Friday, February 22, 2019
Water shortage may be next cause of world war
spot much attention and debate have been correctly foc use upd on the impending planet-wide oil shortage, a far greater calamity awaits us as the reality of the looming orbiculate piddle crisis suits more app atomic number 18nt. It is not ill-considered to wonder whether the next world state of war testament be fought oer oil or water.No resource on Earth is more preciously than water. While ongoing events draw our attention to oil, we ignore what leave alone become the most serious resource issue in this century the planetary water shortage. The reports that nearly a third of the worlds population lacks clear-cut water for personal daily use and estimates that by 2025 that add up will grow to half of the worlds population. A payoff of world leaders have even suggested that the next world war could be sparked by water disputes.In places as different as the American west, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and China the puzzle of diminishing water supplies is become steadily more serious and more dangerous. The World Bank has account that as many as 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten their economies as well as their citizens health, while 40 per centum of the worlds population have no access to clean water and sanitation.In addition, more than a dozen nations receive most of their water from rivers that cross borders of neighbouring countries viewed as hostile. As readily as people and countries ght over pick up of oil, one can only imagine what it will be like when our precious life source of water is no daylong available in sufficient quantities.According to Frank Rijsberman, the director of the International water system Management Institute, Globally, water usage has increased six times in the past 100 years and will double again by 2050, driven mainly by irrigation and demands of agriculture.The consequences of this increase in demand will be widespread scarcity and rapidly increasing water prices. As described in a re port issued last August by WWF, the global conservation organization, rather than being precisely a problem effecting poor and undeveloped countries, the combination of mode change and drought and passing game of wetlands that store water, along with poorly thought out water radix and resources management, is making this (water) crisis rattling global.In the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians atomic number 18 ghting over lessen water resources. In China & India more than 400 of 600 towns & nearby cities are suffering water shortages and in Peru, as around the world, mountain glaciers are in retreat, taking with them vast stores of water that grow crops, generate electrical energy and sustain communities.The situation will only be exacerbated as climate change is predicted to bring lower rainfall, increased evaporation and changed patterns of snow melting.So what is to be done about this imminent case of water hazard? The most important rst step is to develop a better sy stem of agricultural irrigation. Presently 70 percent of all water use is agricultural, with 60 percent of that water being wasted, primarily through ooze and evaporation. Other strategies to address this growing global water problem admit water conservation, more desalination plants, slowing population growth, reducing pollution, and simply better managing the supply and demand of our most precious resource.Ultimately, there will be no remedy for this seemingly intractable problem unless and until truly sustainable practices of water conservation are undertaken at the personal, national and global level. If we fail to do this, and dont learn to conserve and cooperate, the war(s) for control of the oil in the Middle East will appear untarnished picnics by comparison.And in addition to the already existing No daub for Oil protest signs, ournewest antiwar protesters will be carrying signs saying, No War for Water.
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