Jun
28
Water Efficiency – The Resource Matrix Part 2 of 4 – Water’s Role in Global Warming
Filed Under Environmental | Leave a Comment
Cinnamon Alvarez asked:
Last week, we introduced you to the Resource Matrix, which is everywhere, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
We showed you how economics leads to people maximizing their benefits in “win-lose” propositions: you want diamonds and gold for nothing and they want to give you useless junk for a king’s ransom. And how we’ve been hypnotized in believing what they want is also what we want.
But the scales have been falling from our eyes, we’re beginning to see the truth, and the power has been shifting away from the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd:
Do-gooders have increased our awareness and worked to change deals from “win-lose” to “win-win” There is no “free lunch:” finite energy resources will run out; actions have consequences, and the consequences of our actions are already visible, rather scary, and quite irreversible; and that the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd hasn’t been telling the truth
We now realize we’re all in this together: we have greater awareness of our actions and the desire to change, and have ways to change.
Hallelujah and Praise the Collective!
Today, we introduce the resource called water, its parallels with fossil fuels, and its role in global warming.
None of this is to dismiss or diminish the contribution of fossil fuels in global warming. Hey, just like the Special Olympics, if you participate, you get a medal. We just think that gold-medal winner Fossil Fuels has stolen the spotlight, letting silver-medalist Water Use keep us hypnotized in believing that water is a free lunch, and that nature will clear up polluted waters while getting away with breaking the rules.
Water, water, everywhere,
not a drop to drink.
According to our friends at How Stuff Works, who I wrote about sarcastically for their oxymoronic clean coal article in discussing how true public relations stuff really works, gives us this data:
98% of the planet’s water is in the oceans. It’s salt water – we can’t drink it or irrigate our crops with it. 2% is usable. Of that 2%: 80% is locked up in polar ice caps and glaciers 18% is underground in aquifers and wells 1.8% is in lakes and rivers 0.2% is elsewhere: either floating in the air as clouds and water vapor, locked up in plants and animals (and your body), and in foods and beverages.
Okay, so 20% of the usable water (only 0.4% of all water on Earth) is accessible, right?
Well . . . no. Many of the aquifers, wells, lakes, and rivers have been ****** dry like a once-juicy fly carcass in a spider’s web. (The 18% and 1.8% you see above is like the money in the Social Security Fund: there actually is nothing there.)
And many of those water sources that do still have a drop to drink are worse than the ocean’s salt water. Drink salt water and you’ll need to yawn into a bucket. Drink this water and you’ll kick the bucket.
And I know you aren’t asking this burning question:
“So . . . global warming to release fresh water from ice caps and glaciers is a good thing, no?”
Percentage this, percentage that.
Talk my language, will you?
I know I’m pulling the disgusting old government trick: drowning you in an ocean of water statistics.
So let’s make it plain and simple:
You bring in $10,000 a month. You’re also living high on the hog and doing your personal best to outshine every bling-bling Hip Hopster Musical Artist in materially conspicuous consumption:
$9800 goes to the McMansion mortgage and gold-plated Rolls Royce lease $160.00 goes to investments in clothing and accessories $0.40 has been lost in the sofa cushions $39.60 a month is for everything else: food, phone and electric bills, income taxes, and all the other non-essentials: Don’t spend it all in one place!
Aquifers and wells and lakes and rivers:
Dry or polluted, oh my!
Fred Pearce, author of When the Rivers Run Dry, helps us quickly understand it:
We can all save water in the home. But as laudable as it is to take a shower rather than a bath and turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth, we shouldn’t get hold of the idea that regular domestic water use is what is really emptying the world’s rivers. Manufacturing goods … consumes a certain amount, but that’s not the real story either. It is only when we add in the water needed to grow what we eat and drink that the numbers really begin to soar. (emphasis mine.) (Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry, Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. p 3)
Here are a few numbers he gives:
to grow a pound of rice: 250 to 650 gallons of water to grow a pound of wheat: 130 gallons to produce a quart of milk: 500 to 1000 gallons to produce a pound of cheese: 650 gallons to produce a 1/4 pound of burger: 3000 gallons
He kindly puts water use into perspective in annual terms:
1 ton (265 gallons) for drinking 50 to 100 tons (13,250 to 26,500 gallons) around the house 1500 to 2000 tons (397,500 to 530,000 gallons) for food and clothing
—————————————–
sidebar:
How Many Gallons to Produce One Pound of Beef?
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
US Beef industry’s Cattlemen’s Association: 441 gallons
Fred Pearce: 12,000 gallons
Water Footprint Network: 1854 gallons (calculations: 15500 litres of water per kg; 4079 gallons per kg; 1854 gallons per pound)
In an industrial beef production system, it takes an average three years before the animal is slaughtered to produce about 200 kg of boneless beef.
The animal consumes nearly 1300 kg of grains (wheat, oats, barley, corn, dry peas, soybean meal and other small grains), 7200 kg of roughages (pasture, dry hay, silage and other roughages), 24 cubic meter of water for drinking and 7 cubic meter of water for servicing.
This means that to produce one kilogram of boneless beef, we use about 6.5 kg of grain, 36 kg of roughages, and 155 litres of water (only for drinking and servicing).
Producing the volume of feed requires about 15300 litres of water on average.
—————————————–
Where does all that water come from?
From virtually everywhere
If it comes from imported goods (Thai rice or Egyptian cotton), the water comes from those countries.
When the water is collected from rivers or pumped from underground, as it is in much of the world, it’s:
increasingly expensive increasingly likely to deprive someone of water (nothing to drink) increasingly likely to empty rivers and underground water reserves
And when the rivers are running low, as they are more frequently, there is less water to grow anything at all.
The water used in growing and producing goods around the world is known as “virtual water” and the trade of these goods is known as “virtual water transfers.”
And who’s the biggest water exporting Mouseketeer of them all? The United States.
When you drink coffee from Central America, you are influencing the hydrology of the region, virtually taking a share of the Costa Rican rains. The same is true within a national and regional boundaries. The Colorado River is drained so Californians can eat their Big Macs and have friends over for a Sunday afternoon barbecue.
In the same way that your use of fossil fuel is measured as a “carbon footprint,” your water use, actual and through virtual water transfer, is measured as a “water footprint.”
How big is my water footprint?
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours
Arjen Y. Hoekstra, professor at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, introduced the water-footprint concept in 2002. It “shows water use related to consumption within a nation, while the traditional indicator shows water use in relation to production within a nation.” (Hoekstra and Chapagain, Globalization of Water, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, p. 3)
With Hoekstra and Chapagain’s water footprint calculator (waterfootprint.org), you select your country, input food, domestic water use, and industrial goods consumption, press a button, and you get your:
total water footprint for the year bar charts for the three components bar charts for individual food categories
For example, you’re in the US, eat only 1 pound of cereal a week (.4545 kg) and have a low-fat, low-sugar diet, use a low-flow showerhead, use a no-flush eco-toilet, and never run the tap while brushing your teeth. Two extremes:
You’re the hippiest of the hip: making $10,000 a year: Your water footprint: 245 cubic meters (65,170 gallons) You’re the hippiest of the Yuppies: making $120,000: Your water footprint: 2979 cubic meters (792,414 gallons). Difference due to your income’s effect on industrial production.
Three notes on the calculations, because Professor Hoekstra is European and lives in the social welfare country that started birthing hippies in Amsterdam decades before they showed up in the US at Woodstock:
You input kilograms for food: 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds = 35.2 ounces 1 ounce = 0.028 kilograms. 1 pound = 0.454545 kilograms Your water footprint is in cubic meters per year: 1 cubic meter = 35.3 cubic feet = 266 gallons The higher your income, the greater your water footprint, even if you don’t personally consume anything: you’re a capitalist pig supporting the Establishment Regime, I guess
So how is Cinnamon’s capitalist water footprint? Answer: 650 cubic meters (172,900 gallons)
I showed you mine. Now you show me yours:
Get the ***** truth: Calculate your waterfootprint now:
Water’s running out:
I get the fossil fuel analogy so far.
