Peru's Melting Glaciers

A harbinger of global climate change that is happening too rapidly all across this world to be just natural. But will the cause really matter should the millions of people who depend on these glaciers for water to survive no longer have it because the world was too busy debating instead of doing something to address it?

Mexico, U.S. Suffer As Rio Grande Sucked Dry

Mexico, U.S. Suffer As Rio Grande Sucked Dry

By Robin Emmott Sun Dec 16, 8:19 PM ET
EJIDO LA LAGUNA, Mexico (Reuters) -

Julian Rosales' farm is within a stone's throw of one of North America's biggest rivers, but the Mexican landowner fears he will not be able to sow his crops next year for lack of water. Rusty tractors plow Rosales' parched earth along the banks of the Rio Grande on Mexico's border with Texas where thousands of local farmers say their livelihoods are at stake because Mexico was this year forced by a bilateral treaty to transfer millions of liters of water to the United States.

While farmers and lawmakers in arid northern Mexico seek to challenge the water payment in an international court, the farmers' plight is a symptom of a much bigger problem: the Rio Grande and its underground aquifers are being sucked dry on both sides of the frontier.
The eastern border region is slowly heading toward a water crisis.

"They have taken our water and these lands are dying. Our children are emigrating to the United States, some illegally," said Rosales, who grows the animal feed sorghum in the desert lands of Mexico's Tamaulipas state on the Gulf of Mexico.

Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required to transfer water to the United States every five years from the two dams the countries share on the Texas border. For farmers in Tamaulipas, that means ruined harvests and hardship every time the transfer is made.

The landscape is now dotted with abandoned farms and villages unable to enjoy the artificial irrigation that is central to agriculture in a desert region with sporadic rains. In a last attempt to save the farmers, lawmakers in Tamaulipas have called on Mexico's Supreme Court to rule on whether this year's water transfer was lawful. They argue the treaty stipulates the payment should be made with water from six Mexican tributaries further west along the border that feed the Rio Grande, not with surface water from Tamaulipas. If they win, lawmakers aim to take the United States to an international court to force it to return the water.

End of excerpt.

U.S. To Deny Mexico Water?

My previous entry about this from August, 2006 with more information on the 1944 treaty. And once again, greed takes precedence over human rights.

Give The Gift of Water and Save A Life

Water Partners International: Thank You for Making this “Historic Moment” in Hile Village Possible


This is of course not something we should only think about or do during a holiday season, but it is something that those looking for an honorable and effective way to help this world should think about. Water is a basic essential of life. What better time of the year to think of this than at the time when we celebrate life and peace?

The link above leads to a story about people saved by mine and others' contributions. They now have potable water and their quality of life has improved greatly. This is the difference and impact one person can make upon this world. Therefore, at this time of year when our thoughts should most assuredly turn to peace, love, and those less fortunate who need the opportunity to have a better life, Water Partners International is one organization on the top of my list.

To see children able to attend school because they don't have to fetch dirty diseased water or go without it is a gift beyond compare. Save a life this holiday season. Give the gift of water.

Water Partners International

Asian Meet Looks To Confront Water Crises

Asian Meet Looks To Confront Water Crises

Asian meet looks to confront water crises
by Staff Writers
Beppu, Japan (AFP) Dec 3, 2007

Asian nations came together Monday for a first "water summit" to plan action amid warnings of a dire situation with water resources shrinking and natural disasters on the rise.

The 49-nation conference in Beppu, a southern Japanese town famed for natural hot springs, comes amid growing concern that climate change is aggravating water-related incidents in Asia and elsewhere.

Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito, known for his studies of water, said Asia was home to 60 percent of the world's people but had only 40 percent of its water resources.

"The situation in the Asia-Pacific region does not allow us to be optimistic," said Naruhito, who is honorary president of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's advisory board on water and sanitation.

"As of 2004, there were 700 million people who had no access to safe drinking water and 1.9 billion who were without basic sanitation" in Asia, he said. "In this respect, our region is in the most serious situation in the world, especially in providing sanitation," he said.

Officials, including several heads of state, will hold two days of talks here on ways to step up cooperation on water-related issues that cross borders. The meeting was set up by last year's World Water Summit in Mexico City.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hopefully, the one important factor we will hear addressed at this meeting and the UN Conference in Bali will be: Population. It is at the crux of what is now happening regarding our environment. We simply do not have an adequate amount of resources to continue to support this growing global population at the same rapacious pace it is wasting them while conducting business the old way. This then will mean a change of mindset for those living on this planet now who are so used to having all they want whenever they want it. It will require people looking towards the future as they look inside themselves and adjusting their behavior to reflect that moral consciousness. Do we however as a global community have the moral willpower to actually think beyond ourselves and the here and now? We are now at a point where we do not have any choice, especially in regards to water. So when do we move beyond meetings to results?

Three Gorges Dam: Hydropower At Huge Human Cost

Three Gorges Dam: Hydropower At Huge Human Cost

For me, weighing an option also means that the negative repercussions must be truthfully weighed in proportion to the positive. In the case of Three Gorges Dam which the Chinese government has touted as a marvel of engineering in it's quest to satisfy its rapacious need for energy, it is turning into an ecological disaster with the negative outweighing the positive. And therein lies the dilemma of our age.

How can we address the climate crisis effectively if we do not or refuse to address the moral questions involved in our decisions? When we continue to prefer the old ways which are expensive and destructive to new ways which can actually improve the quality of life? Do those decisions need to always lead to displacement of millions of people? To the destruction of traditional and sacred lands? To the extinction of other species and intrusion upon their ecosystems?

This is also where we see the intersection of morality and politics, and as we see with the construction of this dam as with so many other projects like this in other countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, and India when the politics overtakes the moral considerations. If we are to see any real progress in mitigating the effects of climate change, we cannot continue to rely on old ways to deal with new situations. And we are running out of time.


Also see:
PBS: Great Wall Across The Yangtze

U.S. Struggles To Restore Iraq Water

U.S. Struggles To Restore Iraq Water

Struggles? After occupying their country for over four years it is still a "struggle?" After bombarding their country in "shock and awe" and more than likely blowing up any water supplies they had, it is a "struggle?" Sorry, I don't believe for a second that they care about Iraqi people having water or that it is a struggle for anyone there but the people of Iraq to survive. I do however believe those who continue to use Iraq as a cash cow care about the ton of money they will make from building these huge plants that I am sure people will have to pay dearly for after having to deal with them "struggling" to fix what they more than likely destroyed for Bechtel.

Bechtel In Iraq

First the oil now the water...and they know that in the Middle East water is something people would pay dearly for. What a disgrace for America to be a part of such a grand deception and human rights abuse.

The Ilisu Dam Controversy

I wonder if this has any bearing on the water situation in Iraq?

Iraq's Marshes, Corporate Control, and Water Scarcity

Vandana Shiva has it right.

