WAKEUP
CALL ON THE FOOD FRONT
Lester R. Brown
(This
piece first appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday,
December 15, 2003, entitled "Dry, With a Chance
of a Grain Shortage.")
While
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and President Bush discussed
Taiwan, currency rates and North Korea on December
9, a more important and far-reaching development in
U.S.-China relations was going on far from the White
House.
Under
the North China Plain, which produces half of China's
wheat and a third of its corn, water tables are falling
by 3 to 10 feet per year. Along with rising temperatures
and the loss of cropland to non-farm uses, this trend
is shrinking the Chinese grain harvest, which has
fallen in four of the past five years. To get an idea
of the magnitude, the harvest dropped by 66 million
tons during that period, an amount that exceeds the
total annual grain harvest of Canada, one of the world's
leading grain exporters. [Keep
Reading]
COAL:
U.S. PROMOTES WHILE CANADA & EUROPE MOVE BEYOND
Lester R. Brown
On
Monday, November 24, the U.S. Congress abandoned all
hope for this year of passing an energy bill laden
with subsidies for fossil fuels, including coal. While
the White House strongly supports heavy subsidies
to expand coal burning, other industrial countries
are turning away from this climate-disruptive fuel,
including our northern neighbor, Canada.
In
Ontario, Canada's most populous province, the three
major political parties agreed early this year on
the phase out of that province's five large coal-fired
power plants by 2015. This bold plan accelerated with
the early October election of Premier Dalton McGuinty,
who has pledged to close all the coal-fired power
plants by 2007, eight years ahead of the earlier deadline.
[Keep
Reading]
WORLD
FACING FOURTH CONSECUTIVE GRAIN HARVEST SHORTFALL
Lester R. Brown
This
year's world grain harvest is falling short of consumption
by 93 million tons, dropping world grain stocks to
the lowest level in 30 years. As rising temperatures
and falling water tables hamstring farmers' efforts
to expand production, prices of wheat and rice are
turning upward.
For
the first time, the grain harvest has fallen short
of consumption four years in a row. In 2000, the shortfall
was a modest 16 million tons; in 2001 it was 27 million
tons; and in 2002 a record-smashing 96 million tons.
In its September 11 crop report, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) reported that this year's shrunken
harvest of only 1,818 million tons is falling short
of estimated consumption of 1,911 million tons by
a near-record 93 million tons. (See data)
[Keep
Reading]
WORLD
CREATING FOOD BUBBLE ECONOMY BASED ON UNSUSTAINABLE
USE OF WATER
Lester R. Brown
On
March 16, 2003, some 10,000 participants will meet
in Japan for the third World Water Forum to discuss
the world water prospect. Although they will be officially
focusing on water scarcity, they will indirectly be
focusing on food scarcity because 70 percent of the
water we divert from rivers or pump from underground
is used for irrigation.
As
world water demand has tripled over the last half-century,
it has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers
in scores of countries, leading to falling water tables.
In effect, governments are satisfying the growing
demand for food by overpumping groundwater, a measure
that virtually assures a drop in food production when
the aquifer is depleted. Knowingly or not, governments
are creating a "food bubble" economy.
As
water use climbs, the world is incurring a vast water
deficit... [Keep
Reading]
WATER
DEFICITS GROWING IN MANY COUNTRIES
Lester R. Brown
The
world is incurring a vast water deficit. It is largely
invisible, historically recent, and growing fast.
Because this impending crisis typically takes the
form of aquifer overpumping and falling water tables,
it is not visible. Unlike burning forests or invading
sand dunes, falling water tables cannot be readily
photographed. They are often discovered only when
wells go dry.
The
world water deficit is recent--a product of the tripling
of water demand over the last half-century and the
rapid worldwide spread of powerful diesel and electrically
driven pumps. The drilling of millions of wells has
pushed water withdrawals beyond the recharge of many
aquifers. The failure of governments to limit pumping
to the sustainable yield of aquifers means that water
tables are now falling in scores of countries.
We
are consuming water that belongs to future generations.
[Keep
Reading]
ILLEGAL
LOGGING THREATENS ECOLOGICAL & ECONOMIC STABILITY
Janet Larsen
Extensive
floods in Indonesia during early 2002 have killed
hundreds of people, destroyed thousands of homes,
damaged thousands of hectares of rice paddy fields,
and inundated Indonesian insurance companies with
flood-related claims. Rampant deforestation, much
of it from illegal logging, has destroyed forests
that stabilize soils and regulate river flow, causing
record floods and landslides.
In
just 50 years, Indonesia's total forest cover fell
from 162 million hectares to 98 million. Roads and
development fragment over half of the remaining forests.
More than 16 million people depend on fresh water
from Indonesia's 15 largest watersheds, which between
1985 and 1997 lost at least 20 percent of their forest
cover. Loggers have cleared almost all the biologically
diverse lowland tropical forests off Sulawesi, and
if current trends continue, such forests will be gone
from Sumatra in 2005 and Kalimantan by 2010. [Keep
Reading]
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