And what about climate change?
We return to Fred Pearce’s book to find an example, of which he has oceans:
China’s Yellow River: The fifth longest in the world, it begins high in the mountains of eastern Tibet and journeys more than 3000 miles. Almost half a billion people depend on it for drinking and crop irrigation, and it’s made China the world’s largest wheat producer and second largest corn producer. Yet more than half of the lakes it feeds have disappeared over the last 20 years, and a third of pastures have turned to desert. This desertification generates huge dust storms that choke lungs in Beijing, close schools in Koreas, dust cars in Japan, and rain dust on mountains across the Pacific and Western Canada.
State irrigation projects along the Yellow River soak up the majority of its water – the total official allocations are greater than the actual flow.
The resulting drought could be an early warning sign of global warming.
Much of the declines in moisture reaching rivers is in line with prediction of climate researchers. So how does this global warming happen?
Higher air temperatures from desertification increase evaporation from oceans and intensify the water cycle. This increases atmospheric water vapor – 8 to 10% more than today. This increases global rainfall, but the rain is being redistributed: middle latitudes (read: the US) are becoming drier. Higher temperatures increase evaporation on land, meaning soil dries out faster, meaning less rainfall is reaching rivers.
The higher temperatures melt glaciers and snowpacks. At first, this leads to unpredecented floods. After the glaciers disappear, meltwaters that feed rivers disappear. The combined decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation will lower moisture by 40% in the southern and western states.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack could diminish by 70 to 80 percent over the next 50 years. And some of the world’s most productive agricultural regions could dry up.
Global climate is becoming more extreme: the dry areas become drier, and the wet areas become wetter. And more areas are becoming dry deserts. Loss of habitat and agricultural lands. It’s a vicious cycle.
So what can you do?
Navigating through the Resource Matrix
As Fred Pearce points out, your drinking and bathing account for 0.05% of your total water consumption. Your food and clothing weigh in at 95.00%, although I find his 12,000 gallons needed to produce a pound of burger rather wild.
As Professor Arjen Y. Joekstra shows with his Water Footprint Calculator, your consumption of meats accounts for a lot, as does your guilt by association of being in an industrialized country.
The obvious solution: eat fewer e-coli burgers from your neighborhood Salt and Fat Slop Bucket restaurant.
The wiser solution: like your choices in energy use, become more aware of the resources needed to produce anything and the consequences. Such as luxurious cotton grown in the Egyptian desert.
Next article in the water efficiency series:
How an illiterate, lice-infested, foul-mouthed
peasant on some other side of the globe affects you
We continue going with the flow of water, when we show the parallel between the current hot Oil Wars and in the future cold Water Wars.
And all of this is for one purpose:
To help you see the Resource Matrix, everywhere, all around you.
Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . .
To your green, brighter future,
Cinnamon Alvarez,
A19
Arthur
Last week, we introduced you to the Resource Matrix, which is everywhere, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
We showed you how economics leads to people maximizing their benefits in “win-lose” propositions: you want diamonds and gold for nothing and they want to give you useless junk for a king’s ransom. And how we’ve been hypnotized in believing what they want is also what we want.
But the scales have been falling from our eyes, we’re beginning to see the truth, and the power has been shifting away from the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd:
Do-gooders have increased our awareness and worked to change deals from “win-lose” to “win-win” There is no “free lunch:” finite energy resources will run out; actions have consequences, and the consequences of our actions are already visible, rather scary, and quite irreversible; and that the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd hasn’t been telling the truth
We now realize we’re all in this together: we have greater awareness of our actions and the desire to change, and have ways to change.
Hallelujah and Praise the Collective!
Today, we introduce the resource called water, its parallels with fossil fuels, and its role in global warming.
None of this is to dismiss or diminish the contribution of fossil fuels in global warming. Hey, just like the Special Olympics, if you participate, you get a medal. We just think that gold-medal winner Fossil Fuels has stolen the spotlight, letting silver-medalist Water Use keep us hypnotized in believing that water is a free lunch, and that nature will clear up polluted waters while getting away with breaking the rules.
Water, water, everywhere,
not a drop to drink.
According to our friends at How Stuff Works, who I wrote about sarcastically for their oxymoronic clean coal article in discussing how true public relations stuff really works, gives us this data:
98% of the planet’s water is in the oceans. It’s salt water – we can’t drink it or irrigate our crops with it. 2% is usable. Of that 2%: 80% is locked up in polar ice caps and glaciers 18% is underground in aquifers and wells 1.8% is in lakes and rivers 0.2% is elsewhere: either floating in the air as clouds and water vapor, locked up in plants and animals (and your body), and in foods and beverages.
Okay, so 20% of the usable water (only 0.4% of all water on Earth) is accessible, right?
Well . . . no. Many of the aquifers, wells, lakes, and rivers have been ****** dry like a once-juicy fly carcass in a spider’s web. (The 18% and 1.8% you see above is like the money in the Social Security Fund: there actually is nothing there.)
And many of those water sources that do still have a drop to drink are worse than the ocean’s salt water. Drink salt water and you’ll need to yawn into a bucket. Drink this water and you’ll kick the bucket.
And I know you aren’t asking this burning question:
“So . . . global warming to release fresh water from ice caps and glaciers is a good thing, no?”
Percentage this, percentage that.
Talk my language, will you?
I know I’m pulling the disgusting old government trick: drowning you in an ocean of water statistics.
So let’s make it plain and simple:
You bring in $10,000 a month. You’re also living high on the hog and doing your personal best to outshine every bling-bling Hip Hopster Musical Artist in materially conspicuous consumption:
$9800 goes to the McMansion mortgage and gold-plated Rolls Royce lease $160.00 goes to investments in clothing and accessories $0.40 has been lost in the sofa cushions $39.60 a month is for everything else: food, phone and electric bills, income taxes, and all the other non-essentials: Don’t spend it all in one place!
Aquifers and wells and lakes and rivers:
Dry or polluted, oh my!
Fred Pearce, author of When the Rivers Run Dry, helps us quickly understand it:
We can all save water in the home. But as laudable as it is to take a shower rather than a bath and turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth, we shouldn’t get hold of the idea that regular domestic water use is what is really emptying the world’s rivers. Manufacturing goods … consumes a certain amount, but that’s not the real story either. It is only when we add in the water needed to grow what we eat and drink that the numbers really begin to soar. (emphasis mine.) (Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry, Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. p 3)
Here are a few numbers he gives:
to grow a pound of rice: 250 to 650 gallons of water to grow a pound of wheat: 130 gallons to produce a quart of milk: 500 to 1000 gallons to produce a pound of cheese: 650 gallons to produce a 1/4 pound of burger: 3000 gallons
He kindly puts water use into perspective in annual terms:
1 ton (265 gallons) for drinking 50 to 100 tons (13,250 to 26,500 gallons) around the house 1500 to 2000 tons (397,500 to 530,000 gallons) for food and clothing
—————————————–
sidebar:
How Many Gallons to Produce One Pound of Beef?
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
US Beef industry’s Cattlemen’s Association: 441 gallons
Fred Pearce: 12,000 gallons
Water Footprint Network: 1854 gallons (calculations: 15500 litres of water per kg; 4079 gallons per kg; 1854 gallons per pound)
In an industrial beef production system, it takes an average three years before the animal is slaughtered to produce about 200 kg of boneless beef.