Climate Change Could Diminish Drinking Water More Than Expected

Climate Change Could Diminish Drinking Water More Then Expected

When saltwater and fresh water meet, they mix in complex ways, depending on the texture of the sand along the coastline.by Staff WritersColumbus OH (SPX) Nov 07, 2007As sea levels rise, coastal communities could lose up to 50 percent more of their fresh water supplies than previously thought, according to a new study from Ohio State University. Hydrologists here have simulated how saltwater will intrude into fresh water aquifers, given the sea level rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has concluded that within the next 100 years, sea level could rise as much as 23 inches, flooding coasts worldwide.

Scientists previously assumed that, as saltwater moved inland, it would penetrate underground only as far as it did above ground. But this new research shows that when saltwater and fresh water meet, they mix in complex ways, depending on the texture of the sand along the coastline. In some cases, a zone of mixed, or brackish, water can extend 50 percent further inland underground than it does above ground.

Like saltwater, brackish water is not safe to drink because it causes dehydration. Water that contains less than 250 milligrams of salt per liter is considered fresh water and safe to drink.
Motomu Ibaraki, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, led the study. Graduate student Jun Mizuno presented the results Tuesday, October 30, 2007, at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver.

"Most people are probably aware of the damage that rising sea levels can do above ground, but not underground, which is where the fresh water is," Ibaraki said. "Climate change is already diminishing fresh water resources, with changes in precipitation patterns and the melting of glaciers. With this work, we are pointing out another way that climate change can potentially reduce available drinking water. The coastlines that are vulnerable include some of the most densely populated regions of the world."

In the United States, lands along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico -- especially Florida and Louisiana -- are most likely to be flooded as sea levels rise. Vulnerable areas worldwide include Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and northern Europe. "Almost 40 percent of the world population lives in coastal areas, less than 60 kilometers from the shoreline," Mizuno said. "These regions may face loss of freshwater resources more than we originally thought."

Scientists have used the IPCC reports to draw maps of how the world's coastlines will change as waters rise, and they have produced some of the most striking images of the potential consequences of climate change.

