Tag: Water Scarcity

Water News & a Word on Middle-East Water Rights

This is my last Water News diary for the year and I’d like to take the opportunity to remind the fighting I/P posters that the Middle East, where a few great waterways are the major source of water for a large area of dry lands spanning a number of national borders, the scarcity of water has played a central role in defining the political relationships in the region for thousands of years. Its ideological, religious, and geographical disputes go hand in hand with water-related tensions and it is becoming abundantly clear that the incoming administration of Barack Obama will have to deal swiftly with the powers of the region as the water crisis is not limited to the Jordan basin, but extends throughout the Middle East, encompassing also the watersheds of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates. Because of water’s preeminent role in survival (Israel depends on fresh water resources originating in the occupied territories for about one-third of its total supply) the parched and volatile Middle East must be dealt with because the fact is that the region is running out of water. The people who have built their lives on what was once a reliable source of fresh water are now seeing a shortage of this vital resource impinge on all aspects of their increasingly fragile relations.

Cross-posted on La Vida Locavore and DKos.

Post-Election Water News

I’m not sure of which the two I am more worried about: food shortages or water scarcity. A lack of water to meet daily needs is a reality for many people around the world and has serious health consequences. I have read that it affects 4 out of 10 people in the world as water demand has more than tripled over the last half-century. Signs of water scarcity have become commonplace. As for the food situation this year, once again world grain harvest is projected to fall somewhat short of consumption due to a number of factors and the new bete noire, ethanol. United States department of agriculture (USDA) data said that in 2007, production of food grain in world was 22 million metric tonnes short of consumption. This year is projected to be a better harvest but by how much? Will there be enough to store? The price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%, and this economic crisis could not have come at a worst time for developing countries as foreign aid is rapidly dwindling to a trickle.

Fortunately Obama will be in charge, the current WH idiot will be a distant memory and better agricultural policies will be put in place.