The animal consumes nearly 1300 kg of grains (wheat, oats, barley, corn, dry peas, soybean meal and other small grains), 7200 kg of roughages (pasture, dry hay, silage and other roughages), 24 cubic meter of water for drinking and 7 cubic meter of water for servicing.
This means that to produce one kilogram of boneless beef, we use about 6.5 kg of grain, 36 kg of roughages, and 155 litres of water (only for drinking and servicing).
Producing the volume of feed requires about 15300 litres of water on average.
—————————————–
Where does all that water come from?
From virtually everywhere
If it comes from imported goods (Thai rice or Egyptian cotton), the water comes from those countries.
When the water is collected from rivers or pumped from underground, as it is in much of the world, it’s:
increasingly expensive increasingly likely to deprive someone of water (nothing to drink) increasingly likely to empty rivers and underground water reserves
And when the rivers are running low, as they are more frequently, there is less water to grow anything at all.
The water used in growing and producing goods around the world is known as “virtual water” and the trade of these goods is known as “virtual water transfers.”
And who’s the biggest water exporting Mouseketeer of them all? The United States.
When you drink coffee from Central America, you are influencing the hydrology of the region, virtually taking a share of the Costa Rican rains. The same is true within a national and regional boundaries. The Colorado River is drained so Californians can eat their Big Macs and have friends over for a Sunday afternoon barbecue.
In the same way that your use of fossil fuel is measured as a “carbon footprint,” your water use, actual and through virtual water transfer, is measured as a “water footprint.”
How big is my water footprint?
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours
Arjen Y. Hoekstra, professor at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, introduced the water-footprint concept in 2002. It “shows water use related to consumption within a nation, while the traditional indicator shows water use in relation to production within a nation.” (Hoekstra and Chapagain, Globalization of Water, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, p. 3)
With Hoekstra and Chapagain’s water footprint calculator (waterfootprint.org), you select your country, input food, domestic water use, and industrial goods consumption, press a button, and you get your:
total water footprint for the year bar charts for the three components bar charts for individual food categories
For example, you’re in the US, eat only 1 pound of cereal a week (.4545 kg) and have a low-fat, low-sugar diet, use a low-flow showerhead, use a no-flush eco-toilet, and never run the tap while brushing your teeth. Two extremes:
You’re the hippiest of the hip: making $10,000 a year: Your water footprint: 245 cubic meters (65,170 gallons) You’re the hippiest of the Yuppies: making $120,000: Your water footprint: 2979 cubic meters (792,414 gallons). Difference due to your income’s effect on industrial production.
Three notes on the calculations, because Professor Hoekstra is European and lives in the social welfare country that started birthing hippies in Amsterdam decades before they showed up in the US at Woodstock:
You input kilograms for food: 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds = 35.2 ounces 1 ounce = 0.028 kilograms. 1 pound = 0.454545 kilograms Your water footprint is in cubic meters per year: 1 cubic meter = 35.3 cubic feet = 266 gallons The higher your income, the greater your water footprint, even if you don’t personally consume anything: you’re a capitalist pig supporting the Establishment Regime, I guess
So how is Cinnamon’s capitalist water footprint? Answer: 650 cubic meters (172,900 gallons)
I showed you mine. Now you show me yours:
Get the ***** truth: Calculate your waterfootprint now:
Water’s running out:
I get the fossil fuel analogy so far.
And what about climate change?
We return to Fred Pearce’s book to find an example, of which he has oceans:
China’s Yellow River: The fifth longest in the world, it begins high in the mountains of eastern Tibet and journeys more than 3000 miles. Almost half a billion people depend on it for drinking and crop irrigation, and it’s made China the world’s largest wheat producer and second largest corn producer. Yet more than half of the lakes it feeds have disappeared over the last 20 years, and a third of pastures have turned to desert. This desertification generates huge dust storms that choke lungs in Beijing, close schools in Koreas, dust cars in Japan, and rain dust on mountains across the Pacific and Western Canada.
State irrigation projects along the Yellow River soak up the majority of its water – the total official allocations are greater than the actual flow.
The resulting drought could be an early warning sign of global warming.
Much of the declines in moisture reaching rivers is in line with prediction of climate researchers. So how does this global warming happen?
Higher air temperatures from desertification increase evaporation from oceans and intensify the water cycle. This increases atmospheric water vapor – 8 to 10% more than today. This increases global rainfall, but the rain is being redistributed: middle latitudes (read: the US) are becoming drier. Higher temperatures increase evaporation on land, meaning soil dries out faster, meaning less rainfall is reaching rivers.
The higher temperatures melt glaciers and snowpacks. At first, this leads to unpredecented floods. After the glaciers disappear, meltwaters that feed rivers disappear. The combined decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation will lower moisture by 40% in the southern and western states.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack could diminish by 70 to 80 percent over the next 50 years. And some of the world’s most productive agricultural regions could dry up.
Global climate is becoming more extreme: the dry areas become drier, and the wet areas become wetter. And more areas are becoming dry deserts. Loss of habitat and agricultural lands. It’s a vicious cycle.
So what can you do?
Navigating through the Resource Matrix
As Fred Pearce points out, your drinking and bathing account for 0.05% of your total water consumption. Your food and clothing weigh in at 95.00%, although I find his 12,000 gallons needed to produce a pound of burger rather wild.
As Professor Arjen Y. Joekstra shows with his Water Footprint Calculator, your consumption of meats accounts for a lot, as does your guilt by association of being in an industrialized country.
The obvious solution: eat fewer e-coli burgers from your neighborhood Salt and Fat Slop Bucket restaurant.
The wiser solution: like your choices in energy use, become more aware of the resources needed to produce anything and the consequences. Such as luxurious cotton grown in the Egyptian desert.
Next article in the water efficiency series:
How an illiterate, lice-infested, foul-mouthed
peasant on some other side of the globe affects you
We continue going with the flow of water, when we show the parallel between the current hot Oil Wars and in the future cold Water Wars.
And all of this is for one purpose:
To help you see the Resource Matrix, everywhere, all around you.
Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . .
To your green, brighter future,
Cinnamon Alvarez,
A19
Arthur
Apr
6
Noor Ali Noorani asked:
Scientific and technological advancements have revolutionized the entire human civilization in a truest sense. It has brought us to a point where we can assume that everything we imagine and conceive is practically achievable. Nowadays, when our lives are surrounded by so much of digitalization and hi-tech machinery, when the rapidness of development and research is so impressive, it is fairly easy to forget the inescapable fact that we are damaging our mother world at an unprecedented pace. So often in course to satisfy our hunger of attaining economic supremacy and industrial feasibility, we fail to realize that we are actually deteriorating our natural resources. We, along with all our advancements are disturbing the ecological and environmental balance at such a frantic pace that the entire human history has never witnessed before. And while doing this, we have provoked the nature’s need for revenge. We have made ourselves more vulnerable to stern temperatures, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, excessive rainfall, and now it is a critical time to understand that if we continue to exploit nature and affect climatic balance and do nothing to alleviate this issue, we are bound to face devastating consequences.
Climate changes pose clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction. To better understand the issue, we must first study what are climate changes and which factors are responsible for them. The term climate change is often used interchangeably with the term global warming, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, “The phrase ‘climate change’ is growing in preferred use to ‘global warming’ because it helps convey that there are [other] changes in addition to rising temperatures.” Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Global warming is an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns.
