Adapt or die: Environmentalists have long said the world should concentrate on preventing climate change, not adapting to it, but that is changing

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 15, 2008 at 5:35 am

From The Economist:

“I USED to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention. But I’ve changed my mind,” says Al Gore, a former American vice-president and Nobel prize-winner. “Poor countries are vulnerable and need our help.” His words reflect a shift in the priorities of environmentalists and economists.

For years, greens said adaptation—coping with climate change, rather than stopping it—was a bit like putting out a fire on the Titanic: desirable, no doubt, but the main thing was to change course. In July, however, a committee of America’s Senate set aside $20m for international adaptation efforts. That was peanuts; and nothing will come of it anyway because there is no comparable legislation in the House of Representatives. But it was the first time American legislators had showed willingness to put money into global efforts at coping. In June, the United Nations hammered out the details of how to control spending of the first carbon tax earmarked for international adaptation.

Two things have changed attitudes. One is evidence that global warming is happening faster than expected. Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, believes “it is already too late to avert dangerous consequences, so we must learn to adapt.”

Second, evidence is growing that climate change hits two specific groups of people disproportionately and unfairly. They are the poorest of the poor and those living in island states: 1 billion people in 100 countries. Tony Nyong, a climate-change scientist in Nairobi, argues that people in poor countries used to see global warming as a Western matter: the rich had caused it and would with luck solve it. But the first impact of global warming has been on the very things the poorest depend on most: dry-land agriculture; tropical forests; subsistence fishing. In a recent paper* for the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington DC, Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University estimates that African farmers on rain-fed land will lose $28 per hectare per year for each 1°C rise in global temperatures. Global warming erodes coastlines, spreads pests and water-borne diseases and produces more erratic weather patterns.

The victims share two characteristics. They are too poor to defend themselves by expensive flood controls or sophisticated public-health programmes. And (unlike China or Brazil) their own carbon footprints are tiny. Kirk Smith, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, calls climate change the world’s biggest regressive tax: the poorest pay for the behaviour of the rich.

Read more from The Economist by clicking here.

Hat tip to the Sisweb for this one!

Think tank urges Canada to flow towards water exporting

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 28, 2008 at 5:49 am

From the Toronto Star:

A Montreal think tank says it’s “urgent” for Canada to dip its toe in the water exporting business for financial gain - but some folks aren’t too sure about watching our water go down the drain.

“Large-scale exports of fresh water would be a wealth-creating idea for Quebec and for Canada as a whole,” says the Montreal Economic Institute’s chief economist Marcel Boyer, author of a research paper released today. “The development and marketing of this expertise requires a strategic plan to enable Quebec to become a leader in water management,” says Boyer, vice president of the Institute, an independent, non-profit organization that takes part in public policy debate in Quebec and across Canada.

The report proposes that the provincial and federal government set out a regulatory framework for the trade in water to make owners or concession-holders more fully aware of the benefits and costs associated with the various uses of the water under their control. These restrictions should be accompanied by a “realistic” fee structure that would give consumers and other users incentives to use the resource responsibly and encourage the businesses involved to ensure a stable supply, the paper says.

“At a time when water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world, its economic development stirs up substantial opposition, however. Though some people fear harmful exploitation or even the drying up of our water resources, it is urgent to look seriously at developing our blue gold,” Boyer argues in the report.

Read the rest of this story from the Toronto Star by clicking here. Read the press release from the Montreal Economic Institute by clicking here. The WaterWired blog weighs in - click here.

Spanish fear day when tap will run dry

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 18, 2008 at 6:04 am

From the Chicago Tribune:

Spain, a Mediterranean country with arid plateaus, has always known turbulent periods of water shortages, but its predicament these days is built on modern-day ambitions.

Agriculture and large-scale irrigation have soared in the past decade, and in that sense, many environmentalists see this chapter in Spain’s history as analogous to California’s rush for water. Analysts say that farm growth—far more damaging than golf course and hotel development that has also soared in the past decade—has been a decisive factor in Spain’s new thirst.

Economic tensions seep into every conversation about water here. Regions throughout Spain are bound to local growers, the indisputable heaviest users of water. And every region, intent on 21st Century growth, is just as keen to diversify its economy and capture the profits of Mediterranean tourism.

This spring, Aragon and Catalan authorities, regional neighbors in Spain, sniped at each other over political deals to lay claim to the rushing waters of the Ebro. Catalonia wanted the river siphoned to help meet its water needs, including those of its capital, Barcelona, a tourism dynamo. Aragon officials, however, balked at the idea of sharing from the river, which runs through its capital, Zaragoza.

In a decision awash with political tensions, national authorities decided to approve a temporary transfer from the Ebro to Catalonia during the drought, a decision that riled Aragon’s political elite. Only the rains stopped the turmoil. The water transfer, in the end, never happened.

