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TechnoratiExperts: Half World Faces Water Shortage by 2080
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday.
![[A little girl collects water from a leak in a pipe in a camp for displaced people, Monday, Nov. 17, 2008 in Kibati just north of Goma in eastern Congo. Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/water1118.jpg "water1118.jpg")
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.
Wong and others at the conference called on governments to embrace the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty to fight global warming and protect water resources, as a short-term solution.
But eventually governments must build infrastructure to protect coastal areas, improve management of water basins and adopt new technologies to enhance availability and reliability of water resources, Wong said.
The United Nations is currently campaigning to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol _ which regulates the emissions of 37 industrial countries _ with another accord at a meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The Kyoto Protocol was signed by 183 nations in 1997. But the United States _ long the world's biggest emitter, though it is now rivaled by China _ rejected the plan over concerns it would harm the American economy.
Developing countries such as China and India also refused to accept a binding arrangement that they said would limit their development.
9 Comments so far
Show AllPressure for food, education, water and energy soverignty are occuring world-wide. Why? Because WTO/IMF/WB industrial/monoculture mavens like Cargill, Monsanto, etc... are in effect advocating genocide for profit. The saved seeds in vault for later.
The 'plantation' mentality still claims the right to tell what is planted, which population groups will shoulder the slave labor burden, determine the product and the market, control the subsidy/tarrif, determine (in USA) that education must be linked to the military, conflate defense with aggression (the best defense is a "good" offens/ce), militarization of the economic dynamics. In the mean time reducing biodiversity, building massive hydro-electrical plants (that are an area of social research in and of themselves) increasing NIMBY pollution, pressuring mass migrations off the land to urban areas - in its ongoing dance of necrotocracy in order to have...what? Fewer edible foods, less potable water, chemical toxification, misinformation, etc...
Sometimes I have to stand back in utter disbelief. The hubris of the technological revolution has become a virtual fascist movement - blind to what could be accomplished if it simply ceased and desisted from asserting its blinkered greed otherwise known as responsibility to shareholders. Don't worry dear, its all in your head...
All the cute little individual water bottles, all the soft drinks, all the water-spiked juices, all of much food we eat, especially meats, contain someone else's water, shipped from afar and thereby taken from those distant people and most likely not paid for by even liberals and progressives snf sll of us, hydrating away, who swig innocently and unselfconsciously as if it were their duty.
And what a coincidence that one of the worlds largest aquifers, the Guarani Aquifer is in South America partially under Paraguay where the Bushies are reported to have bought up loads of land. Besides being an escape heaven in case his forthcoming pre-emptive self pardons don't stick, he'll be sitting on some very valuable liquid assets protected by a private army paid for with our tax dollars. Just search for Bush Paraguay and read. Then Google Earth 22º01'51.33"S by 60º36'50.78"W and tell me what that base is doing there.
Lots of water gets wasted by the livestock exploitation industries.
Frances Moore Lappe talked about it in 69, nothing has changed since then.
When the US Federal Reserve lowered interest rates based on understated rates of inflation during 2002-2006 they enabled the housing bubble. When they did the same thing in 2007, speculators drove up the price of energy and food while mortgage rates stayed the same or increased. Now, the Federal Reserve is lowering interest rates again, thereby enabling speculators to drive up the price of water.
If Obama doesn't fire Ben Bernanke and his gang of pirates at the Federal Reserve by 2/1/09 we will be able to draw one of two conclusions:
1)Obama hasn't got a clue, or
2)Obama's change mantra is 100% hot air.
It just keeps getting better and better. Start thinking about some kind of control over population before we even get there. Naw, that would be to easy. Lets keep playing the game that technology will fix everything.
Interesting how war and preparation for war consume so much time and money, eh?
We humans will have a lot to answer for when we stand before the Great White Throne on the Day of Judgement, and we're queried about our totally rotten stewardship of the earth.
With the neocons out, maybe congress can do something besides rubber stamp Bush.
Problems will occur long before then. Much of the water for major Asian rivers is supplied by the Himalayan glaciers. They are fast disappearing. By 2035, most of the glaciers will have melted. Prior to that, the fast melting will cause flooding.