Ibaraki said that he would like to create similar maps that show how the water supply could be affected. That's not an easy task, since scientists don't know exactly where all of the world's fresh water is located, or how much is there. Nor do they know the details of the subterranean structure in many places. One finding of this study is that saltwater will penetrate further into areas that have a complex underground structure.
~~~~~
So not only will we have diminished fresh water supplies, we will also have to worry about brackish water penetrating further into the fresh water left underground. It is quite a conundrum we are creating for ourselves.

Bottled Water: Killing The Planet

My video on bottled water.



Want to help save the planet? Stop drinking bottled water.

Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices

No, not the South of Africa or Australia, the Southwest United States. The country where we believe that waste is ok because water lasts forever...Until it's gone. Don't tell me climate change isn't part of this as well as WASTEFULNESS. Why is it humans simply cannot read the signs and always wait until it is too late? What is it in our natures that precludes us always living in denial? We cannot afford to do this any longer. IT IS HERE. And from the map here it looks as though 3/4 of the U.S. is in some form of drought. And we were warned. Tough choices, indeed.

Drought Brings South Tough Choices


By BRENDA GOODMAN
Published: October 16, 2007

ATLANTA, Oct. 15 — For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley asked residents Monday to stop using water for any purpose “not essential to public health and safety.” He warned that he would soon have to declare a state of emergency if voluntary efforts fell short.

“Now I don’t want to have to use these powers,” Mr. Easley told a meeting of mayors and other city officials. “As leaders of your communities, you know what works best at the local level. I am asking for your help.”

Officials in the central North Carolina town of Siler City estimate that without rain, they are 80 days from draining the Lower Rocky River Reservoir, which supplies water for the town’s 8,200 people.

In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city’s main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days.

The hard numbers have shocked the Southeast into action, even as many people wonder why things seem to have gotten so bad so quickly.

Last week, Mayor Charles L. Turner of Siler City declared a water shortage emergency and ordered each “household, business and industry” to reduce water use by 50 percent. Penalties for not complying range from stiff fines to the termination of water service.

“It’s really alarming,” said Janice Terry, co-owner of the Best Foods cafeteria in Siler City. To curtail water use, Best Foods has swapped its dishes for paper plates and foam cups.

Most controversially, it has stopped offering tap water to customers, making them buy 69-cent bottles of water instead. “We’ve had people walk out,” Ms. Terry said. “They get mad when they can’t get a free glass of water.”

For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed “the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,” a reference to that comedian’s repeated lament that he got “no respect.”

“People pay attention to hurricanes,” Mr. Stooksbury said. “They pay attention to tornadoes and earthquakes. But a drought will sneak up on you.”

snip

Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, at a news conference last week, begged people in her city to conserve water. “Please, please, please do not use water unnecessarily,” Ms. Franklin said. “This is not a test.”

Others wondered why the calls to conserve came so late.

“I think there’s been an ostrich-head-in-the-sand syndrome that has been growing,” said Mark Crisp, an Atlanta-based consultant with the engineering firm C. H. Guernsey. “Because we seem to have been very, very slow in our actions to deal with an impending crisis.”

snip

Within two weeks, Carol Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, is expected to send Gov. Sonny Perdue recommendations on tightening water restrictions, which may include mandatory cutbacks on commercial and industrial users.

If that happens, experts at the National Drought Mitigation Center said, it would be the first time a major metropolitan area in the United States had been forced to take such drastic action to save its water supply.

“The situation is very dire,” Mr. Hayes said.

Increase In Ethanol Production From Corn Could Significantly Impact Water Quality

Increase In Ethanol Production From Corn Could Significantly Impact Water Quality


ENERGY TECH
Increase In Ethanol Production From Corn Could Significantly Impact Water Quality

In terms of water quantity, the committee found that agricultural shifts to growing corn and expanding biofuel crops into regions with little agriculture, especially dry areas, could change current irrigation practices and greatly increase pressure on water resources in many parts of the United States. The amount of rainfall and other hydroclimate conditions from region to region causes significant variations in the water requirement for the same crop, the report says.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 16, 2007

If projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could also arise, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report examined policy options and identified opportunities for new agricultural techniques and technologies to help minimize effects of biofuel production on water resources.

Recent increases in oil prices in conjunction with subsidy policies have led to a dramatic expansion in corn ethanol production and high interest in further expansion over the next decade, says the report. Indeed, because of strong national interest in greater energy independence, in this year's State of the Union address, President Bush called for the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which would equal about 15 percent of the U.S. liquid transportation fuels.

A National Research Council committee was convened to look at how shifts in the nation's agriculture to include more energy crops, and potentially more crops overall, could affect water management and long-term sustainability of biofuel production. Based on findings presented at a July colloquium, the committee came to several conclusions about biofuel production and identified options for addressing them.

In terms of water quantity, the committee found that agricultural shifts to growing corn and expanding biofuel crops into regions with little agriculture, especially dry areas, could change current irrigation practices and greatly increase pressure on water resources in many parts of the United States. The amount of rainfall and other hydroclimate conditions from region to region causes significant variations in the water requirement for the same crop, the report says.

For example, in the Northern and Southern Plains, corn generally uses more water than soybeans and cotton, while the reverse is true in the Pacific and mountain regions of the country. Water demands for drinking, industry, and such uses as hydropower, fish habitat, and recreation could compete with, and in some cases, constrain the use of water for biofuel crops in some regions. Consequently, growing biofuel crops requiring additional irrigation in areas with limited water supplies is a major concern, the report says.

Even though a large body of information exists for the nation's agricultural water requirements, fundamental knowledge gaps prevent making reliable assessments about the water impacts of future large scale production of feedstocks other than corn, such as switchgrass and native grasses.

In addition, other aspects of crop production for biofuel may not be fully anticipated using the frameworks that exist for food crops. For example, biofuel crops could be irrigated with wastewater that is biologically and chemically unsuitable for use with food crops, or genetically modified crops that are more water efficient could be developed.

The quality of groundwater, rivers, and coastal and offshore waters could be impacted by increased fertilizer and pesticide use for biofuels, the report says. High levels of nitrogen in stream flows are a major cause of low-oxygen or "hypoxic" regions, commonly known as "dead zones," which are lethal for most living creatures and cover broad areas of the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and other regions.

End of excerpt

Yes, and we know why Bush called for expansion of corn ethanol production.... because the same players are behind it, like Archer Daniels Midland, a company in the pockets of government that is one of the country's worst polluters:

Archer Daniels Midland

Also see:

How the agribusiness industry shapes public policy

And they do the same thing regarding water.

See my other entries on biofuels:

Water Scarcity And Biofuel

Biofuels In Africa: Economic Boon Or Food Threat?

Zimbabwe's Water Crisis

Why is it that governnments can never afford adequate water resources for their poor people, but they all legislate from fancy buildings in fine clothes?

What I Saw In Darfur-By Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General

What I Saw In Darfur-By Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General

What I Saw in Darfur
Untangling the Knots of a Complex Crisis

By Ban Ki-moon
Friday, September 14, 2007; Page A13

We speak often and easily about Darfur. But what can we say with surety? By conventional shorthand, it is a society at war with itself. Rebels battle the government; the government battles the rebels. Yet the reality is more complicated. Lately, the fighting often as not pits tribe against tribe, warlord against warlord.

Nor is the crisis confined to Darfur. It has spilled over borders, destabilizing the region. Darfur is also an environmental crisis -- a conflict that grew at least in part from desertification, ecological degradation and a scarcity of resources, foremost among them water.

I have just returned from a week in Darfur and the surrounding region. I went to listen to the candid views of its people -- Sudanese officials, villagers displaced by fighting, humanitarian aid workers, the leaders of neighboring countries. I came away with a clear understanding. There can be no single solution to this crisis. Darfur is a case study in complexity. If peace is to come, it must take into account all the elements that gave rise to the conflict.

Everything I saw and heard convinced me that this is possible. And we must succeed. Outside El Fasher, the largest city in North Darfur, I visited the El Salam camp, which is sheltering some 45,000 internally displaced people. My heart went out to them. I felt their hopelessness and frustration. I saw children who had not seen life outside the camps. I wanted to give them a sign. I promised that we would do our best to bring peace and to help them return to their villages.

We have made a good start. The U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of 26,000 multinational peacekeepers, jointly conducted by the United Nations and the African Union (A.U.). In going to Darfur, I saw the difficult conditions our forces will encounter -- and saw, too, that our logistical preparations are underway.

No peacekeeping mission can succeed without a peace to keep. We need to push, hard, for a political settlement as well. Indeed, that was the principal purpose of my trip.

In Khartoum, the government of President Omar al-Bashir renewed its unqualified commitment to support the peacekeeping mission as well as comprehensive peace talks. We agreed that negotiations should begin in Libya on Oct. 27, under joint A.U.-U.N. leadership. The government also confirmed its pledge to an immediate cessation of hostilities, as the rebel groups did last month in Arusha. Within hours of my visit, however, there were reports of tensions, clashes and bombings in the northern Darfur town of Haskanita. It is important that both parties exercise restraint and create conditions conducive to the talks.

In dealing with Darfur, we must look beyond it. In Juba, the capital of South Sudan, political leaders are worried that Darfur could deflect attention from the peace agreement signed two years ago, ending a long civil war. As we tend to Darfur, we must not neglect this fragile situation, lest a broader war break out anew and undermine all our efforts.

Any peace must have deep roots if it is to endure. In Juba and El Fasher, I heard about the importance of listening to the voices of a broad range of society -- tribal leaders, representatives of independent political movements, women's and refugee groups, local and national officials. We need a social contract for peace.

When I met Libya's leader, Col. Moammar Gaddafi, in his tent in Sirte, he generously offered to host the peace talks and assured me that he would do his utmost to help make them a success. "It is now or never," he said, emphasizing the widespread view that these negotiations must be final.

During my visit, I was shown Gaddafi's Great Manmade River: hundreds of miles of pipeline carrying millions of gallons of fresh water from beneath the Sahara. In a region where water is so scarce, this is remarkable. Flying over Lake Chad -- a vast inland sea that has shrunk to one-tenth its original size -- the previous day, it was obvious that this region's future also depends on supplies of water.

In N'Djamena, Chad, President Idriss Deby told me that without water, there can be no economic development. Without the prospect of economic advancement, he went on, the quarter-million Darfuri refugees living in the eastern part of his country might never go home. Security and development, he said, go hand in hand. In this regard, the international community can play an important role.

All this underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to the conflict in Darfur. Solutions cannot be piecemeal. The crisis grew from many causes. We must deal with all of them -- security, politics, resources, water, and humanitarian and development issues.

Dealing with complexity makes our work more challenging and difficult. Yet it is the only path to a lasting solution.

The writer is secretary general of the United Nations.
~~~~~~
I thank the Secretary General for placing the urgent issue of the global water crisis front and center. Darfur is but one tragic example of what can happen to a region depleted of its resources. This is most definitely a crisis that the international community must respond to now.

The Water Crisis Looms Large Over Our Planet

By Jan Moore

It is a tragic scenario we see playing out on our only home. With new predictions from scientists that Arctic glaciers may be gone within 23 years and glaciers around the world melting three times faster than worse case scenatios, what are we going to do to preserve the dwindling fresh water resources we are certain to see strained in the next fifteen to twenty years even more than they are now?