Aragon authorities in Zaragoza cast this year’s water fight as a matter of justice. They want to keep the Ebro waters at home to encourage development such as golf courses and theme parks across their big-sky landscape. It is the kind of change that environmentalists deride but government officials in charge of ecological protection see as an economic necessity. Barcelona had its era of development. Now, they say, it is Aragon’s turn.

“The single most important thing for me? Jobs,” Aragon Environmental Minister Alfredo Bone said in an interview in his office in Zaragoza. “The question is how to get this growth so that it is not a problem.”

Read more from the Chicago Tribune by clicking here.

Blooming deserts turn Israeli water industry into money magnet

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 31, 2008 at 10:46 pm

From Bloomberg News (hat tip to JFleck at Inkstain):

At the end of a road winding through Israel’s Negev desert, the entrance to Kibbutz Hatzerim is flanked by jojoba shrubs jutting from the arid earth.

The grove is the result of drip irrigation developed by Israeli engineer Simcha Blass in the 1960s that enabled the kibbutzniks to farm the desert. The company they started, Netafim Ltd., has sold the product in 110 countries from Germany to Peru.

“The founders were living in the middle of the desert and saw one agricultural failure after the other,” Naty Barak, 64, a director at Netafim, said at the kibbutz visitors center. “Back then it was their problem, but now it’s a global necessity.”

Today, some 300 Israeli companies make equipment to deliver water or purify it with lasers or diffusion, putting them in a position to profit as climate change, population growth and food shortages strain supplies. With agriculture accounting for about two-thirds of global water use, the Israeli government predicts overseas sales of the technology will top $10 billion by 2017.

US lawmakers hope to approve Great Lakes compact, but lawyer warns Canadians the water pact will deplete Great Lakes

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 5:33 am

From MLive.com:

A compact to prevent the diversion of water from the Great Lakes has widespread support in Congress and a strong chance of winning approval by the end of the year, lawmakers said Wednesday.

House and Senate leaders from the region said they had not detected any significant opposition to the plan and would aggressively push to complete the process this year to provide more protections for one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water. “It will be done by the end of this session, I assure you,” said Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who is leading efforts in the House.

Senate leaders, however, were more cautious, noting their chamber can be unpredictable because rules allow individual members to block legislation from moving forward. Election year politics also can add complications. “I cannot tell you with confidence that it will pass this year — but I will tell you with confidence that it will pass,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. His Republican colleague, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, said he was hopeful it would pass before the end of the year.

More from MLive.com by clicking here.

However, a U.S. environmental lawyer has warned Canadians that the pact is actually bad news for the Great Lakes in this article from The Star:

A pact designed to preserve the Great Lakes is in reality a “slippery slope” that threatens severe harm to the world’s largest body of fresh water, a top U.S. environmental lawyer has warned Canadians. “In effect, a precedent is being set, in that it allows for the commercialization of water. You are privatizing it,” James Olson said yesterday of an agreement among eight Great Lakes states now before the U.S. Congress and linked to Ontario and Quebec through a side deal.

Among other concerns, Olson criticizes an exemption in the Great Lakes Compact allowing water to be removed by private industry as long as it’s not “bulk diversion” – in other words, restricted to containers no more than 20 litres in Canada or 5.7 gallons in the U.S., with no limit on the number of containers a business, such as a bottler, can sell. That means an important legal precedent has been set giving water a “product” exemption from the diversion ban on Great Lakes water at the heart of the deal. It is a product to be exploited for private gain, and not to be recognized as a public trust.

While Olson is worried about the gradual loss of water levels through the activities of, say, bottling companies, under current limitations, he predicts these quantitative restrictions will turn out to be mere formalities destined to be overturned in court challenges. “The agreement has been reported to have a veneer of glory around it, but it’s much less than that,” Olson said in an interview from Traverse City, Mich. “But it can do great public harm, including to Canadians.”

Read the full text of this story from The Star by clicking here.

Facing the freshwater crisis: As demand for freshwater soars, planetary supplies are becoming unpredictable. Existing technologies could avert a global water crisis, but they must be implemented soon

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 23, 2008 at 6:38 am

From Scientific American:

A friend of mine lives in a middle-class neighborhood of New Delhi, one of the richest cities in India. Although the area gets a fair amount of rain every year, he wakes in the morning to the blare of a megaphone announcing that freshwater will be available only for the next hour. He rushes to fill the bathtub and other receptacles to last the day. New Delhi’s endemic shortfalls occur largely because water managers decided some years back to divert large amounts from upstream rivers and reservoirs to irrigate crops.

My son, who lives in arid Phoenix, arises to the low, schussing sounds of sprinklers watering verdant suburban lawns and golf courses. Although Phoenix sits amid the Sonoran Desert, he enjoys a virtually unlimited water supply. Politicians there have allowed irrigation water to be shifted away from farming operations to cities and suburbs, while permitting recycled wastewater to be employed for landscaping and other nonpotable applications.

