- Aug 26, 2015
- 10,203
- 13,096
- Country
- Canada
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises
A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises
BANGALORE, India — Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.
From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.
Many are arid countries to begin with; some are squandering what water they have. Several are relying too heavily on groundwater, which instead they should be replenishing and saving for times of drought.
In those countries are several big, thirsty cities that have faced acute shortages recently, including São Paulo, Brazil; Chennai, India; and Cape Town, which in 2018 narrowly beat what it called Day Zero — the day when all its dams would be dry.
More in link.
Climate change could trigger a global food crisis, new U.N. report says
Climate change could trigger a global food crisis, new U.N. report says
If climate change is left unchecked, rising temperatures, extreme weather and land degradation could trigger a global food crisis, according to a report released Thursday by a United Nations panel.
The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change examined how agriculture will be affected by global warming, as well as how food production and other changes in land use are expected to contribute to climate change in the future.
The panel concluded that if average global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial average — something that previous reports by the panel have suggested could happen by the end of the century — the risk of food supply instabilities “are projected to be very high,” according to the report, which was written by more than 100 scientists from around the world.
One of the key ways food production could be affected is by extreme weather events. Studies have shown that climate change is increasing both the frequency and severity of extreme weather, causing more intense downpours during storms or lengthening extreme heat waves, for example, which can disrupt crops or alter growing seasons.
More in link.
Upvote
0