Earth maintains its average temperature by a natural and self-automated warming system of gases which surround it. Carbon dioxide and other gases like methane, Nitrogen dioxide and Chloro Flouro Carbon (CFC) keep the earth warm by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This trapped heat is crucial in keeping earth’s temperature within a range where it is habitable. However, the uncontrollable increase in the emission of Carbon dioxide and other warming gases over the decades has thickened these atmospheric boundaries which are now retaining much more heat than the acceptable range. Further, the increase of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere has also enhanced the “Greenhouse Effect” in which more heat is generated. This excessive amount of heat has disarrayed earth’s natural thermo-equilibrium resulting in the form of global warming with all its associated climatic effects.
The history of the planet has been characterised by frequent changes in climate. Apparently, climate change is a natural phenomena occurring since several thousand years. Environmental scientists insist that earth’s temperature has always been on a gradual rise with no or very limited impact on the environment on whole. This gradual trend spanning over a period of 650,000 years shows a gradual rise which scientists initially thought of as a “slow motion catastrophe” a unexpected to show its earliest consequences generations later. Needless to say, time has proved this estimations erroneous since signs of the climatic changes due to increased earth temperature have accelerated alarmingly in last two centuries. The graphical relation between time and earth’s temperature proves a dramatic and unparalleled shift in the trend with temperatures increasing many times faster than ever in the recorded history. Based on data from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is estimated that the mean global surface temperature has increased by about 0.3 to 0.6 degree Celsius since the late 19th century to the present, and an increase of 0.2 to 0.3 degree over the last 40 years. This increase is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. The current rate of increase of greenhouse gases is unprecedented during at least the past 20,000 years. And with the help climatic models based on mathematical simulations, it is predicted that by the year 2050, global temperature would be rose around 5 degrees Celsius with some severe and unavoidable impacts.
There are a number of natural factors responsible for climate change. Some of the prominent ones are continental drift, volcanoes, ocean currents, the earth’s tilt, and comets and meteorites. But the Anthropogenic Factors are the real culprits which have induced such an uncontrollable emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and therefore elevated average temperatures. Anthropogenic factors are human activities that change the environment and influence climate. In some cases, however, the chain of causality is clear and unambiguous while in others it is less clear. Various assumptions for human-influenced climate change have been debated over the years but it is only now widely accepted without any doubt that the major cause of climate change are the human activities. Even those who up to a few years ago were not convinced that humans have an impact on the climate, now admit that scientific evidence exists that this is happening.
The Industrial Revolution, starting at the end of the 19th Century, has had a huge effect on climate. The invention of the motor engine and the increased burning of fossil fuels in form of coal, oil and natural gas have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Since then, the human consumption of fossil fuels has elevated CO2 levels from a concentration of ~280 ppm to ~387 ppm today. These increasing concentrations are projected to reach a range of 535 to 983 ppm by the end of the 21st century. It is now known that carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the last 750,000 years. With the prevailing concept of global economy and the accelerated industrialization of developing countries like India and China, 70 million tons of CO2 is dumped into atmosphere everyday. In addition of CO2, Methane is another important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. About ¼ of all methane emissions are said to come from domesticated animals such as dairy cows, goats, pigs, buffaloes, camels, horses, and sheep. These animals produce methane during the cud-chewing process. Methane is also released from rice or paddy fields that are flooded during the sowing and maturing periods. When soil is covered with water it becomes anaerobic or lacking in oxygen. Under such conditions, methane-producing bacteria and other organisms decompose organic matter in the soil to form methane. Nearly 90% of the paddy-growing area in the world is found in Asia, as rice is the staple food there. China and India, between them, have 80-90% of the world’s rice-growing areas. Methane is also emitted from landfills and other waste dumps. If the waste is put into an incineratorchanges triggered by such gases are anticipated to cause an increase of 1.4-5.6 °C between 1990 and 2100. The cement manufacturing industry in particular, contributes CO2 when calcium carbonate is heated, producing lime and carbon dioxide, and also as a result of burning fossil fuels. The cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions, of which 50% is from the chemical process, and 40% from burning fuel. The amount of CO2 emitted by the cement industry is nearly 900 kg of CO2 for every 1000 kg of cement produced. [out] or burnt in the open, carbon dioxide is emitted. Methane is also emitted during the process of oil drilling, coal mining and also from leaking gas pipelines (due to accidents and poor maintenance of sites). A large amount of nitrous oxide emission has been attributed to fertilizer application. Another gas, nitrous oxide, emitted in a very large from fertilizers can cause serious damages. These climate
One of the other major factors of climate change is Increased Land Use. Agriculture practices, irrigation and deforestation are fundamentally changing the environment. Due to increased urbanization and industrial growth, forests are being cut down which act as
“Carbon sinks”. As a result,that the extra carbon dioxide produced cannot be changed into oxygen. A 2007 Jet Propulsion Laboratory study found that the average temperature of California has risen about 2 degrees over the past 50 years, with a much higher increase in urban areas. The change was attributed mostly to extensive human development of the landscape.
Accepting the factors that are causing it, an overwhelming majority of scientists today agree that climate change is real and poses very serious global threats. These climate changes have already shown some shocking and horrific signs around the world. They are by now affecting lives of millions of people throughout the world and are expected to get far more ruthless in future. In particular, many developing countries though they have contributed to the least in the process of climate change will be the ones at the greatest risks to face the consequences. As it was mentioned at the annual meeting of the Interagency Support Group on Indigenous Issues (IASG) in Montreal in September 2007, “that indigenous people are often among the world’s most marginalized and impoverished peoples and will bear the brunt of the catastrophe of climate change and as such provide a human face to the climate change crises”.
In Asia, temperatures are expected to rise 2-8 degrees Celsius in next 8-10 years affecting the lives of the inhabitants with climatic variations like decreased rainfall, crop failures and more floods. Tropical forests, which are haven for biodiversity, as well as native people’s cultural diversity, are under serious danger of forest fires. People in low-lying areas of Bangladesh and India like Calcutta, could be displaced by a one-meter rise in sea levels. Such a rise could also threaten the coastal zones of Japan and China. This could mean massive dislocation of not just hundreds and thousands but more than one hundred million people from Asia alone. The recent examples of heavy rains in parts on India particularly Mumbai is inherently connected with rapid climate change. In the Himalayans, there are glacial melts which affect hundreds of millions of rural dwellers who depend on the seasonal flow of water. Increased temperature will melt ice faster following more water in the short term, but less in the long run as glaciers and snow cover shrink. The warming of the high altitude regions are likely to mean that population growth, settlement expansion and encroachment are likely to become a major management challenge and these external influences are likely to have an impact on indigenous peoples and their lands. In Southern Africa, climate change will affect hundreds of kilometers of land which is covered with vegetation and is used for grazing. Since high temperatures will increase wind speed multiple times, these high speed winds will result in region losing most of its vegetation cover and hence, becoming less feasible for indigenous peoples living in the region. Moreover, droughts will be more common with food security as a major issue for indigenous peoples residing in the deserts like Kalahari and Sahara. In Europe and parts of Russia, indigenous peoples have noticed the arrival of new species of plants which were never seen in the region previously. The hotter summers have provided the conditions for the new plants to thrive in rivers and lakes. This had disturbed the natural habitat of fishes; hence, people’s fishing opportunities have declined due to closure of lakes because of the new plant growth. Also, new bird species have arrived and birds now stay longer in the villages than previously.
In North America, heat waves will increase evaporation and deplete the underground water resources. There may be impacts on health, plant cover, wildlife populations, tribal water rights and individual agricultural operations, and a reduction of tribal services due to decrease in income from land leases. Further, natural disasters like hurricanes, floods in likes of Katrina which caused lives of around 1,836 people and cost damages of $89.6 billion, will be more common.