One-third of the world’s population is now in need of potable water which was a scenario not predicted to happen until around 2025 and which is now predicted to get worse unless things change drastically. We are nearly twenty years ahead of predictions on this and yet we are woefully unprepared for the consequences. There is no other way to state this: unless we work to solve this global water crisis now, many of the poor and malnourished in our world where this crisis is most dire will die.

A report by the International Water Management Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka, put out last year painted a bleak picture of global access to fresh water and warned us that this Earth cannot continue by doing business as usual. The time for doing business as usual is over. However, are we listening?

We are reaching the breaking point in many areas of our world due to waste, pollution, mismanagement, lack of water infrastructure, inadequate water infrastructure, and privitization. However, the most damning reason for this is our own lack of will and a basic misunderstanding by people (especially in America) that water is an infinite resource that we can continue to use without any concern for tomorrow. It isn't. And we can't.

Therefore, areas where the poor are looking for a way to not only lift themselves out of poverty but also have a chance at survival must be shown ways to conserve water such as rain catchement, rain agriculture, and effective conservation. This also then ties into people in these areas having information about the climate crisis and its effects and how they can best deal with those effects. The Yellow River basin in China which feeds literally millions of people is just one example of resources exhausted to the point where they can no longer sustain life. Where would those millions of people go?

Just what are we doing?

Is it really that hard to bring better agricultural techniques to farmers in these countries? Is it really that hard to teach them how to deal with the affects of climate change? Is it really that hard to actually do as we say must be done?

* rain water agriculture- cheap, efficient, and saves water.

* rain water catchment (off houses and roads)- cheap, efficient, and saves water. And of course, the health and safety of those using it must also be taken into consideration.

* less water intensive crops that yield more to give farmers more for their planting.

* pressure bought to bear on governments to shore up water infrastructure and work to eliminate corruption and mismanagement.

* planting trees in the most deforested areas to bring water to the source and provide sustinence.

* also providing information and services for women and men in third world countries regarding birth control and health.

These are just some ways to begin which are all possible, but like with anything else those involved in it must also feel hope for the future.

As to how that should happen, we need a "Marshall Plan" (reference to the Honorable Al Gore's term from his book Earth In The Balance) to modernize Africa and look at the priorities of those who live there and in other areas of our world where the climate/water crisis will change their relationship to the planet instead of just throwing money at it (but it cannot be disputed that money is also important, though not the only factor.) But action must begin now or the need for water globally will far exceed capacity to provide it. Howewer, by doing the moral thing we could actually decrease global demand by half. I think the choice is clear, and it is a choice we all have to make.


Water is life

In Ladakh Glacier Melt Raises Fear Of Water Woes

In Ladakh Glacier Melt Raises Fear Of Water Woes

In Ladakh, glacier melt raises fears of water woes
by Staff Writers

Leh, India (AFP) Sept 19, 2007

Rinchen Wangchuck remembers slipsliding his way down a glacier that stretched far down the mountains toward his village in the Nubra Valley, in India's far north, after school ended for the summer. Today, Wangchuck says that glacier is all but gone.

Like him, many who live in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh where glaciers are a part of daily life are reporting similar disquieting changes.

"As a young boy I remember the road wouldn't be open. We used to trek across the glacier. You slid a lot of the way," recalled Wangchuck, 37, now head of the environmental organisation Snow Leopard Conservancy.

Wangchuck often travels the 40 kilometres (26 miles) from Ladakh's capital Leh to the Khardung-La pass that lets into the valley and says he has watched the glacier on the north face of the Karakoram mountains shrink before his eyes.

"Twenty years ago the road opened into a wall of ice. Today that wall of ice is barely there," he said.

In a region where annual rainfall is around 50 millimetres (two inches) and glaciers provide 90 percent of the water, Ladakhis worry they may be among the first to feel the effects of global warming.

Trekking guide Sonam Chosgial, who leads climbing groups once or twice a year up to Stok peak, visible from Leh, says the glacier he passes on the way to the summit has shrunk too.

"Since the last five to six years it has been decreasing in size," he said. "You used to need to cross it in a more technical way. Now it is not very risky to do."

-- Locals see weather fluctuations and retreating snowlines --

Others report weather fluctuations -- snow and rain at odd times -- and a snowline that appears to be steadily creeping upwards.

In Ladakh, sandwiched between India's rivals Pakistan and China, weather data is closely guarded by the army and air force which have a heavy presence.

In any case, just a handful of the thousands of Himalayan glaciers are studied using a field method that provides a first-hand gauge of their retreat well before it becomes visible by satellite.

But what little information is available confirms what Ladakhis are seeing.

Measurements of one Ladakh glacier taken from 2001 to 2003 with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver show an estimated annual retreat of 15 to 20 metres (49 to 66 feet).

"This rate is chaos. That should not happen," said paleoclimatologist Bahadur Kotlia, who took the measurements of a glacier on the south face of the Karakoram mountains out of curiosity on his way to the Nubra valley for research.

A satellite-based study of 466 Himalayan glaciers published in January by scientists with the Indian Space Research Organisation estimated their area had reduced by 21 percent since the 1960s.

"I knew things are changing very dramatically but I never had a clue (of the) extent they are retreating," the study's lead author Anil Kulkarni, who has been studying Indian glaciers for 20 years, told AFP.

China last month reported a similar decrease over the same time span in glacier area in its northwest.

"This is half a percent per year so it's quite a fast shrinking," said Wilfried Haeberli, director of the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service coordinating body.

Scientists say temperatures in the region have increased by between 0.15 and 0.6 degrees Celsius (0.27 and 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade for the last 30 years.

Himalayan glaciers are the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers, vital for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.

-- Melting snows mean abundant water, but only for now --

The melting of the glaciers bodes particularly ill for rain-scarce Ladakh where water demand has risen in recent years, spurred by tourism.

In the old part of Leh, residents still get water from hand pumps using only as much as they can carry back up the alleys in buckets.

But in the new town, hotels and guesthouses with flushes and showers to supply are pumping up groundwater. Officials acknowledge that water use is uneven and unplanned.

"Very recently we started boring water,"said Chering Dorjay, head of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council. "People are pumping too much water and water levels are going down."

Farmers, though, are reporting plenty of water in glacier-fed streams.

"In the last 20 years we have hardly had any drought. Without good snowfall there is still good water in the streams," said a concerned Dorjay. "That means whatever reserves we have are melting."

Scientists say that a period of water "luxury" -- as glaciers release water reserves built over thousands of years -- will precede the water woes to come.

"What is happening is a lot of snow is melting in winter itself," said glaciologist Kulkarni. "There may be a time when we do not feel the pinch, but this luxury aspect will not last that long."

The scientist's research showed that winter snowmelt in one Indian river basin had increased by 75 percent in the last 40 years.

Councillor Dorjay said officials are considering ways to hoard water, including reservoirs and artificial glaciers -- made by channeling winter streams into a depression to slow the water flow, which allows it to freeze.

