Last week's diary,
Did you know there's a catastrophic drought occurring right here in the US? by mbw was important reading. And there's more recently.
As was reported in Nature yesterday (I can't find the link, though), the NY Times reports that the need for water could double in 50 years, according to the UN.
Excerpt below.
From Nature:
Developing nations are, not surprisingly, revealed to be the hardest hit by water shortages, but for differing reasons. Large parts of sub-Saharan Africa have potential access to groundwater, for example, but lack the technology to exploit it. In Gujarat in India, by contrast, decades of over-extraction of groundwater for dairy farming has "destroyed" local resources, says Rijsberman.
Some of these problems could be fixed through financial initiatives and sustainable use of basic technologies, says David Molden, a colleague of Rijsberman's. Access to 'micro-credit' initiatives would allow African farmers to invest in human-powered pumps and small-scale dams, for example, which could be used to see crops through unpredictable but frequent dry periods.
But the authors also call for a more radical change in the way that water is thought about. "People need to focus on getting more value from water," says Rijsberman. He argues that water is usually seen as a free resource, but needs to be treated as a limited commodity, and valued accordingly.
Evidently - I thought this only applied to rice- cereal crops are water-pigs, but other crops are less water intensive.
From the Times story
More than two billion people already live in regions facing a scarcity of water, and unless the world changes its ways over the next 50 years, the amount of water needed for a rapidly growing population will double, scientists warned in a study released yesterday.
At the worst, a deepening water crisis would fuel violent conflicts, dry up rivers and increase groundwater pollution, their report says. It would also force the rural poor to clear ever more grasslands and forests to grow food and leave many more people hungry.
The report, which draws on the research of more than 400 hydrologists, agronomists and other scientists, was sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the world's premier network of agricultural research centers, among others.
The authors of the report, "Water for Good, Water for Life: Insights from the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture," concluded that countries confronting severe water shortages cannot simply employ the same strategies for increasing food production that have had dramatic success over the past half-century.
Read more of the article: it implies that massive amounts of low-level technology are needed to address this problem, and it's as real as global warming. It mentions that some areas are now verdant because of metling glaciers, but guess what happens when the glaciers are gone?
In the United States, as mbw has noted, the drought is here. And Reuters reports on it today, too here:
CHICAGO, Aug 22 (Reuters) - As the United States bakes in one of the hottest summers since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, drought from the Dakotas to Arizona through Alabama has sharpened the focus of farmers on their lifeline: water.
Eighty percent of all fresh water consumed in the United States is used to produce food. But years of drought, diversion of water to growing urban areas and, most lately, concerns about global warming are feeding worries.
Specifically, farmers fear the U.S. Plains is facing its limits as a world producer of wheat, beef, vegetable oils and other crops due to long-term water shortages.
"Farmers aren't going to be able to produce enough food to feed the world because there's a finite amount of water left in the world. There are many folks that will tell you the next war will not be over gold, silver or land, it will be over water," said Ed Burchfield, director of facilities for Valmont Industries <VMI.N>, which makes irrigation equipment.
The U.S. National Weather Service's outlook through October saw persistent drought from eastern Montana to Minnesota and on down through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas -- the main spring-wheat and winter-wheat growing areas of the United States as well as its main cattle and beef production region.
So, thanks to "small government" conservatives, we get higher food prices, and a new dustbowl. Repeating the same mistakes...
(Speaking of "small government" but otherwise totally unrelated to the topic of this diary, this article on Iraq by Michael Schwartz seems to indicate that we've either deliberately or inadvertantly created the conservative dream government, with "small government theocracies" controlling localities and no strong central government, which unfortunately results in, uh, civil war. Repeating the same mistakes.)
This is precisely the difference that we can make between the Repubs and us: we can see a shortage coming and prepare for it, and all the Repubs can do is sell munitions and engage in wars once the shortage is upon us.
I'm thinking of the biblical story of Joseph here in case there's any Christians that need convincing on this part.
I also think that it's time for politicians besides Al Gore to address this problem, and problems related to global warming and poverty.