The Polar Regions that is the Artic and Greenland is experiencing some the most rapid and severe climate changes on earth. With rise in the temperature, the Artic ice is becoming less stable, unusual weather patterns are occurring, vegetation cover is changing and particular animals like polar bears and seals are on a verge of extinction. Local landscapes, seascapes and icescapes are becoming unfamiliar, making peoples feel like strangers in their own land. In addition to this, weather in the Artic will become unpredictable and extreme with timing, length and character of the seasons including rain in autumn and winter and more heat in summer. In several indigenous villages in Alaska, entire communities will have to be relocated because of erosion due to the thawing of permafrost and large waves slamming against the west and northern shores.
Coastal indigenous communities will be severely threatened by storm related erosion because of melting sea ice. Scientists have predicted that if only the half of ice in Artic and Greenland melt, the ocean level around the world will rise up to 40 feet surging over huge land a portion that is the home of billions of human beings and other living creatures.
No matter how discouraging the future seems right now, all is not gloom and doom. Al Gore, the Nobel Prize winner for his efforts for the cause of climate change, said in his speech at National Sierra Club Convention, on Sept. 9, 2005 “The good news is we know what to do. The good news is we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed, and as they become available and become more affordable when produced in scale, they will make it easier to respond. But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.”
Since the appearance of first few challenges of the climate change, countries all around the world have decided to initiate programs as one global community to combat this fast approaching menace. The First World Climate Conference recognized climate change as a serious problem in 1979. Since then, a number of conferences and conventions have been held throughout the world with formation of several international bodies and treaties. In 1988, a body of more than 2,500 of the world’s leading climate scientists, economists, and risk analysis experts from 80 countries was formed as The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This Panel was given a mandate to assess the state of existing knowledge about the climate system and climate change; the environmental, economic, and social impacts of climate change; and the possible response strategies. The reports which this body released had a powerful impact on both policy-makers and the general public and provided the basis for negotiations on the Climate Change Convention. In 1992, The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was signed at Rio de Janeiro by 154 states, including the US. This summit became the largest-ever gathering of Heads of State.
In December 1997, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted a code of behavior by consensus which contains new emissions targets for developed countries for the post-2000 period. This international treaty is called as “The Kyoto Protocol” or “The Kyoto Treaty”. Since developed countries of the world are responsible for 83.7% of the total emissions, the protocol asked the developed countries to commit themselves in reducing their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by at least 5%. Though an important milestone, the Kyoto agreement has not really been such effective since it aims to cut down the future carbon emissions but does not propose any solutions to nullify the affects of the carbon that has already been emitted into the atmosphere. Other global initiatives like UNESCO’s Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), WHO Program for Climate and many others are working to tackle the issue of climate change.
The goal of all these organizations and conventions is to cut down or at least minimize all those factors responsible for climate change. Resolute, urgent and collective efforts are needed on state, communal and individual levels to deal with the issue. One of the most effective ways to do so is to Increase the Awareness and Usage of the Bio-Energy. Bio-Energy is the energy made available from materials derived from the biological sources. It is actually the energy produced from the bio-mass. Biomass is the material derived from living organisms, which includes plants, animals and their byproducts such as wood. Manure, garden waste and crop residues are all sources of biomass. It is a renewable energy source based on the carbon cycle, unlike other natural resources such as petroleum, coal, and nuclear fuels. As Henry Ford said in early 20th century “The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit … weeds, sawdust-almost anything…”
Burning biomass efficiently results in little or no net emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, since the bio-energy crop plants actually took up an equal amount of carbon dioxide from the air when they grew. However, burning conventional fossil fuels such as gasoline, oil, coal or natural gas results in an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the major gas which is thought to be responsible for global climate change. Some nitrogen oxides inevitably result from biomass burning (as with all combustion processes) but these are comparable to emissions from natural wildfires, and generally lower than those from burning fossil fuels. Other gas emissions are associated with the use of fossil fuels by farm equipment, and with the application of inorganic fertilizers to the bio-energy crop. However, these may be offset by the increase in carbon storage in soil organic matter compared with conventional crops. Utilization of biomass residues which would have otherwise been dumped in landfills (e.g. urban and industrial residues) greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by preventing the formation of methane.
In addition, bio-energy can effectively be used in almost every industrial, manufacturing and home application throughout the globe. Wood, construction waste, landfill gas, and liquid bio-fuels like bio-diesel and bio-oil can be used to produce energy that can be converted into electricity and heat. Liquid bio-fuels like ethanol, bio-diesel, and bio-oil can be used to power cars and other transportation. Being the fourth largest resource of energy after coal, oil and natural gas, the energy produced from the bio-mass can fulfill up to 14% of the world’s total primary energy demands and recent statistics show that only 10-15% of the total potential bio-energy sources have been used so far by the human population worldwide.
Along with its remarkable and efficient outcomes in decreasing the world’s carbon emission and fulfilling a considerable portion of the global demand for energy, Bio-Energy from the bio-mass also has several major socio-economical benefits. These benefits include increased rural income and reduced levels of poverty in developing countries, restoration of unproductive and degraded lands and promotion of economic development, diversifications of agricultural outputs, reduction of energy dependence and diversification of domestic energy supply, increased investments in land rehabilitation and effective usage of waste products. A recent economic survey found out that bio-energy creates more permanent jobs than any other energy sources with decrease in unemployment and increase in per capita income which contributes to a much healthy life style. It can also be instrumental in reducing food prices and ensuring food security throughout the world.
In keeping an eye over the huge opportunities the usage of bio-energy can offer, every possible step should be taken by the United Nations and the state governments all over the world to replace fossil fuels with bio-fuels. Since it is practically unrealistic to completely replace fossil fuels, intense attempt should be made to utilize as much of the natural energy resources as it is possible. On individual level too, we should adapt to these climatic changes and change our live styles in order to bring the total carbon emission under control. Driving less, driving a fuel-efficient car, preferring gas over oil, saving electricity, using lesser papers and planting more trees can be some of the small choices each human can makes to save the earth from rapid destructions of the climate change. It is not only an environmental issue. It is inherently linked with our lives on political, social, economical, ethical and more than anything else, on moral grounds. We do not lack in resources and capabilities but it is a high time that we confront the challenges of the climate change with utmost determination and a collective strategy.
As According to this year’s UNDP Report on Human Development “There is a window of opportunity of avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken or not taken in the years ahead will have a profound bearing on the future course of human development. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, collective interest and above all human solidarity”.
Judy
Scientific and technological advancements have revolutionized the entire human civilization in a truest sense. It has brought us to a point where we can assume that everything we imagine and conceive is practically achievable. Nowadays, when our lives are surrounded by so much of digitalization and hi-tech machinery, when the rapidness of development and research is so impressive, it is fairly easy to forget the inescapable fact that we are damaging our mother world at an unprecedented pace. So often in course to satisfy our hunger of attaining economic supremacy and industrial feasibility, we fail to realize that we are actually deteriorating our natural resources. We, along with all our advancements are disturbing the ecological and environmental balance at such a frantic pace that the entire human history has never witnessed before. And while doing this, we have provoked the nature’s need for revenge. We have made ourselves more vulnerable to stern temperatures, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, excessive rainfall, and now it is a critical time to understand that if we continue to exploit nature and affect climatic balance and do nothing to alleviate this issue, we are bound to face devastating consequences.
Climate changes pose clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction. To better understand the issue, we must first study what are climate changes and which factors are responsible for them. The term climate change is often used interchangeably with the term global warming, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, “The phrase ‘climate change’ is growing in preferred use to ‘global warming’ because it helps convey that there are [other] changes in addition to rising temperatures.” Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Global warming is an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns.