Ladakh's "artificial glacier" man, who brought the technique to several villages more than a decade ago, said underground streams will also be affected by rising temperatures and declining snowfall.

"There used to be heavy snowfall even in Leh in winter -- two to three feet. Now there's hardly one foot," said Chewang Norphel, head of the Leh Nutrition Project. "The underground streams are also fed by snowfall."

But Norphel, as he visited the farming village of Nang where the fields were green with barley, peas and potatoes, tries to remain upbeat about Ladakh's changing climate.

"Perhaps it will rain more," he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a classic example of the effects of climate change. Glaciers which provide the region's entire water supply are shrinking much faster than anyone had predicted, and in areas like Ladekh where there is minimal rainfall to begin with that does not bode well for the people there once the water is gone... especially if they waste it. And with tourism in the area going up what will they do? If they charge tourists more for their water use would tourism go down thus depriving them of income?

Methods mentioned to save the water they have are a step in the right direction, but hoarding alone will not save them if they do not have the moral will to conserve that which they hoard and find other ways to conserve. Perhaps with changing weather patterns it will at some point rain more, but can you really base your future on that?

Philanthropist Brings Hope, Safe Water To Women Around the World

Philanthropist Brings Hope, Safe Water To Women Around The World

September 20, 2007 - The afternoon heat in a rural India village of the Tamil Nadu region is stifling as the members of the women’s self-help group gather for their meeting. What unites them today is the defining need of their lives: water. Working together, they have secured an accessible, safe water source in their community. A woman dressed in a brightly colored sari stands up. Prior to the new water source, she says, each month the contaminated water made at least one of her four children sick and she would have to walk seven miles to the nearest clinic. Since the new water source was installed, she states proudly, she hasn’t needed to take her children for medical attention.

After relating this story, philanthropist Wynnette LaBrosse, founder of Agora Foundation, explained that it’s the power of safe water to transform the health and lives of women and girls like these that inspired her to enter the water and sanitation sector. “When I learned about the plight of women and girls in regard to lack of water and sanitation, I clearly saw that water is at the heart of almost every key women’s issue,” says LaBrosse. “I wanted to make a difference at this most essential level.”

With ready access to safe water, women and girls will no longer have to spend long hours walking to distant, often polluted water sources, nor will they have to care for children sick with water-related diseases. Instead, women can engage in income-generating activity and girls can go to school. Ms. LaBrosse sums it up concisely: “Water gives women their lives back; it gives girls a potential for creating their lives through education.”

In 2004, Agora Foundation provided $1 million to help launch WaterPartners’ WaterCredit Initiative, a unique program providing access to credit financing for the world’s poor so they can build and sustain their own water and sanitation systems.

“With WaterCredit, people gain a new sense of control over their lives,” says LaBrosse. “When visiting WaterPartners projects in India, we stopped in four villages. I met a woman who took out a loan for a water connection. Because she no longer had to spend hours each day collecting water, she started sewing clothes to earn money for herself and her family. She beamed with pride and with the dignity her handiwork and the loan brought her in the eyes of others – and in her own.” These, explains LaBrosse, are the outcomes that fuel Agora’s work.

end of excerpt

~~~~~~~~
This is a story of inspiration and hope. A story we need to see more often in this world regarding bringing safe water to people of the world, and in especially freeing women in developing and third world countries from the backbreaking and dangerous task of providing water to their families that is more often than not not fit for their consumption.

This is the crux of what makes us moral beings and to me is why we are on this Earth: To bring hope and life to those for whom those two things are in short supply but are just as much their right to have as for it is for us.

Water scarcity and working to end it is also a social and human rights issue as well as a moral issue. Women in many societies are looked upon as second class citizens and forced to do this back breaking work that is often dangerous and unhealthy bringing with it ill health, lack of education for them and their daughters, and a theft of their dignity as human beings. This is then in my view how you win hearts and minds and how you begin to repair the damage we have done socially, environmentally, morally, and spiritually to our world. Therefore, thank you to all those like Ms. LaBrosse who bring this life saving right to those in need.


WATER IS LIFE.

Facts and Figures

2.4. billion people in the world, in other words two fifths of the world population, do not have access to adequate health.

1.1. billion people in the world, in other words one sixth of the world population, do not have access to potable water.

2.2. million people in developing countries are dying every year, most of them children, from diseases linked to the lack of access to clean drinking water, inadequate health and poor hygiene.

6000 boys and girls die everyday from diseases linked to the lack of access to clean drinking water, inadequate health and poor hygiene.

The average distance a woman in Africa and Asia walks to collect water is 6 km.

The weight of water that women in Asia and Africa carry on their heads is equivalent to the baggage weight allowed by airlines (20 kg).

In developing countries one person uses an average of 10 liters of water per day. In the United Kingdom, one person uses an average of 135 liters of water everyday.

When you flush the toilet, you are using the same water amount that one person in the Third World uses all day to wash, clean, cook and drink.

In the last ten years, diarrhea has killed more girls and boys than all people who have died since World War II.

In China, Indonesia, and India, the people dying from diarrhea are double to those dying from HIV/AIDS.

The population of Nairobi, Kenya, pays five times more for one liter of water than does a North American citizen.

The Guatemalan a hand-washing initiative reduced 322,000 deaths from diarrhea in 1998.

1.5. billion people in the world are suffering from parasite infections due to solid waste in the environment, which could be controlled with hygiene, water and sanitation. These infections can cause malnutrition, anemia and delayed growth.

In China, Mexico and Vietnam, communities are practicing ecological healthiness.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources:

Global Water Partnership, Understanding the Causes of Water Problems

Marcelina White, ¿Cómo afectará el ALCA a la mujer? (“How Will FTAA Affect Women?”), Women's EDGE

UNIFEM, Mujer, Medio Ambiente, Agua: Reflexiones sobre la promoción y protección del derecho de las mujeres al agua (“Women, Environment, Water: Reflections on the Promotion and Protection of Women’s Right to Water”), 24 de marzo del 2003

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, WASH Facts and Figures

WEDO, Conexiones No Escritas: Diferencias de Género en Cuanto al Uso y Manejo del Agua ("Unwritten Connections: Gender Differences Regarding the Use and Management of Water”)

World Water Development Report, El acceso al Agua como Derecho Humano (“Access to Water as a Human Right”)

As Climate Warms, Cities Look To Adjust

As climate warms, cities look to adjust
By John K. Wiley

The Associated Press

SPOKANE — Unlike her neighbors', Rachael Paschal Osborn's yard isn't an expanse of green grass meticulously fertilized and watered on schedule by timed sprinklers.

Paschal Osborn, a public-interest lawyer who teaches water law at Gonzaga University's Law School, doesn't like to waste a drop. So the grass in her west Spokane yard is brown during the summer, while drought-resistant native plants and her vegetable garden thrive on drip irrigation.

Climate experts say the rest of Washington may have to follow Paschal Osborn's example in the future as global warming changes the way residents use water on their yards and in their homes.

The gradual warming of the earth's surface will have both benefits and drawbacks for municipal water systems, they say.

Kurt Ungur, a hydrogeologist with the state Department of Ecology, said a warmer climate likely will produce about the same amounts of precipitation — possibly a bit more — but its timing will change from historic patterns.

In winter, more precipitation will fall as rain, rather than snow, which serves as the mountain "bank" for much of the state's water supplies. In spring, warmer temperatures will bring earlier runoff, leading to potential conflicts over scarce water in late summer, he said.

Paschal Osborn, co-founder with husband John Osborn of the nonprofit Columbia Institute for Water Policy, said most of the state's cities are unprepared for the consequences of global warming.

"The potential for change is dramatic. It could change the natural ecology of forests. It is also going to change the human landscape," Paschal Osborn said. "It will change what we can grow for crops and what we can grow in our yards."

Paschal Osborn, Ungur and others point to Seattle, which has taken the lead in promoting water conservation and planning for the effects of climate change.

Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, Calif., said communities could reduce their annual water consumption by 30 percent through use of low-flow devices, efficient landscaping and more efficient use of water by commercial and industrial customers.

Paul Fleming, manager of climate-change initiatives for Seattle's water utility, said the key will be mitigating effects of greenhouse-gas emissions, then adapting to the changes that warming will bring.

"The impacts don't manifest themselves for quite a while. I think we have some time to make investments to strengthen the resiliency of our system," Fleming said.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
~~~~~~~~
My previous entry this year on effect of climate change on Washington state and melting glaciers:

