Papers "The Future Is Drying Up" (New York Times) "When I met with [current Secretary of Energy] Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. 'There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,' Chu said, 'and that’s in the best scenario.' " 10-10 -Study: Water Shortages Threaten Western U.S. (CNN News) "A shrinking snowpack in the Rocky Mountains may make it harder to slake the thirst of a growing population in the Western United States, according to new research from the U.S. government and several universities." "The shrinking snowpack serves as a "bank account" for those river systems, which supply drinking water and electric power to more than 70 million people from the Pacific Coast to the upper Great Plains, said Greg Pederson, the study's lead researcher." " 'In a nutshell, what you're seeing is synchronous, declining snowpacks across the West since the 1980s.' Based on the new study, the last time that pattern was seen as the mid-1300s to early 1400s, he said." 06-11 America's Dwindling Water Supply (CBS News) "After doing the dishes - 12 gallons per load - running the washing machine - 43 gallons per load - and watering the lawn - 10 gallons per minute - by the time we [Americans] go to bed, we've used up to 150 gallons." "By comparison, people in the U.K. use a quarter of that - 40 gallons of water a day. The Chinese average just 22 gallons per day. And in the poorest countries like Kenya, people use less than the minimum 13 gallons to cover basic needs." "Because Americans use so much, the report card shows water is an emerging crisis here." "Experts do agree: Demand is greater than supply. And 36 states face water shortages in the next three years." 01-10 Atlanta Faces Possible Empty Faucets (New York Times) "For more than five months, the lake that provides drinking water to almost five million people here has been draining away in a withering drought. Sandy beaches have expanded into flats of orange mud. Tree stumps not seen in half a century have resurfaced. Scientists have warned of impending disaster." "And life has, for the most part, gone on just as before." "The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains blithely sprayed, football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength. In early October, on an 81-degree day, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2-million gallon mountain of snow." 10-07 California for First Time Forced to Limit Water Supply (Yahoo) "This is a pivotal moment in the contentious history of water in the arid West, which more often than not has pitted California's unquenchable thirst against that of its smaller but equally parched neighbors." "For the first time since it was given the authority four decades ago, the United States Department of the Interior has said no to California's dipping into the Colorado River for more than its allotted share." 1-03 Colorado River Study on Shortages (New York Times) "Last month, Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, committed $1.5 million to establish a study group focusing on the Colorado River basin. Modest as the dollar amount sounds, this is a very good investment. The study will be the first of three river basin studies — called the WaterSMART program — aimed at measuring the nation’s water demands and resources, including the potential impacts of climate change." Desert Locusts (Wikipedia.org) "Plagues of the desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) have threatened agricultural production in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia for centuries. The livelihood of at least one-tenth of the world’s human population can be affected by this voracious insect. The desert locust is potentially the most dangerous of the locust pests because of the ability of swarms to fly rapidly across great distances. It has two to five generations per year." Freshwater Biodiversity in Crisis (EarthTrends) "In a world in which it seems that nearly every natural ecosystem is under stress, freshwater ecosystems—the diverse communities of species found in lakes, rivers, and wetlands—may be the most endangered of all. Freshwater ecosystems have lost a greater proportion of their species and habitat than ecosystems on land or in the oceans, and they face increasing threats from dams, overextraction, pollution, and overfishing." 01-08 Freshwater Supply Terribly Managed (US News) "Worldwide, 1.1 billion people lack clean water, 2.6 billion people go without sanitation, and 1.8 million children die every year because of one or the other, or both. By 2025, the United Nations predicts 3 billion people will be scrambling for clean water. There are myriad problems: industrial contaminants flooding waterways, wasteful irrigation, an exploding world population, political corruption and incompetence, and a changing climate—to name a few." 06-07 Georgia Declares Water Shortage Emergency (MSNBC News) "With water supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions, Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency Saturday for the northern third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area." 10-07 Georgia Declares Water Shortage Emergency (MSNBC News) "With water supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions, Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency Saturday for the northern third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area." 10-07 Graphic Depiction of Effects of Global Warming (Time Magazine) "The latest study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this month predicts that most regions of the world will witness a variety of negative effects of global warming including increased human mortality, shifts in crops and agriculture production, and further degradation of local ecosystems. Click below to see predicted climate change impacts on the environment and the people living there." 04-07 Melting Glaciers May Make Billions Thirsty (CNN News) "The world's glaciers could melt within a century if global warming accelerates, leaving billions of people short of water and some islanders without a home, environmentalists said." " 'Unless governments take urgent action to prevent global warming, billions of people worldwide may face severe water shortages as a result of the alarming melting rate of glaciers,' the WWF group said in a report Thursday." "It said human impact on the climate was melting glaciers from the Andes to the Himalayas, bringing longer-term threats of higher sea levels that could swamp island states." 