As in New Delhi and Phoenix, policymakers worldwide wield great power over how water resources are managed. Wise use of such power will become increasingly important as the years go by because the world’s demand for freshwater is currently overtaking its ready supply in many places, and this situation shows no sign of abating. That the problem is well-known makes it no less disturbing: today one out of six people, more than a billion, suffer inadequate access to safe freshwater. By 2025, according to data released by the United Nations, the freshwater resources of more than half the countries across the globe will undergo either stress—for example, when people increasingly demand more water than is available or safe for use—or outright shortages. By midcentury as much as three quarters of the earth’s population could face scarcities of freshwater.

Scientists expect water scarcity to become more common in large part because the world’s population is rising and many people are getting richer (thus expanding demand) and because global climate change is exacerbating aridity and reducing supply in many regions. What is more, many water sources are threatened by faulty waste disposal, releases of industrial pollutants, fertilizer runoff and coastal influxes of saltwater into aquifers as groundwater is depleted. Because lack of access to water can lead to starvation, disease, political instability and even armed conflict, failure to take action can have broad and grave consequences.

Fortunately, to a great extent, the technologies and policy tools required to conserve existing freshwater and to secure more of it are known; I will discuss several that seem particularly effective. What is needed now is action. Governments and authorities at every level have to formulate and execute concrete plans for implementing the political, economic and technological measures that can ensure water security now and in the coming decades.

Read the rest of this article from Scientific American by clicking here. Hat tip to Water Wired blog for the link to the article - click here for Michael’s summary and thoughts on the article.

Mideast facing choice between crops and water

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 21, 2008 at 5:45 am

From the New York Times:

Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant supply of water.

For decades nations in this region have drained aquifers, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the mighty Nile to make the deserts bloom. But those projects were so costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 percent or more of their staples.

Now, the worldwide food crisis is making many countries in this politically volatile region rethink that math. The population of the region has more than quadrupled since 1950, to 364 million, and is expected to reach nearly 600 million by 2050. By that time, the amount of fresh water available for each person, already scarce, will be cut in half, and declining resources could inflame political tensions further.

“The countries of the region are caught between the hammer of rising food prices and the anvil of steadily declining water availability per capita,” Alan R. Richards, a professor of economics and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said via e-mail. “There is no simple solution.”

Losing confidence in world markets, these nations are turning anew to expensive schemes to maintain their food supply.

Djibouti is growing rice in solar-powered greenhouses, fed by groundwater and cooled with seawater, in a project that produces what the World Bank economist Ruslan Yemtsov calls “probably the most expensive rice on earth.”

Several oil-rich nations, including Saudi Arabia, have started searching for farmland in fertile but politically unstable countries like Pakistan and Sudan, with the goal of growing crops to be shipped home. “These countries have the land and the water,” said Hassan S. Sharaf Al Hussaini, an official in Bahrain’s agriculture ministry. “We have the money.”

In Egypt, where a shortage of subsidized bread led to rioting in April, government officials say they are looking into growing wheat on two million acres straddling the border with Sudan.

Economists and development experts say that nutritional self-sufficiency in this part of the world presents challenges that are not easily overcome. Saudi Arabia tapped aquifers to become self-sufficient in wheat production in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, the kingdom had become a major exporter. This year, however, the Saudis said they would phase out the program because it used too much water. “You can bring in money and water and you can make the desert green until either the water runs out or the money,” said Elie Elhadj, a Syrian-born author who wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the topic.

Read more on this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

Not just drops of water, but whole lakes, rivers evident on Mars

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 17, 2008 at 6:37 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A spacecraft flying high above Mars has found evidence that water flowed on the planet in such abundance billions of years ago that lakes and rivers existed all over its surface, scientists reported today. Images sent back to Earth from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show vast quantities of water-bearing clays on Mars’ surface, particularly in the planet’s highlands.

So it was water, water everywhere in Mars’ earliest days, between 4.6 and 3.8 billion years ago, said planetary geologists John F. Mustard at Brown University and Scott L. Murchie at Johns Hopkins. And that watery environment, they said, must have meant the planet was habitable long ago - a possibly suitable place for life.

Mustard and Murchie, along with a team of three dozen colleagues at other space research institutions, published a full report on the new signs of water in the journal Nature today.

Murchie told The Chronicle today that he and his colleagues now have “a high degree of confidence” that they have seen evidence for the existence of water in widespread clay mineral rocks that could only have been formed by flowing water and probably large lakes early in the planet’s history.

“The water was not only there, but it was there abundantly and remained long enough to affect the mineralogy of the planet,” he said. He added it could also have been there at a time comparable to Earth’s early days “when the first living organisms emerged and left their fossils that we find today.”

