Posted on 07/06/2013 7:01:14 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Wells dry up and underwater tables fall so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, a leading resource analyst has warned.
Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as "peak water" – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.
The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: "Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.
"The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them."
Brown warns that production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.
There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world's three largest food-producing countries. "In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
That’s funny. Israel seems to have found a way to have a water surplus.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3039594/posts
I have to use a sump pump to keep my pump above water.
I’ve become so tainted by environmentalists, that I always think BS. Is peak water like peak oil?
(I have no clue if he is right or not)
Let me guess...one week after publishing this artice food prices will rise dramatically and the food supply chain will have record profits, right?
Great let’s sell water to the Arabs for $150.00 a barrel.
BULL HOCKEY! This is a simple and outright lie. In the 70s they scared us into giving them more funding to stop the evils of the second ice age. Then they did a 180 and it was global warming. Billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars flushed down the toilets of researchers for private parties, drugs, hookers, jets, homes, who knows what else. ANYONE that looks at the idiot algore and can’t see the bald faced hipocrisy and self serving financial agenda of carbon credits that he and the other so called environmentalists push is a f***ing tool. REAL environmentalist do so from a Biblical perspective - God gave us our marching orders - keepers of the garden, with stewardship over all the living creatures and the planet. They were given to us as a gift to sustain us. And as such we are required to provide a respectful watch over them. All this global warming - now climate change so they can start shifting back to the ice age threat - are ALL driven by the need for funding so they can sit on their lazy arses all day. Envirowackos are fond of referring to humans as a disease upon the planet. They are partially right - academics are the disease. Unfortunately they happen to be human.
We have done video work for a company with a revolutionary technology, WellJet. They found that wells are not “dead” but in fact clogged. Their process has resulted in some incredible increased performance. They have been hired by Jordan for the “Desi” we’ll restoration project.
I think it’s nature’s way of telling these regions that they are overpopulated. Time to start some civil wars to help thin out the herd.
Then we'll talk.
There is plenty of water in the world. It’s just a matter of taking water from where it is to where it isn’t. But people and nations are funny about water. They don’t like to share. They would rather have it run out into the ocean than sell it to their neighbors.
Take Canada for example. They have plenty of extra water and there have been plans over the years to transport it south to the U.S where the warmer weather makes it useful for growing crops. But every time it comes up the Canadians become very covetous of their water. They are happy to sell us their oil, their timber, their diamonds, but not their water.
Earth Policy Institute? I’m pretty sure they have an agenda and it does not involve finding solutions that don’t start with population control.
But every time it comes up the Canadians become very covetous of their water. They are happy to sell us their oil, their timber, their diamonds, but not their water.
Same thing with the Great lakes water especially in Lake Michigan and Chicago.
The Israeli desalinization is almost a little frustrating, because it uses old, energy intensive technology. There are new filters that use nanotechnology, and are scalable, that use just a third of the energy, and are fairly low maintenance.
The trick is that they use carbon nanotubes just large enough to pass single water molecules in line. Though the water still needs pre-filtration, and limestone re-mineralization after, it could also save a lot of precious energy.
Hopefully they will build a test plant, and if it performs, then upgrade their existing plants.
Here we go another crises...right on time!
Not enough water in the desert. Who'd have ever thunk it?!
That’s how these “chicken-little” think tanks and nonprofits make their cash. I say BS.
Thanks. It’s just that time of the year again.
Why is there a shortage of water? Could it be because governments control the market? You betcha. Everything government touches it distorts and corrupts. Governments subsidize farmers to grow crops that require a lot of water in parts of the country that are arid. Governments control municipal water supplies and charge everyone the same. Government interference in markets always results in shortages and increased prices. It’s a total screw up.
If we had a free market in water, just as if people were allowed to “price gouge” when supplies are short after a natural disaster, then supply would increase to meet demand. The laws of economics are like the laws of gravity - if you ignore them long enough, you are in for a rough landing.
Exactly!
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