India is the most vulnerable country to climate change, followed by Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, a ranking by HSBC showed on Monday....
Pakistan was ranked by HSBC among nations least well-equipped to respond to climate risks....Not that prior to the partition of India after independence, Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of India. This area of the subcontinent is most vulnerable.
This could spell bad news for Nestle and other corporations seeking to corner the world market on clean water – but it would mean welcome relief for the hundreds of millions of people who have limited access to such a fundamental part of life.
It is well-known that over 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water – yet clean water for drinking and irrigation is one of the planet’s scarcest commodities. In fact, fresh water comprises only about 3.5 percent of the world’s supply. The result of this irony is that places such as California suffer from droughts while there is a huge ocean of water right next door.
Historically, water has been the source of major conflicts, such as the “range wars” of 19th-Century America and the current problems between Israel’s Palestinian and Jewish populations. Although methods of water desalination exist, most of them are not cost-effective.…
The good news is that scientists in the UK have developed a much less expensive method of desalination that could make such equipment accessible and affordable by individuals and communities. It involves what is known as a graphene-oxide membrane, which is capable of filtering even nanoparticles of salts out of water.
This technique, which is being researched at the University of Manchester, is still in the experimental stage – but points the way to quick, efficient, and inexpensive desalination techniques that could improve the quality of life for hundreds of millions....
Because graphene-oxide is easy and inexpensive to produce, it means that such technology will be widely available to everyone...
In India, polluted and dried-up rivers, poor storage infrastructure, contaminated groundwater and shrinking aquifers – to name but a handful of problems – have turned the country’s water woes into a hydra-headed monster. With 76 million people – approximately 5% of the country’s total population – living without access to safe drinking water, many experts believe India faces a looming internal water war that will jeopardize all of its ambitious developmental projects, from “Make in India” to building smart cities....Asia Times
However you look at it though, if water becomes a contentious issue, it will have geopolitical and military implications. And we would need to solve the water issue to prevent those implications from leading to nationalism and military confrontation.Credit Writedowns
Desertification -- climate change-triggered degradation of land ecosystems -- might, in a decade, create 50 million refugees, the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD), a global initiative led by 30 different research groups, warned in a new study published Tuesday. The study, backed by the United Nations, also found that $6.3 trillion to $10.6 trillion worth of resources -- equivalent to up to 17 percent of the world’s GDP -- were lost annually due to land degradation.Water.
“Our lands are no longer able to keep up with the pressures placed on its limited resources. Increasing misuse and demands for its goods are resulting in rapidly intensifying desertification and land degradation globally -- an issue of growing importance for all people and at all scales,” the report, titled “The Value of Land,” said.
In 2012, the U.S. Intelligence Council issued a report warning that in the next few decades, the fragile ecosystem of international trade and political partnership that America relies on will be threatened as countries that are “important to US interests” come to blows over a single invaluable resource: water. Not oil. “Water is the new oil,” so say economists, business executives and political scientists. Yes, while the majority of the wars of the 20th century were fought over terrain bubbling over with crude, the wars of tomorrow will likely be fought over countries with access to aquifers, canals and fresh water springs....AMERICAblog
New research supported by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office and insurer Lloyd’s of London finds that, absent major changes, humanity risks a catastrophic collapse in its ability to feed itself by mid-century, due in significant part to human-caused climate change.
Last year, the United Nations’ “highly conservative” IPCC climate panel warned that humanity is risking a “breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes” on its current path of unrestricted carbon pollution. Many studies in the last 12 months have strengthened the scientific case (see this, for instance).
The new research is from the Global Resource Observatory, a project of Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) partnering with the UK government’s Foreign Office; Lloyds of London; a “coalition of leaders from business, politics and civil society”; the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries; and both the Africa and Asian Development Banks.Think Progress
The GSI group does business-as-usual forecasting using system dynamics modeling — arguably the only type of modeling that treats feedbacks and time delays well enough to even approximate what is coming. GSI Director Aled Jones explains that the group “ran the model forward to the year 2040.” The results were stunning:“The results show that based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption.”The “good” news: That only happens if humanity doesn’t actually do any serious planning for this outcome — and doesn’t do any serious reacting as it plays out. But homo sapiens isn’t a “brainless frog,” are we?....
Some may worry about the distributional effects of a higher price of a necessity. But the revenue from a higher price could be rebated to consumers on a lump-sum basis, making the whole system progressive. We would end up with more efficiency and more equality.This involves political decisions in addition to economic factors, so implementing anything in California will be difficult, given a divisive political climate and the political strength of commercial interests.
The water sector will have to react to developments in the energy and other sectors, over which, despite close ties, it has very limited control. Coordinating the various sectors’ policies effectively will be difficult, to say the least.
It may sound daunting, but the reality is that these challenges are surmountable – if, that is, our leaders commit to tackling them. We already have the needed technology, know-how, experience, and even financing. With strong political will, sustained pressure from an informed public, and a “can do” attitude from water professionals and institutions pursuing intersectoral cooperation, the world’s water-management problems can be addressed effectively.
But we must act now. Time – and water – is running out.Project Syndicate
New cookbook seeks to turn tide on insect cuisine (via Reuters TV)The bottom line is that it is becoming much more difficult for the world’s farmers to keep up with the world’s rapidly growing demand for grain. World grain stocks were drawn down a decade ago and we have not been able to rebuild them. If we cannot do so, we can expect that with the next poor harvest, food prices will soar, hunger will intensify, and food unrest will spread.
We are entering a time of chronic food scarcity, one that is leading to intense competition for control of land and water resources – in short, a new geopolitics of food.Inter Press Service
Most of his rooftop is given over to an aquaponic system, which produces food by linking fish tanks of tilapia with gravel-filled planters.
The integrated system feeds the water from the fish tanks into the plant beds, where Abu Ahmed’s crops — lettuce, peppers, broccoli, celery and herbs — are fertilised by waste produced by the tilapia.
As the water trickles through the gravel, the plants absorb nutrients from the fish waste, cleaning the water, which then replenishes the tanks.
“The idea really was to help the poorest people in Gaza be able to grow some of their own food, and healthy food, grown without pesticides,” explains Mohammed El Shatali, the project’s deputy manager.The Raw Story
The 2012 World Food Prize will be awarded to Dr. Daniel Hillel for his role in conceiving and implementing a radically new mode of bringing water to crops in arid and dry land regions - known as “micro-irrigation.”
Dr. Hillel’s pioneering scientific work in Israel revolutionized food production, first in the Middle East, and then in other regions around the world over the past five decades. His work laid the foundation for maximizing efficient water usage in agriculture, increasing crop yields, and minimizing environmental degradation.The World Food Prize
