fhe Israeli bombing in Lebanon and the hidden motivations we won't see covered on CNN, and the war in Sri Lanka that I also wrote about. And the four broad recommendations were right on. Also, access to water must be declared a global human right to keep corporate hands off of water that doesn't belong to them. Just because your name is Coca Cola that doesn't give you the inherent right to take away water that is needed to sustain life or to pollute it.
Again, great article. And also, perhaps by speaking up about the potential of all out war over this resource and warning against it, we will foster peaceful negotiations and cooperations in the end. However, the bottomline is that those of us in parts of the world where water is plentiful must think about conserving it for our future and helping those who do not have the potable water they need to meet their needs. War or not that is simply the moral and ethical thing to do.
Excerpt from article:
The facts behind the crisis tell their own story. By 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources.
Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat.From the Aral Sea in Central Asia to Lake Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, lakes are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. In effect, a large section of humanity is now living in regions where the limits of sustainable water use have been breached - and where water-based ecological systems are collapsing. The disputes erupting within countries are one consequence of increasing scarcity. But water is the ultimate fugitive resource. Two in every five people in the world live in river and lake basins that span one or more international borders. And it is this hydrological interdependence that has the potential to transmit heightened competition for water across frontiers.
The Tigris and Euphrates river systems figure prominently at World Water Week. No river system better demonstrates the nature of hydrological interdependence. In Turkey, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are seen as an underexploited source of power and irrigation. Viewed from Syria and Iraq, Turkish dams are a threat to hundreds of thousands of livelihoods, with farmers losing access to water. Underpinning the rivalry between states is the idea that sharing water is a zero-sum game: Every drop of water secured by Turkish farmers appears as a loss to Syrian farmers.Consider, too, the huge river-diversion programs under consideration in China and India, which see them as part of a national strategy for transferring water from surplus to deficit areas. Neighboring governments fear a catastrophic loss of water. Bangladesh has warned that any diversion of the Ganges to meet the needs of India's cities could undermine the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable farmers.
Identifying potential flashpoints for conflict does not require a doctorate in hydrology. In the Middle East, the world's most severely water-stressed region, more than 90 percent of usable water crosses international borders. Forget oil: The most precious resource in the region flows in the River Jordan, or resides in the aquifers that link Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The threats posed by competition for water are real enough - but for every threat there is an opportunity. This is a must read article. It also mentions the repercussions of fhe Israeli bombing in Lebanon and the hidden motivations we won�... more -
The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right To Water
Maude Barlow is co-founder of the Blue Planet Project and a very vocal advocate for clean water for all. Her new book (The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water) lays out three main plans that must be instituted in order for our planet to avert a catastrophe regarding this crisis that according to the UN should be our top priority which include: Water conservation, water justice, and water democracy. We must as a global community see beyond the borders to the moral courage necessary to conserve and share this precious resource, as well as working on a treaty like the one we hope to see regarding the climate crisis that sets goals for conservation, sharing of resources, providing technology necessary to developing countries that helps them with conserving through agriculture, infrastructure, and basic education. And most importantly, declaring access to clean water a human right.This along with the climate crisis is the most crucial environmental issue we will face in this century. For me it is the most crucial because without water there is no life. Maude Barlow is co-founder of the Blue Planet Project and a very vocal advocate for clean water for all. Her new book (The Global Wate... more
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Water War Between Georgia And Tennessee?
The borderline between Northern Georgia and Southern Tennessee that separates the Tennessee River is under dispute due to Georgia claiming the borderline originally was meant to be higher, thus giving Georgia rights to the Tennessee River as well. Legislators in Georgia hope to remedy that to allow thousands of gallons of the Tennessee River to flow to drought stricken Georgia. However, the Tennessee legislature and some Tennesseans are determined to not allow it to happen, even to the point of some residents claiming they will buy guns and shoot their rifles off if any encroachment occurs. Are we seeing the making of a water war in the Southwest due to the drought? And in perspective, is it really so hard to come to some sort of understanding between states to provide water for residents of this country who are suffering from a drought? Should the border be moved, or does the human right to water supercede boundaries? What do you think? The borderline between Northern Georgia and Southern Tennessee that separates the Tennessee River is under dispute due to Georgia clai... more
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