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

H2O Canada: Explaining the myth of water abundance in Canada

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 12, 2008 at 7:12 am

From Canada’s Daily Press:

Water is set to become this century’s oil. World leaders have been bellicose about the spectre of water wars and global shortages. The UN says one-third of the world’s population live in water-stressed countries now and, by 2025, that’s expected to rise to two-thirds. Underground pipelines are being built to move, not oil, but water. Canadians, meanwhile, are the second largest water user per capita after the U.S. But we can afford it, we’re water-rich. Or are we? As we celebrate Canada Day this week, Sun Media takes a look at a national heritage Canadians jealously guard, but don’t fully understand.

—

It’s one of the greatest myths to deceive Canadians. While other parts of the world watch their lands dry out and their taps run dry, Canadians rest comfortably in the belief that we possess 20% of the world’s freshwater supplies. But that’s only half the story. “It’s a crazy number, and it’s not even really true,” says Rob de Loe, professor and Canada Research Chair in water management at the University of Guelph. “Twenty per cent is so misleading because a lot of it we can’t use.”

A common analogy is to compare lakes to a bank account. We live off the interest, experts say, or the renewable water supply. Freshwater is also compared to a swimming pool. Were we to use the standing water to do our laundry and dishes, for example, we’d just drain it dry and leave a parched hole in the backyard. “If a community or business starts taking in more water than comes in, we’ll start to wreck the environment, reduce water levels, affecting navigation, shipping and the ecosystem which depend on certain water levels,” de Loe says.

What Canadians consume in water is the rainfall and snow melt which replenish the water system every year.

Canada, however, receives 6.5% of the world’s renewable supply every year — the same amount as both Indonesia and the U.S. Meanwhile, about 60% of Canada’s water flows north to the Arctic, away from the majority of Canadians who live and work in the south. That further reduces our share of the renewable supply from 6.5% to 2.6%.

“This is the number that should spring to the minds of Canadians when they contemplate the country’s water resources,” writes John Sprague in the 2007 book of compiled essays, Eau Canada. “The glib assurances of water abundance we frequently hear from the media, politicians, and even environmental groups are lies, unsupported by meteorological or hydrological data,” writes David Schindler, an international water celebrity and professor at the University of Alberta.

It’s this myth of water abundance that has led Canada to capture the dubious title of being the second biggest water user per capita in the world, after the U.S.

Read the full text of this story from Canada’s Daily Press by clicking here.

Can cloud seeding ‘green’ Egypt’s barren desert?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 6, 2008 at 6:52 am

Can cloud seeding could bring life to this barren desert? From Egypt’s Daily Star:

As the world’s major water resources rapidly run out and fears that future conflicts will be over water security, a small group of Egyptian specialists believe that the best way to ward off the specter of an impending water crisis is a little-known technology called cloud seeding. Simply put, this means prompting clouds to produce rain.

Other researchers, however, argue that cloud seeding can never be a viable option in Egypt, despite the fact that other countries in the region have already begun experimenting with the relatively new technology. The detractors cite the prohibitive cost, low probabilities of success and indefinite results, and, not surprisingly, the political issue of monopolizing clouds.

The article then briefly discusses the basic idea of cloud seeding, and notes that several Middle Eastern countries have been experimenting with the technology already. While the effectiveness of cloud seeding is considered dubious here in the U.S., at least one Egyptian researcher sees big potential on the horizon:

“Cloud seeding isn’t only important but is the only hope for Egypt whose way out of the impending food and water crisis as well as the housing crunch and overpopulation is an ambitious plan to reclaim the Western Desert,” argued Dr Sherif Eissa, professor of chemical engineering and former director of the National Research Center in Cairo (NRC).

“More than 80 countries worldwide are experimenting with cloud seeding, but the problem is that there is an intentional reservation about exchanging expertise and information,” Eissa told Daily News Egypt.

“Some of the technology is rated as top military secrets,” he said. In warfare, he alleged, industrial rain can be used as a strategy to destabilize targets before launching an attack. The technology can also be linked with weather modifications causing drought in several parts of the world.

If applied in Egypt, he continued, the introduction of cloud seeding means that millions of acres in the Western Desert can be reclaimed.

“In the 13th largest country in the world, this could revolutionize agriculture, demography and urbanity. You will be creating a new country.”

Eissa says there are parts of Egypt that are ideal for cloud seeding operations; however, there are skeptics:

He recounted how surveys on wind direction and speed in Egypt’s Western Desert showed that the conditions there were optimal for operations. “The main challenge is how to accumulate the clouds, a step that will have to rely heavily on the humidification of the desert surroundings.”

“I don’t imagine how feasible it is to attempt to green the entire Western Desert,” Dr Ismail El Bagouri exclaimed. A desertification consultant at the Desert Research Center in Cairo and member of the Science and Technology Committee, UN Convention for Combating Desertification, El Bagouri believes it’s neither possible nor desirable. “To change the face of the desert is like taking on nature,” he stressed.