North Cascade Glaciers

You must look at these pictures.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 · Last updated 6:01 p.m. PT

New study says climate change already affecting Washington

By GENE JOHNSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SEATTLE -- From more devastating wildfires to decreased snow in the mountains, climate change is already affecting Washington's economy, a new report says.

And as temperatures continue to increase, the changes will only become more dramatic: Low-lying areas such as the Skagit River delta will flood as sea levels rise, more people will get asthma as pollution worsens and the state's dairy cows will produce less milk in hotter weather, to cite a few of the report's warnings.

The report was commissioned by the state departments of Ecology and Community Trade and Economic Development, and was researched and written by Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon, with guidance from Washington economists and scientists.

There are too many variables involved to put a price tag on the impact climate change is already having or will have in the future, the report said.

"Absent focused efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare, to the extent possible, for the environmental and economic changes that cannot be avoided, damage to our Northwest economy will only increase," Ecology Director Jay Manning said in a news release.

The 119-page report weighs the effects of warmer temperatures on various sectors of the economy, based on predictions that the region's climate will warm half-a-degree per decade over the next several decades, and poses questions for policymakers to consider.

Among the gravest concerns are effects that retreating snowpack in the mountains will have on hydropower generation, drinking water supplies, irrigation for crops and stream flows for salmon. As many as 75 percent of glaciers in the North Cascades could vanish in this century if those warming predictions prove true, the report said.

Climate Change Affecting Washington State
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glaciers are melting all over the world from the Himalayas, to the Alps, to South America, to Africa, New Zealand, Greenland, the Arctic, and also right here in the United States. And they are melting at a faster rate than scientists had previously predicted because the real affects of human induced climate change combined with other weather phenomenon are much more extreme than anticipated as well.

The signs are there regarding what human behavior regarding burning fossil fuels to wasteful management of resources is doing to our planet and our resources, chief among them water. It is time for people to see these signs, understand them truthfully, and prepare for what we have put into motion as well by doing everything possible to preserve what we have left. We threaten our future existence the longer we continue to drag our feet.

Many people do not realize how important an indicator melting glaciers are regarding climate change. With every inch that melts, it is less snow pack to fill rivers and streams that provide water for living. With every inch that melts, a bit of climate history goes with it.

Glaciers Melting Worldwide, Study Finds

I do not believe we can now stop these glaciers from melting, but we can hopefully slow it down and begin to help mitigating even more catastrophic affects of the climate crisis that will threaten the world water supply even more severely in years to come. Conservation is key. Facing the crisis of overpopulation is key in regards to providing people in underdeveloped and developing countries with information on family planning and birth control. Looking into alternate energies (not corn ethanol) for underdeveloped countries and developing countries that do not waste water (as in solar power.) And most importantly, educating people about irrigation methods (such as subsurface drip irrigation) that do not waste water!

This for sure is a crisis that has already begun. However, the most devastating effects of it can be mitigated if we only see the URGENCY of acting NOW. How long will we wait? Until the Snows of Kilamanjaro are gone? Until there are no more Alps? No more Himalayas? The repercussions of such a thing are simply too catastrophic to contemplate.

Also see my other entries on this topic with more to come:

The Glaciers of South America: Cities In Peril Of Losing Water

Tibet's Lofty Glaciers Melting Away

Water At Risk For Millions Due To Melting Glaciers

BACKING OUR EARTH AGAINST THE WALL

This is not going to be another pretty please to 'politicians' to ask them to please do more on this crisis. This is not going to be sweet, or nice, or beating around the bush. The bottom line Earthlings, is that we as a species are committing slow suicide to ourselves and murdering species, trees, plants, the rainforests, rivers and oceans, the atmosphere, and all ecosystems that support our own existence and it is being done out of willful ignorance which is morally reprehensible.

We now know that human behavior is contributing to the rise of GHGs in our atmosphere which is in turn causing rising seas, accelerated melting of glaciers specifically in the Arctic which threatens our climate balance, stronger storms, droughts, wildfires, floods, deforestation, desertification, the spread of disease, species extinction, invasive species, water shortages, and erratic weather patterns.

These conditions are then in turn causing the death of livestock, the extinction and disappearance of species important to the web of life, hunger, lack of potable water, environmental degradation of land needed to grow food, pollution, and the possibility of millions of environmental refugees who will be forced to leave their homes because where they live will be uninhabitable...and that is already happening in places like Bangladesh, Vanuatu, and other islands that have already been swallowed up by the rising seas. And the economic devastation because of it is so much more than it could ever be in not doing the right thing, not to mention the environmental damage and the spiritual damage to our balance with this planet.

I am then so sick of these socalled 'conferences' that come out with false rhetoric about seeking to fight climate change and then LET THIS EARTH DOWN without binding targets. I am sick of climate change being used as a political wedge issue rather than treated as the URGENT MORAL crisis it is with governments backing down by using the economy as a damn excuse to sit and DO NOTHING and waste more time while this world melts around us! But of course, that is the way of "politics".