Earth maintains its average temperature by a natural and self-automated warming system of gases which surround it. Carbon dioxide and other gases like methane, Nitrogen dioxide and Chloro Flouro Carbon (CFC) keep the earth warm by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This trapped heat is crucial in keeping earth’s temperature within a range where it is habitable. However, the uncontrollable increase in the emission of Carbon dioxide and other warming gases over the decades has thickened these atmospheric boundaries which are now retaining much more heat than the acceptable range. Further, the increase of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere has also enhanced the “Greenhouse Effect” in which more heat is generated. This excessive amount of heat has disarrayed earth’s natural thermo-equilibrium resulting in the form of global warming with all its associated climatic effects.
The history of the planet has been characterised by frequent changes in climate. Apparently, climate change is a natural phenomena occurring since several thousand years. Environmental scientists insist that earth’s temperature has always been on a gradual rise with no or very limited impact on the environment on whole. This gradual trend spanning over a period of 650,000 years shows a gradual rise which scientists initially thought of as a “slow motion catastrophe” a unexpected to show its earliest consequences generations later. Needless to say, time has proved this estimations erroneous since signs of the climatic changes due to increased earth temperature have accelerated alarmingly in last two centuries. The graphical relation between time and earth’s temperature proves a dramatic and unparalleled shift in the trend with temperatures increasing many times faster than ever in the recorded history. Based on data from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is estimated that the mean global surface temperature has increased by about 0.3 to 0.6 degree Celsius since the late 19th century to the present, and an increase of 0.2 to 0.3 degree over the last 40 years. This increase is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. The current rate of increase of greenhouse gases is unprecedented during at least the past 20,000 years. And with the help climatic models based on mathematical simulations, it is predicted that by the year 2050, global temperature would be rose around 5 degrees Celsius with some severe and unavoidable impacts.
There are a number of natural factors responsible for climate change. Some of the prominent ones are continental drift, volcanoes, ocean currents, the earth’s tilt, and comets and meteorites. But the Anthropogenic Factors are the real culprits which have induced such an uncontrollable emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and therefore elevated average temperatures. Anthropogenic factors are human activities that change the environment and influence climate. In some cases, however, the chain of causality is clear and unambiguous while in others it is less clear. Various assumptions for human-influenced climate change have been debated over the years but it is only now widely accepted without any doubt that the major cause of climate change are the human activities. Even those who up to a few years ago were not convinced that humans have an impact on the climate, now admit that scientific evidence exists that this is happening.
The Industrial Revolution, starting at the end of the 19th Century, has had a huge effect on climate. The invention of the motor engine and the increased burning of fossil fuels in form of coal, oil and natural gas have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Since then, the human consumption of fossil fuels has elevated CO2 levels from a concentration of ~280 ppm to ~387 ppm today. These increasing concentrations are projected to reach a range of 535 to 983 ppm by the end of the 21st century. It is now known that carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the last 750,000 years. With the prevailing concept of global economy and the accelerated industrialization of developing countries like India and China, 70 million tons of CO2 is dumped into atmosphere everyday. In addition of CO2, Methane is another important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. About ¼ of all methane emissions are said to come from domesticated animals such as dairy cows, goats, pigs, buffaloes, camels, horses, and sheep. These animals produce methane during the cud-chewing process. Methane is also released from rice or paddy fields that are flooded during the sowing and maturing periods. When soil is covered with water it becomes anaerobic or lacking in oxygen. Under such conditions, methane-producing bacteria and other organisms decompose organic matter in the soil to form methane. Nearly 90% of the paddy-growing area in the world is found in Asia, as rice is the staple food there. China and India, between them, have 80-90% of the world’s rice-growing areas. Methane is also emitted from landfills and other waste dumps. If the waste is put into an incineratorchanges triggered by such gases are anticipated to cause an increase of 1.4-5.6 °C between 1990 and 2100. The cement manufacturing industry in particular, contributes CO2 when calcium carbonate is heated, producing lime and carbon dioxide, and also as a result of burning fossil fuels. The cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions, of which 50% is from the chemical process, and 40% from burning fuel. The amount of CO2 emitted by the cement industry is nearly 900 kg of CO2 for every 1000 kg of cement produced. [out] or burnt in the open, carbon dioxide is emitted. Methane is also emitted during the process of oil drilling, coal mining and also from leaking gas pipelines (due to accidents and poor maintenance of sites). A large amount of nitrous oxide emission has been attributed to fertilizer application. Another gas, nitrous oxide, emitted in a very large from fertilizers can cause serious damages. These climate
One of the other major factors of climate change is Increased Land Use. Agriculture practices, irrigation and deforestation are fundamentally changing the environment. Due to increased urbanization and industrial growth, forests are being cut down which act as
“Carbon sinks”. As a result,that the extra carbon dioxide produced cannot be changed into oxygen. A 2007 Jet Propulsion Laboratory study found that the average temperature of California has risen about 2 degrees over the past 50 years, with a much higher increase in urban areas. The change was attributed mostly to extensive human development of the landscape.
Accepting the factors that are causing it, an overwhelming majority of scientists today agree that climate change is real and poses very serious global threats. These climate changes have already shown some shocking and horrific signs around the world. They are by now affecting lives of millions of people throughout the world and are expected to get far more ruthless in future. In particular, many developing countries though they have contributed to the least in the process of climate change will be the ones at the greatest risks to face the consequences. As it was mentioned at the annual meeting of the Interagency Support Group on Indigenous Issues (IASG) in Montreal in September 2007, “that indigenous people are often among the world’s most marginalized and impoverished peoples and will bear the brunt of the catastrophe of climate change and as such provide a human face to the climate change crises”.
In Asia, temperatures are expected to rise 2-8 degrees Celsius in next 8-10 years affecting the lives of the inhabitants with climatic variations like decreased rainfall, crop failures and more floods. Tropical forests, which are haven for biodiversity, as well as native people’s cultural diversity, are under serious danger of forest fires. People in low-lying areas of Bangladesh and India like Calcutta, could be displaced by a one-meter rise in sea levels. Such a rise could also threaten the coastal zones of Japan and China. This could mean massive dislocation of not just hundreds and thousands but more than one hundred million people from Asia alone. The recent examples of heavy rains in parts on India particularly Mumbai is inherently connected with rapid climate change. In the Himalayans, there are glacial melts which affect hundreds of millions of rural dwellers who depend on the seasonal flow of water. Increased temperature will melt ice faster following more water in the short term, but less in the long run as glaciers and snow cover shrink. The warming of the high altitude regions are likely to mean that population growth, settlement expansion and encroachment are likely to become a major management challenge and these external influences are likely to have an impact on indigenous peoples and their lands. In Southern Africa, climate change will affect hundreds of kilometers of land which is covered with vegetation and is used for grazing. Since high temperatures will increase wind speed multiple times, these high speed winds will result in region losing most of its vegetation cover and hence, becoming less feasible for indigenous peoples living in the region. Moreover, droughts will be more common with food security as a major issue for indigenous peoples residing in the deserts like Kalahari and Sahara. In Europe and parts of Russia, indigenous peoples have noticed the arrival of new species of plants which were never seen in the region previously. The hotter summers have provided the conditions for the new plants to thrive in rivers and lakes. This had disturbed the natural habitat of fishes; hence, people’s fishing opportunities have declined due to closure of lakes because of the new plant growth. Also, new bird species have arrived and birds now stay longer in the villages than previously.
In North America, heat waves will increase evaporation and deplete the underground water resources. There may be impacts on health, plant cover, wildlife populations, tribal water rights and individual agricultural operations, and a reduction of tribal services due to decrease in income from land leases. Further, natural disasters like hurricanes, floods in likes of Katrina which caused lives of around 1,836 people and cost damages of $89.6 billion, will be more common.