Research relating to industrial rain in Egypt is still nascent, he added. “I don’t think this is a worthwhile technology in a country where the preponderance of clouds and levels of rainfall are minimal.”

Egypt’s neighbors are utilizing the technology, and that’s why Egypt has been getting drier, says this researcher:

Dr Essam Khalil El Neel, a researcher, argues in a research paper that cloud-hunting by Egypt’s neighbors is behind the unusual dryness that has marked the seasonal khamaseen sandstorm since 1998. Previously, rain showers used to follow the khamaseen to wash away dust and provide the Bedouin who live in the northwest coast with new water reserves.

But, according to El Neel, the dearth of rainfall over the past 10 years is because the neighboring countries have either attracted the clouds away from Egypt to the east or suspended them before they were carried by the wind from the west to Egyptian terrain.

With Libya and Morocco in the west and Syria and Israel in the east, all undertaking cloud-seeding experiments, Egypt is under threat of losing its share of rainfall, El-Neel claimed.

Yet reports by Egypt’s Meteorological Authority contest claims of cloud theft, arguing that only the wind, not people, is responsible for driving clouds from one place to the other. Reports also denied that rainfall had decreased in the northwest during the khamaseen.

Eissa, however, insists that we need to put our heads in the clouds. “We can’t rule out the theft theory completely,” he said.

Hey you! Put your hands up and back away from that cloud ….

Full text of this story from the Daily Star Egypt by clicking here.  (Hat tip to the Sisweb for this one!)

Algae bloom is China’s latest Olympic nightmare

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 4, 2008 at 6:55 am

From the Associated Press:

China’s latest Olympics nightmare is a vast algae bloom that covers one-third of the sea where the world’s best sailors are supposed to be competing in just over a month. Athletes call it the blob, the carpet, the fairway.

“We almost think of it as land,” said Carrie Howe, a member of the U.S. team and her three-person squad’s unofficial algae remover. During practice, she dips her hand into the goo three or four times an hour to remove it from the rudder. When it collects shaggily on the boat’s tow rope, she and her teammates refer to it as “the dog.” They’ve named it Hickory.

Chinese officials are trying to make the stuff go away. Hundreds of soldiers cleaned it up by hand in a seaside park Wednesday. About 10,000 ordinary citizens were doing the same along the shore, while more than 1,200 fishing and other boats hauled it in by net, the workers smiling and flashing the two-fingered victory sign to journalists. “We all need to pitch in,” said Gao Shaofan, a massage parlor employee who was stuffing the algae into plastic sacks with her co-workers. “This is the worst it’s ever been that we know.”

Chinese officials promised at a news conference Wednesday that the Olympics competition area, all 19 square miles of it, will be clear of the algae before races begin Aug. 9. “Actually, we don’t have a backup,” Qu Chun, the sailing competition manager, said to a small chorus of groans from coaches.

The sailing teams had already known Qingdao, a charming port on China’s east coast known for its Tsingtao beer, would be a difficult venue. The lower-than-ideal winds. The stronger-than-ideal current. The soupy fog that sometimes keeps teams off the water.

Then came the algae, which one Chinese official at the news conference, Lu Zhenyu, called a “natural disaster.” First detected in May, it recently swelled to stretches of up to a few miles long. Chinese officials and some experts blamed it on a combination of factors including warmer seas, winds from the south and an “exotic” strain of algae from farther down the coast.

You could eat it if you want, they added, saying Japanese and Koreans do.

Eat it? Ewww….! NPR’s story doesn’t make it sound very appetizing:

When China’s leaders boasted they would host a green Olympics, they surely did not envision an entire coastline blanketed in great swaths of bright green algae. It is almost luminous green and smells absolutely foul.

Armies of volunteers are using rakes and even their bare hands to scoop algae off the surface of the Yellow Sea in an attempt to clean it up in time for the Summer Olympics in August. “We’re making our contribution to the Olympics,” says Zhou Yukuai as he rakes away. “But this smells so bad, I won’t be able to eat seafood tonight.”

Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here. Read the full text of the article from NPR by clicking here.

North Pole may be ice free for first time this summer

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 3, 2008 at 6:49 am

From National Geographic News:

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer, report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. “We’re actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history],” David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker.

Firsthand observations and satellite images show that the immediate area around the geographic North Pole is now mostly annual, or first-year, ice—thin new ice that forms each year during the winter freeze. Such ice is much more prone to melting during the summer months than perennial, or multiyear, ice, which is thick and dense ice that has lasted through multiple cycles of thawing and refreezing.

“I would say the ice in the vicinity of the North Pole is primed for melting, and an ice-free North Pole is a good possibility,” Sheldon Drobot, a climatologist at the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at the University of Colorado, said by email.