After all of the petitions signed, the letters written, the phone calls, the flyers, the blog entries, the changes I have made in my own life and in doing all I can to spread this message to others, there is only thing left I can say to the developed countries of this world including the U.S. and China, and India (which in my book are developed countries based on their economies and what they are contributing to this crisis because of it now):

It is time to stop the stalling and DO SOMETHING NOW, because words no longer mean anything. We are heading for a definite tipping point in the climate balance of this Earth that will have catastrophic effects on the habitability of this planet. Scientists have confirmed it, and Mother Nature is now illustrating it in response to our behavior on a global basis. WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE?

It is absolutely morally reprehensible for any country that is contributing the most to this crisis to still sit on its hands and play these "it will be bad for our economy" games while the poor of this world become more and more vulnerable to the effects of this crisis! These are the same games that were played THIRTY and TWENTY years ago, and you should know that it is logical that WITHOUT A SUSTAINABLE PLANET your economy won't mean squat. As a matter of fact, it has been proven that sustainable investments and practices not only SAVE money but bring jobs and a safer, cleaner, more PEACEFUL world.

But continue to have your 'conferences' that let the Earth and those species that cannot defend themselves down and still expect her to sustain you. The arrogance of those perpetuating this crisis truly blows me away. Let us hope that the U.N. Climate summit in Bali gives us more than this same rhetoric, because seriously, we are running out of time.

And as for PM Howard's remarks you can see right through them. In other words, 'Just don't do anything to ruin our profits and we can "agree" to talk about it and make it look good.' Australia will be in a perpetual state of drought that will be commonplace. But yes, PM Howard, continue to burn and sell that coal.

Al Gore is right. Unless WE go to the barricades, you can say goodbye to the world as we once knew it and we will then have no one to blame but ourselves because as far as 'politicians' go, all they are doing is backing our Earth up against the wall.

APEC leaders agree climate change pact at summit
By Jalil Hamid
Sat Sep 8,
9:35 AM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific leaders agreed on Saturday to a "long-term aspirational goal" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but no binding targets, and are expected to end their summit on Sunday urging a conclusion to world trade talks.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters 21 Asia-Pacific leaders had agreed to a "Sydney Declaration" on climate change, calling it "a new international consensus."

He said the leaders agreed for the need for all nations, developing and developed, to contribute according to their own capacities and circumstances to reducing greenhouse gases.

"We are serious about addressing in a sensible way, compatible with our different economic needs, the great challenge of climate change," he said at the end of the first day of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Green groups called it a failure without binding targets.

"The Sydney Declaration is really just a Sydney distraction from real action on climate change," Greenpeace energy campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick said.

The declaration was seen as a compromise between the rich and poor APEC economies, which together account for about 60 percent of the world's economy.

Developing economies, led by China and Indonesia, opposed any wording that commits them to binding targets, believing it would hinder economic development. They argue developed nations should take more responsibility for climate change.

Proponents of the declaration say it sets the stage for the U.N. climate convention's annual summit in Bali, Indonesia in December, which is looking for a successor to the existing U.N. pact, known as the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

end of excerpt
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, John Ruwitch in Sydney)

China: Ravaged Rivers

China:Ravaged Rivers

CHINA: Ravaged Rivers

by Jane Spencer, Wall Street Journal
August 22nd, 2007

Last summer, Chinese government investigators crawled through a hole in the concrete wall that surrounds the Fuan Textiles mill in southern China and launched a surprise inspection of the plant. What they found caused alarm at dozens of American retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Lands' End Inc. and Nike Inc., that use the company's fabric in their clothes.

Villagers had complained that the factory, majority owned by Hong Kong-based Fountain Set Holdings Ltd., had turned their river water dark red. Authorities discovered a pipe buried underneath the factory floor that was dumping roughly 22,000 tons of water contaminated from its dyeing operations each day into a nearby river, according to local environmental-protection officials.

In the more than two decades since international companies began turning to Chinese factories to churn out the cheap T-shirts, jeans and sneakers that people around the world wear daily, China's air, land and water have paid a heavy price. China has faced harsh criticism in recent months over the safety of exports ranging from tainted toothpaste to toxic toys. But environmental activists and the Chinese government are increasingly pointing to the flip side: the role multinational companies play in China's growing pollution by demanding ever-lower prices for Chinese products.

Prices on fabric and clothing imported to the U.S. have fallen 25% since 1995, partly due to the downward pricing pressure brought by discount retail chains. One way China's factories have historically kept costs down is by dumping waste water directly into rivers. Treating contaminated water costs upwards of about 13 cents a metric ton, so large factories can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by sending waste water directly to rivers in violation of China's water-pollution laws.

"Prices in the U.S. are artificially low," says Andy Xie, former chief economist for Morgan Stanley Asia, who now works independently. "You're not paying the costs of pollution, and that is why China is an environmental catastrophe."

end of excerpt

Polluted China Rivers Threaten Sixth of Population
Updated Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:32pm AEST




A Chinese workers clears away rubbish from a polluted river in Beijing. (File photo) (AFP: Teh Eng Koon)


Polluters along two of China's main rivers have defied over a decade of clean-up efforts, leaving much of the water unfit to touch, let alone drink, and a risk to a sixth of the population, state media says.

Half the check points along the Huai River and its tributaries in central and eastern China showed pollution of "Grade 5" or worse; the top of the dial in key toxins, meaning that the water was unfit for human contact and may not be fit even for irrigation.

Fourteen years of measures had reined in some of the worst pollution along the Huai and Liao Rivers but factory waste remains far too high, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) environment and resources protection committee Mao Rubai said in a report.

The rivers posed a "threat to the water safety of one sixth of the country's 1.3 billion population", the China Daily said.

The pollution on the Huai threatened the massive South-North Water Transfer Project to draw water from the Yangtze River through the Huai basin to the country's parched north, Mr Mao said.

"Large volumes of untreated domestic effluent and industrial waste-water are dumped directly into the river," Mr Mao said of one of the Huai's worst polluted tributaries.