The Polar Regions that is the Artic and Greenland is experiencing some the most rapid and severe climate changes on earth. With rise in the temperature, the Artic ice is becoming less stable, unusual weather patterns are occurring, vegetation cover is changing and particular animals like polar bears and seals are on a verge of extinction. Local landscapes, seascapes and icescapes are becoming unfamiliar, making peoples feel like strangers in their own land. In addition to this, weather in the Artic will become unpredictable and extreme with timing, length and character of the seasons including rain in autumn and winter and more heat in summer. In several indigenous villages in Alaska, entire communities will have to be relocated because of erosion due to the thawing of permafrost and large waves slamming against the west and northern shores.
Coastal indigenous communities will be severely threatened by storm related erosion because of melting sea ice. Scientists have predicted that if only the half of ice in Artic and Greenland melt, the ocean level around the world will rise up to 40 feet surging over huge land a portion that is the home of billions of human beings and other living creatures.
No matter how discouraging the future seems right now, all is not gloom and doom. Al Gore, the Nobel Prize winner for his efforts for the cause of climate change, said in his speech at National Sierra Club Convention, on Sept. 9, 2005 “The good news is we know what to do. The good news is we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed, and as they become available and become more affordable when produced in scale, they will make it easier to respond. But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.”
Since the appearance of first few challenges of the climate change, countries all around the world have decided to initiate programs as one global community to combat this fast approaching menace. The First World Climate Conference recognized climate change as a serious problem in 1979. Since then, a number of conferences and conventions have been held throughout the world with formation of several international bodies and treaties. In 1988, a body of more than 2,500 of the world’s leading climate scientists, economists, and risk analysis experts from 80 countries was formed as The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This Panel was given a mandate to assess the state of existing knowledge about the climate system and climate change; the environmental, economic, and social impacts of climate change; and the possible response strategies. The reports which this body released had a powerful impact on both policy-makers and the general public and provided the basis for negotiations on the Climate Change Convention. In 1992, The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was signed at Rio de Janeiro by 154 states, including the US. This summit became the largest-ever gathering of Heads of State.
In December 1997, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted a code of behavior by consensus which contains new emissions targets for developed countries for the post-2000 period. This international treaty is called as “The Kyoto Protocol” or “The Kyoto Treaty”. Since developed countries of the world are responsible for 83.7% of the total emissions, the protocol asked the developed countries to commit themselves in reducing their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by at least 5%. Though an important milestone, the Kyoto agreement has not really been such effective since it aims to cut down the future carbon emissions but does not propose any solutions to nullify the affects of the carbon that has already been emitted into the atmosphere. Other global initiatives like UNESCO’s Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), WHO Program for Climate and many others are working to tackle the issue of climate change.
The goal of all these organizations and conventions is to cut down or at least minimize all those factors responsible for climate change. Resolute, urgent and collective efforts are needed on state, communal and individual levels to deal with the issue. One of the most effective ways to do so is to Increase the Awareness and Usage of the Bio-Energy. Bio-Energy is the energy made available from materials derived from the biological sources. It is actually the energy produced from the bio-mass. Biomass is the material derived from living organisms, which includes plants, animals and their byproducts such as wood. Manure, garden waste and crop residues are all sources of biomass. It is a renewable energy source based on the carbon cycle, unlike other natural resources such as petroleum, coal, and nuclear fuels. As Henry Ford said in early 20th century “The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit … weeds, sawdust-almost anything…”
Burning biomass efficiently results in little or no net emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, since the bio-energy crop plants actually took up an equal amount of carbon dioxide from the air when they grew. However, burning conventional fossil fuels such as gasoline, oil, coal or natural gas results in an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the major gas which is thought to be responsible for global climate change. Some nitrogen oxides inevitably result from biomass burning (as with all combustion processes) but these are comparable to emissions from natural wildfires, and generally lower than those from burning fossil fuels. Other gas emissions are associated with the use of fossil fuels by farm equipment, and with the application of inorganic fertilizers to the bio-energy crop. However, these may be offset by the increase in carbon storage in soil organic matter compared with conventional crops. Utilization of biomass residues which would have otherwise been dumped in landfills (e.g. urban and industrial residues) greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by preventing the formation of methane.
In addition, bio-energy can effectively be used in almost every industrial, manufacturing and home application throughout the globe. Wood, construction waste, landfill gas, and liquid bio-fuels like bio-diesel and bio-oil can be used to produce energy that can be converted into electricity and heat. Liquid bio-fuels like ethanol, bio-diesel, and bio-oil can be used to power cars and other transportation. Being the fourth largest resource of energy after coal, oil and natural gas, the energy produced from the bio-mass can fulfill up to 14% of the world’s total primary energy demands and recent statistics show that only 10-15% of the total potential bio-energy sources have been used so far by the human population worldwide.
Along with its remarkable and efficient outcomes in decreasing the world’s carbon emission and fulfilling a considerable portion of the global demand for energy, Bio-Energy from the bio-mass also has several major socio-economical benefits. These benefits include increased rural income and reduced levels of poverty in developing countries, restoration of unproductive and degraded lands and promotion of economic development, diversifications of agricultural outputs, reduction of energy dependence and diversification of domestic energy supply, increased investments in land rehabilitation and effective usage of waste products. A recent economic survey found out that bio-energy creates more permanent jobs than any other energy sources with decrease in unemployment and increase in per capita income which contributes to a much healthy life style. It can also be instrumental in reducing food prices and ensuring food security throughout the world.
In keeping an eye over the huge opportunities the usage of bio-energy can offer, every possible step should be taken by the United Nations and the state governments all over the world to replace fossil fuels with bio-fuels. Since it is practically unrealistic to completely replace fossil fuels, intense attempt should be made to utilize as much of the natural energy resources as it is possible. On individual level too, we should adapt to these climatic changes and change our live styles in order to bring the total carbon emission under control. Driving less, driving a fuel-efficient car, preferring gas over oil, saving electricity, using lesser papers and planting more trees can be some of the small choices each human can makes to save the earth from rapid destructions of the climate change. It is not only an environmental issue. It is inherently linked with our lives on political, social, economical, ethical and more than anything else, on moral grounds. We do not lack in resources and capabilities but it is a high time that we confront the challenges of the climate change with utmost determination and a collective strategy.
As According to this year’s UNDP Report on Human Development “There is a window of opportunity of avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken or not taken in the years ahead will have a profound bearing on the future course of human development. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, collective interest and above all human solidarity”.
Judy
Feb
29
Are We Running Out of Water?
Filed Under Environmental | Leave a Comment
Douglas Hoover asked:
Approximately 440 million people in 29 countries are currently facing extreme shortages of water. Twenty percent more water than is now available will be needed to feed the over three billion additional people who are estimated to be living by the year 2025. As much as two-thirds of the world population could be water-stressed by then.
Aquifers, which supply one-third of the World’s population, are being pumped out faster than nature can replenish them. In 1950, the U.S. took 12 trillion gallons of water from the ground by 1980 the figure more than doubled and is still increasing at an alarming rate. The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters (420 billion ft3 or 9,729,000 acre feet) per year, amounting to a total depletion to date of a volume equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado Rivers (Its flow is 4000 cubic feet per second). Half the World’s rivers and lakes are seriously polluted. Major rivers, such as the Yangtze, Ganges, and Colorado, no longer flow to the sea for much of the year because of upstream withdrawals.
Where Are the Water-Scarce Regions?
Even areas of the United States (particularly the southwest and parts of the midwest) are vulnerable to water shortages, as the media attention to the ongoing drought in California attests. Currently, the San Diego water authority is threatening a moratorium on the use of municipal water for irrigation, washing cars etc.