The melt would be mostly symbolic—thicker ice, pushed against the Canadian continental shelf by weather and Earth’s rotation, would still survive the summer. Recent models suggest that the Arctic won’t see its first completely ice-free summer until somewhere between 2013 and 2030. But this summer’s forecast—and unusual early melting events all around the Arctic—serve as a dire warning of how quickly the polar regions are being affected by climate change.

Read the rest of this story from National Geographic News by clicking here.

The myth of water: Making the Negev Desert bloom once seemed like a good idea, but it’s killing the Dead Sea

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 29, 2008 at 6:21 am

From Newsweek:

Few notions are more deeply rooted in Zionism’s founding mythology than the exhortation to “make the desert bloom.” The earliest Zionist pioneers arrived in Palestine with a strong faith in science and technology, shaped by the Jewish enlightenment that began in the late 18th century. They also brought an earthy sense of self-reliance that made growing their own food—even in the bleak Negev Desert—a high priority. Amid the ashes of the Holocaust, that determination only deepened. “For those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands, and even millions,” Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, wrote in 1954, when he moved to the Negev himself. As Israeli society grew increasingly devout in the 1970s, the prophet Isaiah provided further inspiration: “The wilderness and the parched land shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”

At first glance, today the parched land indeed looks glad. The arid coastal plain sprouts with fields of watermelons, tomatoes and sunflowers, and Israel has earned a reputation for creative use of sparse water supplies. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Israelis pioneered the use of “drip irrigation”—which delivers water directly to a plant’s roots. More recently, Israeli experiments with desalination and water recycling have drawn attention around the world. The Yale/ Columbia Environmental Performance Index ranks Israel 49th overall and best among desert nations, in part for managing the stress irrigation puts on water supplies. Still, some scientists worry about the environmental cost of building an economy in the desert. Israel consumes 1.8 billion cubic meters of water each year; 15 years from now, it will need an additional 1.5 billion cubic meters to meet demand rising due to population and economic growth, according to Israeli water experts. About half of Israel’s clean water is used for agriculture, yet farming accounts for only 2 percent of Israel’s GNP. Considering those numbers, some environmentalists are beginning to question whether agricultural growth in a desert climate like Israel’s is really sustainable. The question, says David Brooks, a Canadian water expert and environmentalist, “is not whether water is used efficiently in Israeli agriculture, but whether agriculture is an efficient way to use water in Israel.”

Read the full text of this story from Newsweek by clicking here.

Turn off Canada’s tap? Activists say yes but others say Canada could share for a price

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 29, 2008 at 6:17 am

From the London Free Press:

In the middle of the Arizona desert, where a merciless heat zaps away all moisture, a group of entrepreneurs plan to build a water park oasis that will make it the largest water adventure park in the world.

The specs are ambitious: Called Waveyard, the 45-hectare water park is expected to be completed by 2010 and will have the largest man-made, recirculating white water river in the world, a scuba lagoon, snorkelling, kayaking, and surf-sized, four-metre waves. The park is expected to use 380 million litres of groundwater a year, water they say won’t come from the neighbouring potable water system.

Meanwhile, the U.S. announced last year that 36 states face water shortages in the next four years.

It’s this kind of immoderate squandering in the U.S. that makes them the largest per capita users of water in the world, water advocates say. And it’s why Canada should close the door should the U.S. come knocking for our water, they add.

“It’s not sustainable,” says Maude Barlow, an internationally known water advocate and author of Blue Covenant. “I will share anything with anyone, but I won’t destroy the Canadian ecology so people can have golf courses and swimming pools.”

The spectre of bulk water exports to the U.S. has been a historically emotional issue for Canadians, who guard it jealously as a national heritage. But, as discussed earlier in this series, there is a myth of water abundance in Canada. We receive the same amount of the world’s renewable water supply (rain and snow) as the U.S. — 6.5% of the global share. We don’t have a large surplus to spare, experts say.

But not everyone agrees.

Chris Wood, B.C.-based author of Dry Spring, describes this attitude as anti-American, anti-business and bigoted. “We wouldn’t accept that kind of (attitude) of any other ethnic group,” he said in an interview. “These people are our best customers, closest neighbour, and we share the watersheds. It’s completely poisonous.” Water, like the fugitive nature of air and carbon, isn’t ours to horde since it’s always “passing through” on its way to somewhere else, Wood says.

Read the rest of this story from the London Free Press by clicking here.

The big dry: the effects of severe drought on Australia

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 20, 2008 at 5:34 am

From Forbes Magazine:

Australia is running out of water. Large swaths of the continent have experienced drought conditions since 2000, and in the eastern part of the country, where most people live, the last seven years have been the driest on record. Agricultural production has faltered, rivers have shriveled and the nation has even racked up a body count due to “water rage.” It’s “the worst drought in 100 years,” according to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. And it could soon repeat itself in the U.S.