11-03 More Than Half in China Have Sewage Not Treated (ChinaDaily.com) "More than half of the population is living in an environment where sewage is not treated, an expert said." "By the end of 2005, 278 cities across the country had no sewage treatment facilities, including eight with a population of more than 500,000, Zhao Baojiang, chairman of the China association of city planning, told a recent conference on sustainable sanitation held in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region." "About 5,000 administrative towns and 20,000 market towns also had no sewage treatment facilities, he was quoted as saying by www.xinhuanet.com." " 'Water pollution is deteriorating, but orders of the State Environmental Protection Administration to reduce the pollution are being disregarded in some cities, Zhao said.' " 08-07 Nation's Drinking Water at Risk (CBS News) "Aging pipes and outdated treatment plants threaten the nation's drinking water systems, says an environmental group that reviewed 19 cities." 9-03 Our Global Water Shortage (TruthOut.org) "Demand for water is doubling every 20 years, outpacing population growth twice as fast. Currently 1.3 billion people don't have access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and sanitation. In less than 20 years, it is estimated that demand for fresh water will exceed the world's supply by over 50 percent." "The biggest drain on our water sources is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the water used worldwide - much of which is subsidized in the industrial world, providing little incentive for agribusiness to use conservation measures or less water-intensive crops." 10-07 Report: Conflicts Over Water and Food Could Intensify (Christian Science Monitor) "For years, the debate over global warming has focused on the three big 'E's': environment, energy, and economic impact. This week it officially entered the realm of national security threats and avoiding wars as well." "As quoted in the Associated Press, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who presided over the UN meeting in New York April 17, posed the question 'What makes wars start' The answer:" " 'Fights over water. Changing patterns of rainfall. Fights over food production, land use. There are few greater potential threats to our economies ... but also to peace and security itself.' " 04-07 Report: We Are Threatened (BBC News) "The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations." "Two services - fisheries and fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less future, demands."7-05 Solar Cooking Boxes (JourneytoForever.org) Shows how to build a solar cooker using a cardboard box. "Research has found that 36% of the world's fuelwood needs (or 350 million tonnes of wood per year, according to UNICEF) could be replaced by solar box cookers, saving 500 kg of wood per family per year, equalling millions of trees." "Indoor smoke pollution now ranks 8th in health burden worldwide (lost years of healthy life), and ranks fourth in the "least-developed" countries (which make up about 40% of the world population) according to the World Health Organization's World Health Report 2002." "The WHO says diseases spread through contaminated water cause 80% of the world's illnesses. Solar box cookers can pasteurize drinking water: heating water to 65 deg C for six minutes destroys disease organisms, and this temperature is easily achieved with solar box cookers." The "Third Pole" Is Melting Fast (Time.com) "The high-altitude glaciers of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau — which cover parts of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and China — are the water tower of Asia. When the ice thaws and the snow melts every spring, the glaciers birth the great rivers of the region, the mightiest river system in the world: the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Yellow, the Yangtze. Together, these rivers give material and spiritual sustenance to 3 billion people, nearly half of the world's population — and all are nursed by Himalayan ice." "Regardless of the impact of climate change, there is a widening gap between water supplies and needs. In fact, a new report from the international consulting group McKinsey & Co. estimates that by 2030, India alone will have only 50% of the water that it needs under a business-as-usual scenario. Nor is Asia the only region that will grapple with water scarcity in a warmer world: the McKinsey report estimates that the globe will have 40% less water than it needs by 2030 if nothing is done to change current consumption patterns." "This year Chinese researchers projected a 43% decrease in glaciated area by 2070. If that happens, the impact could be catastrophic." 12-09 UN Calls Water Top Priority (Time.com) "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world on Thursday to put the looming crisis over water shortages at the top of the global agenda this year and take action to prevent conflicts over scarce supplies." 01-08 Vetiver Grass for Water Filtering and Retention (eScienceNews.com) "When planted as a contour hedge it acts as a continuous filtering system, that slows down rainfall runoff, reduces rilling and gullying, and collects soil sediments at the hedge face. Soil and nutrient loss is reduced, soil moisture and ground water improves significantly, and natural terraces and ground leveling develops behind the hedge. An important feature is that vetiver grass takes up minimal space and is virtually non competitive with adjacent crops. Apart for soil conservation uses vetiver is now an important grass for the stabilization of road and railroad embankments, river banks, canals, bridge abutments, landslide prevention, water quality improvement, waste management, etc." 02-09 World's 4th Largest Lake Nearly Dry (CBS News) "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called the drying up of the Aral Sea one of the planet's most shocking disasters and urged Central Asian leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem." 10-07 World's Largest Freshwater Lake "Disappearing" (CBS News) "At first glance it's hard to believe Lake Superior could be said to be 'disappearing.' It's huge. But all along its 1,800-mile coast, you can see land where there used to be water, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports." 06-07 World's Water at Risk (CBS News) "Many of the world's natural underground reservoirs are diminishing rapidly, threatening the drinking water of millions of people and compounding the ravaging effects of drought and famine, the United Nations warned Wednesday." "The United Nations called on governments to curb the use of groundwater through regulation. Worldwide action was needed to ensure that countries relying on irrigation diversify away from water hungry crops, the report added." 9-03

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