In 2004, the U.S. Geological Survey was claiming this drought to be “comparable to or more severe than the largest-known drought in 500 years.” With the scarce rainfall received since the early 1990s, plus low snowpack in the Sierra Mountains, which supplies the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta including the Rockies, the source of the Colorado River. All this has created the foundation for “the perfect drought” so serious that it just might reclaim the desert that this area once was. Sadly, this trend is evident in many regions across this country and around the world.
Agriculture In a Water-Starved World
Limited or non-existent water supplies will be the primary obstacle to increased food production in the next few decades. In the past, prior to the onslaught of climate change, most of the increases in agricultural productivity occurred on irrigated lands, since irrigated farmlands are five times more productive than rain-fed. Today, according to Worldwatch, “irrigation-fed agriculture supplies about 45 percent of the World’s food supply”.
Steadily increasing social problems, combined with current economic trends will compound the severity of the gathering water shortage. Approximately 1.5 billion people lack access to potable water, with more than half the World’s population lacking adequate sanitation which jeopardises existing drinking water supplies. Facilities must be developed for the increased population as well as the existing inhabitants, unfortunately this is not currently a priority with the worldwide concerns of the financial markets. Meanwhile, as a result of industrial development and increasing living standards, water use grew at more than twice the rate of population increase during the 20th century and is currently growing exponentially.
Water Equity
With uncontrolled urban sprawl running rampant in the developing world, there is an ever increasing demand for water-intensive agricultural products, such as meat and other animal products. As development progresses, the resulting water demands of the more affluent urban dwellers will divert water from agriculture uses. Consequently, the poor in both rural and out-lying urban areas, are being financially outpaced and ignored by members of the growing middle class, and are increasingly unable to afford and denied their basic God-given water needs. World Hunger reports at present, “more than 1.3 billion people live in abject poverty, earning only a dollar a day or less per person; another 2 billion people are only marginally better off.”
World Water Crisis, Who Cares?
The World Bank and the United Nations have commissioned studies and research groups to evaluate current water shortage conditions, determine future requirements, and formulate strategies for solving this seemingly insurmountable water crisis. They have concluded, “that even with major improvements in water collection and distribution (that would provide 70 percent efficiency instead of the current average of 45 percent worldwide), there would still be a need for 20 percent more water, a prediction that has been termed the “world water gap.”
Since most of the currently available water sources have already been appropriated (or misappropriated), “there are practical limits to how much additional water can be extracted from the environment.” Most experts agree that, even at the current rate at which new water supplies are developed and if sustained over the next few decades, there would still remain serious water shortages by the year 2025.
What About Your Water?
One out of three Americans are sick (colds, flu, sore throat, allergies, high blood pressure, kidney or gull stones, you name it…) and the World Health Organization states that the majority of disease in the world is a result either the water we drink or the lack of sufficient quantities. Since water is the second most important element on earth next to air, should not we take care in its quality? We worry more about our bank book than we do about our health.
Drink clean water (”distilled is as clean as you can get… it is the water I drink”; Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D.) and plenty of it. Americans are dehydrated. They drink anything but clean healthy water. Coffee and carbonated soda dehydrates, not hydrates you. Do yourself a favor and RESEARCH WATER and its relationship to health. I drink three liters of distilled water per day and have for over 30 years, and I DO NOT get sick. ” A man with experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument.”
Alma
Approximately 440 million people in 29 countries are currently facing extreme shortages of water. Twenty percent more water than is now available will be needed to feed the over three billion additional people who are estimated to be living by the year 2025. As much as two-thirds of the world population could be water-stressed by then.
Aquifers, which supply one-third of the World’s population, are being pumped out faster than nature can replenish them. In 1950, the U.S. took 12 trillion gallons of water from the ground by 1980 the figure more than doubled and is still increasing at an alarming rate. The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters (420 billion ft3 or 9,729,000 acre feet) per year, amounting to a total depletion to date of a volume equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado Rivers (Its flow is 4000 cubic feet per second). Half the World’s rivers and lakes are seriously polluted. Major rivers, such as the Yangtze, Ganges, and Colorado, no longer flow to the sea for much of the year because of upstream withdrawals.
Where Are the Water-Scarce Regions?
Even areas of the United States (particularly the southwest and parts of the midwest) are vulnerable to water shortages, as the media attention to the ongoing drought in California attests. Currently, the San Diego water authority is threatening a moratorium on the use of municipal water for irrigation, washing cars etc.
In 2004, the U.S. Geological Survey was claiming this drought to be “comparable to or more severe than the largest-known drought in 500 years.” With the scarce rainfall received since the early 1990s, plus low snowpack in the Sierra Mountains, which supplies the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta including the Rockies, the source of the Colorado River. All this has created the foundation for “the perfect drought” so serious that it just might reclaim the desert that this area once was. Sadly, this trend is evident in many regions across this country and around the world.
Agriculture In a Water-Starved World
Limited or non-existent water supplies will be the primary obstacle to increased food production in the next few decades. In the past, prior to the onslaught of climate change, most of the increases in agricultural productivity occurred on irrigated lands, since irrigated farmlands are five times more productive than rain-fed. Today, according to Worldwatch, “irrigation-fed agriculture supplies about 45 percent of the World’s food supply”.
Steadily increasing social problems, combined with current economic trends will compound the severity of the gathering water shortage. Approximately 1.5 billion people lack access to potable water, with more than half the World’s population lacking adequate sanitation which jeopardises existing drinking water supplies. Facilities must be developed for the increased population as well as the existing inhabitants, unfortunately this is not currently a priority with the worldwide concerns of the financial markets. Meanwhile, as a result of industrial development and increasing living standards, water use grew at more than twice the rate of population increase during the 20th century and is currently growing exponentially.
Water Equity
With uncontrolled urban sprawl running rampant in the developing world, there is an ever increasing demand for water-intensive agricultural products, such as meat and other animal products. As development progresses, the resulting water demands of the more affluent urban dwellers will divert water from agriculture uses. Consequently, the poor in both rural and out-lying urban areas, are being financially outpaced and ignored by members of the growing middle class, and are increasingly unable to afford and denied their basic God-given water needs. World Hunger reports at present, “more than 1.3 billion people live in abject poverty, earning only a dollar a day or less per person; another 2 billion people are only marginally better off.”
World Water Crisis, Who Cares?
The World Bank and the United Nations have commissioned studies and research groups to evaluate current water shortage conditions, determine future requirements, and formulate strategies for solving this seemingly insurmountable water crisis. They have concluded, “that even with major improvements in water collection and distribution (that would provide 70 percent efficiency instead of the current average of 45 percent worldwide), there would still be a need for 20 percent more water, a prediction that has been termed the “world water gap.”
Since most of the currently available water sources have already been appropriated (or misappropriated), “there are practical limits to how much additional water can be extracted from the environment.” Most experts agree that, even at the current rate at which new water supplies are developed and if sustained over the next few decades, there would still remain serious water shortages by the year 2025.
What About Your Water?
One out of three Americans are sick (colds, flu, sore throat, allergies, high blood pressure, kidney or gull stones, you name it…) and the World Health Organization states that the majority of disease in the world is a result either the water we drink or the lack of sufficient quantities. Since water is the second most important element on earth next to air, should not we take care in its quality? We worry more about our bank book than we do about our health.
Drink clean water (”distilled is as clean as you can get… it is the water I drink”; Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D.) and plenty of it. Americans are dehydrated. They drink anything but clean healthy water. Coffee and carbonated soda dehydrates, not hydrates you. Do yourself a favor and RESEARCH WATER and its relationship to health. I drink three liters of distilled water per day and have for over 30 years, and I DO NOT get sick. ” A man with experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument.”
Alma