The math is simple: Increasing populations require more water. Couple increased demand with changing rainfall patterns due to climate change, and you’ve got a potential worldwide crisis. Australia is the test case. If Australians can find a way out of their current drought, they will light a way for the rest of the world. If they can’t, well, the news isn’t good.

So far, it’s been bad news.

Three to four years ago, water sold for $25 (Australian) per million liters, but hit a record price of $1,200 in the past year, says Wendy Craik, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC), a governmental body that promotes sustainability in Australia’s key waterway. The cost was driven up by farmers desperate for water. “People have built up businesses around a certain level of water availability that’s no longer there,” says Craik.

The drought has also caused the collapse of Australia’s rice industry. Where the country once grew 1 million tons of the thirsty grain annually, last year it grew only 18,000. The consequences of this shortage have been felt globally, contributing to the recent doubling in rice prices, global shortages and food riots.

All considered, drought lowered the nation’s gross domestic product almost 1% from 2001 to 2003, according to the Yearbook of Australia. And in coming years, the cost of fighting drought could add 2% to interest rates.

More on this story from Forbes Magazine by clicking here.

Israel: Don’t make the desert bloom; Milk and honey is all very well. But what about the water?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 6, 2008 at 6:10 am

From the Economist, a story about water shortages in Israel. Israel is experiencing water shortages (no surprise there) and recently, the Israeli government passed an emergency plan that includes money for conservation and improved recycling of water for agriculture. But the majority of the plan calls for increased desalination:

But the priorities, say not a few critics, are the wrong way round. “It’s missing the most important element, which is to charge all sectors a market price for water,” says Hillel Shuval, head of environmental health at the Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem.

Israel shares its water sources with the Palestinians (the main aquifer that feeds many of its wells lies under the West Bank), as well as Jordan and Syria. Fast-growing populations are putting a strain on those sources. So is global warming: although average rainfall has not been dropping in the region, rain showers have become shorter and more intense, so more water runs into the sea instead of recharging the aquifers. The Jordan River is a trickle of its former self, and the Dead Sea, which it replenishes, is falling by around one metre a year.

Water management has improved, but not by enough. “Making the desert bloom”, a cornerstone of the early Zionist ideal, turns out not to have been such a smart idea. Agriculture consumes some 60% of the country’s total of 2 billion cubic metres of water a year, but contributes less than 2% of GDP, thanks partly to water-guzzling export crops such as bananas and citrus fruits, as well as dates (these are fine in their natural habitat of oases, but in Israel large plantations of date palms stretch across otherwise arid desert).

The article discusses other options that are available, such as prevention of contamination of aquifers and cutting domestic use. But somehow, desalination always seems to be the easy answer:

The fondness for desalination, argues Gidon Bromberg of Friends of the Earth Middle East, an environmentalist group, stems from a confluence of interests. Politicians like big, headline-grabbing projects; Israel’s government wants to promote the Israeli water-treatment industry abroad; and the plants, under long-term build-operate-transfer schemes, provide their builders with a guaranteed income. But desalination burns up energy, adds to the global warming that exacerbates the water problem and reduces the incentive to save water, even though conservation is usually cheaper. Mr Bromberg accepts that some desalination is necessary. But he says it should be a technology of last resort, not first instance.

Read the full text of this article from The Economist by clicking here.

In Spain, water is a new battleground; “If you already have water shortages in spring, you know it’s going to be a really bad summer”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 3, 2008 at 6:00 am

From the New York Times:

Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — dozens of them, all recently built — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer plans, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water.

This year, farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting one another over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a rapidly growing black market, mostly from illegal wells.

Southern Spain has long been plagued by cyclical droughts, but the current crisis, scientists say, probably reflects a more permanent climate change brought on by global warming. And it is a harbinger of a new kind of conflict. The battles of yesterday were fought over land, they warn. Those of the present center on oil. But those of the future — a future made hotter and drier by climate change in much of the world — seem likely to focus on water, they say.

“Water will be the environmental issue this year — the problem is urgent and immediate,” said Barbara Helferrich, a spokeswoman for the European Union’s Environment Directorate. “If you already have water shortages in spring, you know it’s going to be a really bad summer.”

The U.N. estimates that desertification caused by climate change will eventually drive 135 million people off their land, mostly in the developing world. However, Southern Europe is already experiencing problems, with it’s climate becoming more like ‘Africanized’.

Adding to Murcia’s problems are overdrafting of the aquifers and poor land use policies which have farmers growing water-intensive crops in an area with little water to support them. Finding a solution is proving difficult:

… people and politicians tend to regard water as a limitless resource. “Politicians think in four-year blocks, so it’s O.K. as long as it doesn’t run out on their watch,” said Ms. Montón of Greenpeace. “People think about it, but they don’t really think about what happens tomorrow. They don’t worry until they turn on the tap and nothing flows.”

Read the full text of this article from the New York Times by clicking here.

