Search:   Spelling

Lesson Plans Global Water Supply (Water Partners) "WaterPartners has launched new school curriculum materials leading up to World Water Day, March 22. Aligned with national standards, the lesson plans and mini-units include elementary, middle and high school levels. Funding for this global water supply curriculum project was provided by the Open Square Foundation." 04-08 News -01-25-08 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 -10-20-07 Georgia Declares Need for Disaster Relief on Water Shortage (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 -10-20-07 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 -10-20-07 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 -10-22-07 "The Future Is Drying Up" (New York Times) "Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with 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.' " 10-07 -10-22-07 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 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 Papers 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 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 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 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 Running Out of Water (CNN News) "Federal researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque predict that the fresh water supplies of more than half of the nations in the world will be stressed in less than 20 years and that by 2050, three-quarters of the world could face fresh water scarcity." "The U.S. is no exception, said Michael Hightower of the lab's Energy Systems Analysis Department. Groundwater pumping probably will have to be reduced in the next five to 10 years to prevent the depletion of many of the nation's aquifers, he said." 04-08 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." 10-04 Water Facts (Water Partners) "he average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day. (6, 7)The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day. (7)" "Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. (1)" "Water systems fail at a rate of 50% or higher. (8, 9)" "Every $1 spent on water and sanitation creates on average another $8 in costs averted and productivity gained. (1)" 04-08 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

Italian, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean,   Index, New, Search Engines, Dictionary, Bookstore, Licenses, Email Us, About Us, Link to Us, or Privacy Policy.