How the world is realizing that water is “blue gold”: Increasingly it is being asked: Which countries are water rich, which are water poor, and who should manage water resources?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 29, 2008 at 10:36 pm

From AlterNet:

Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water — and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies — notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.

But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say.

“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need — water — is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”

Will “peak water” displace “peak oil” as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising.

Read the full text of this article from AlterNet by clicking here.

China considers earthquake danger of dams; their presence has complicated rescue and recovery efforts; some even say that dams can cause quakes

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2008 at 5:55 am

From the Los Angeles Times:

Mao Tse-tung famously declared “man must conquer nature,” and his political heirs have followed his dictum zealously by building dams and other gigantic projects that have altered the landscape of China. But this month’s deadly earthquake may tilt the balance of public opinion in favor of a more cautious and environmentally conscious approach to such development.

China has more dams than any other country, about half of the world’s total, and the presence of so many near the epicenter in Sichuan province has been a huge complication in the quake’s aftermath. After two weeks of downplaying the problem, the Water Resources Ministry acknowledged Sunday that 69 reservoirs and dams were on the verge of collapse, and nearly 3,000 in China had sustained damage.

The threat of flash floods from dams and “quake lakes” formed from landslides blocking rivers has forced tens of thousands of already traumatized quake survivors to relocate, some more than once. The dams also prevented rescue workers from navigating the rivers to reach victims in areas made inaccessible after roads were washed out.

Many Chinese hold the mystical view that natural disasters are the result of human failings and point to the widespread construction of dams as a possible culprit. The Min River, a tributary of the Yangtze that runs through the path of destruction, is one of the most dammed rivers in the country. “Chinese ancient culture has a philosophy of a cohesive connection between people and nature. What we did to that river shows no respect for nature, and now nature is taking its revenge,” said Ai Nanshan, a professor of environmental sciences at Sichuan University in Chengdu.

It is not pure superstition. Geologists have long warned of the danger of building dams in earthquake-prone locations. Not only can the structures collapse, but some temblors — most famously one in 1967 in Koyna, India — also are believed to have been triggered by the weight of a dam’s reservoir.

“We don’t want to appear to benefit from human catastrophe by pushing an agenda, but we are making information about earthquakes and dams available,” said Peter Bradford, an official with International Rivers Network, a Berkeley environmental group. Bradford said that three people he met on a visit to Beijing this week separately predicted that the Chinese government would reconsider its aggressive dam-building program.

This article was posted yesterday evening and already - 342 comments! Find out more about the earthquake’s effect on China’s many dams from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

Life, liberty, and water

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2008 at 5:10 am

From Yes Magazine, an article written by Maude Barlow, the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water:

It’s a colossal failure of political foresight that water has not emerged as an important issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign. The links between oil, war, and U.S. foreign policy are well known. But water—whether we treat it as a public good or as a commodity that can be bought and sold—will in large part determine whether our future is peaceful or perilous.

Americans use water even more wastefully than oil. The U.S relies on non-renewable groundwater for 50 percent of its daily use, and 36 states now face serious water shortages, some verging on crisis.

Meanwhile, dwindling freshwater supplies around the world, inequitable access to water, and corporate control of water, together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, have created a life-or-death situation across the planet.

Both Democrats and Republicans have emphasized loosening U.S. dependence on nonrenewable energy resources in their platforms, but neither party gives significant air time to the threats posed by water shortages. This is not to say that no one is paying attention. In fact, water has become a key strategic security and foreign policy priority for the United States government.

Recently, a series of 6 meetings were held by the U. S. Center for Strategic & International Studies, bringing together representatives from Canada, Mexico & the United States to discuss a wide range of issues, water being one of them:

“As … globalization continues and the balance of power potentially shifts, and risks to global security evolve, it is only prudent for Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. policymakers to contemplate a North American security architecture that could effectively deal with security threats that can be foreseen in 2025,” said a leaked copy of a CSIS backgrounder.

On the agenda for one of two meetings in Calgary were, “water consumption, water transfers, and artificial diversions of bulk water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water.”

The water and security connection deepens with the fact that Sandia National Laboratories, a vital partner with CSIS in its Global Water Futures Project, also plays a major role in military security in the United States. While Sandia is technically owned by the U.S. government, and reports to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, its management is contracted out to Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer.

Ralph Pentland, water consultant and primary author of the Canadian government’s Federal Water Policy in 1987, believes that the purpose of these cross-border discussions is to secure sufficient water for Alberta tar sands production in order to ensure uninterrupted oil supplies to the United States. Energy extraction would be far more attractive if a new source of water—potentially from northern Canada—could be brought to the tar sands through pipelines or other diversions. As long as the water doesn’t cross the international border, it is within Alberta’s power to do this.

The article then discusses the right to water, noting that the United States and Canada are the only countries actively blocking efforts to recognize water as a human right. Is there a conspiracy here? Decide for yourself - read the full text of this story from Yes! by clicking here.

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