"To judge from the inspection, the quality of water used for the South-North Water Transfer Project is threatened by pollution, and this must attract our vigilance."

end of excerpt.
~~~~
Water pollution, air pollution, acid rain, water scarcity, SO2 pollution, desertification, deforestation, drought... All products of China's enormous and hastened economic boom. At the beginning China's attitude was progress at any cost, but now they are paying dearly for the masssive amounts of Co2 So2, Nitrates, and other pollutants their "progress" is spewing into our world's air and their waterways which is killing more than 90% of their rivers and lakes and treating our atmosphere like an open sewer.

I have written a few times about China because to me it is a country that represents the epitome of a moral challenge as does the United States. In its fervor to be number one it abandoned its moral soul just as the United States has done in its quest to be the ultimate war machine. Now, China can sit and blame the United States for that (and some of the blame in regards to "cheap outsourcing" may well fall on the U.S.,) but the truth is that moral fortitude is something you either have or you don't.

The picture in China regarding its environment looks bleak if government does not step up now to quickly mitigate the damage they are causing to the ecosystems of this world and the economic losses of crops and land that make their progress over pollution agenda a losing proposition.

And above all, the greatest loss will be the water. With glaciers in this region melting at a faster pace than first predicted by scientists and at a faster pace than their worst scenarios, they will need sources of water to fall back on. Polluted rivers and lakes in concert with dams that are bringing on pollution and environmental degradation along with an encroaching desert and other conditions brought on by their insatiable addiction to coal, are not conditions conducive to either responsible government or moral fortitude.

At this stage it is going to take more than some efficiency lightbulbs to solve this massive problem. It is going to take China seeing that progress does not mean you have to give up sustainability and it is going to take this country allowing their people to speak freely about the environment because in China it is now a matter of life and death that they do.

SIWI-World Water Week Report

World Water Week/Stockholm
A comprehensive and thorough report of the events from each day of the conference.

Strong Messages As 2007 World Water Week Ends
8/19/2007

It is Time to Do Better on Global Poverty, Sanitation, Water Scarcity and Climate Change

Stockholm, Sweden — A 2007 World Water Week in Stockholm that began with a call for governments around the world to better manage their existing water resources concluded Friday morning with the 2,500 participants from 140 countries saying, collectively that progress is being made, but in the face of global poverty, critical lack of sanitation, water scarcity and climate change, we all need to do much better. The date, theme and location for the 2008 event was also announced: “Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World,” to be held August 17-23, 2008, at the Stockholm International Fairs centre.

Anders Berntell, Executive Director of the host Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), while assessing at the end of the event the efforts to improve the world water situation, said: “There is progress, but there is still far too little action and now when climate change is upon us and we need to adapt even faster. None of us can say we are prepared but it’s clear that poor people will again suffer the most. Changes in water availability are what will hit us first with an altered climate; rising sea levels and floods in certain regions but drought in others. The pressure on infrastructure and physical planning will be considerable. Ecosystem management will be fundamental. The question remains relevant: Why is water still not high enough on the political agenda?”

Climate, sanitation and hygiene, water management, ecosystems and biodiversity, technology and business issues were prominent programme focal points throughout the week. SIWI itself called for governments around the world to better manage how they use their existing water resources, taking necessary and sometimes painful measures to decrease losses in water delivery infrastructure and irrigation, to cut subsidies to agriculture, and to put in place realistic water-pricing measures – all before attempting to boost water supplies. The World Water Week, which included 140 co-convening organisations, witnessed the launch of a number of new and groundbreaking studies, reports and initiatives designed to improve a global situation where billions of people are without sustainable access to safe drinking water or suffering ill health due to poor sanitation, where bioenergy demands are diverting water from food production, and where global climate change is affecting the overall water balance.

Studies, reports and initiatives and announcements to be made during the week include:

UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency working with human settlements, launched the 1) Global Water Operators’ Partnership and the 2) Water and Sanitation Trust Fund.

SIWI and the Swedish Water House launched four new reports: Making Anti-Corruption Approaches Work for the Poor; On the Verge of a New Water Scarcity; Agriculture, Water, and Ecosystems; and Planning for Drinking Water and Sanitation in Peri-Urban Areas.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) launched the Global Water Tool.

The Water Supply and Sanitation Council (WSSCC) and SIWI announced the opening of the nomination period for the WASH Media Award.

British charity WaterAid launched Global Cause and Effect: How the Aid System is Undermining the Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Water Partnership announced 1) Letitia A. Obeng as the new Chair of GWP and 2) released the policy brief Climate Change Adaptation and Water Management, and 3) the book Sustainable Sanitation in Eastern and Central Europe.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, released a position paper named Natural Resource Tenure.

The Asian Development Bank released Dignity, Disease and Dollars: Asia’s Urgent Sanitation Challenge.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) South Africa presented new technology for removing heavy metals and subsequent radioactivity from mines.

The Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC) released Water, Climate, Risk and Adaptation, and presented its new resource centre on water, climate, risk, adaptation and mitigation.

The World Water Council (WWC), the General Directorate State Hydraulic Works for Turkey (DSI) and the Secretariat of the 5th World Water Forum released the First Announcement of the 5th Forum, to be held in 2009.

Borealis and Bororouge became a Founder of the Stockholm Water Prize.

The International Institute for Environment and Development issued two briefing papers that summarise new research on payments for watershed services in developing nations.

The International Foundation for Science released Strengthening Capacity for Water Resources Research in Countries with Vulnerable Scientific Infrastructure.
The Government of Singapore and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed a new partnership agreement to jointly promote the safe management of drinking water globally.

The Water Environment Federation and the International Water Association introduced the revamped World Water Monitoring Day initiative and provide kits to Stockholm Junior Water Prize participants.

The International Water & Film Events Istanbul 2009 issued the official call for entries.

The Water Integrity Network launched new website to fight corruption in the water sector.

The closing session on August 17 looked eastward to China, where the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics and China’s increasing emergence as the world largest developing economy were in focus. Chinese Vice Minister of Water Resources, Zhou Ying, presenting China’s contributions to the conference’s theme, Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World, stating: “China remains the face of industrialisation. Shortage of resources is a bottleneck for development, so we will work to harmonize resource saving, clean production, and integrate water management into our sustainable social and economic development.”

In the week that preceded the closing session, a number of interesting topics were taken up in seminars, workshops and side events. These and all other events will be summarised in the Synthesis Report to be made available in the late Fall of 2007.

SOURCE: The World Water Week
~~~~~~~
Per this conference and this report our choice as human beings is clear: if we do not move now to conserve this precious resource and stop polluting our waterways and freshwater supplies, we will embark upon an era of water scarcity not yet seen in our world. Poverty, population increases, waste, political indifference, corruption, mismanagement, privatization, climate change, and using water and other resources for biofuels such as ethanol over sustaining our people and other species will cause us to move backward instead of forward.

And while this conference brought out many reports that bring these stark facts to our consciousness, the implementation of sound and economical steps to ensure that water is available to all who need it is our constant challenge. Another challenge for us is to make this crisis a part of the global political and moral dialogue as it does not get nearly the amount of attention it deserves as the foremost environmental challenge we will face in the 21st Century.

There is no more important charge that we have as human beings than to preserve our planet and to work to see a day when all children in our world regardless of location or circumstance never have to go a day thirsty, hungry, or in need of this life giving resource that replenishes their bodies and souls. This is my mission in life, for water to me is a miracle that we can no longer take for granted.

WATER IS LIFE.

Egyptian Villages Fight Water War

Egyptian Villages Fight Water War

Egyptian villages fight water war
by Staff Writers

Cairo (AFP) Aug 16, 2007

The land of the Nile is seeing a rising tide of protests at a shortage of drinking water amid accusations the government would rather irrigate golf courses than slake the thirst of villages.

A wave of demonstrations and ensuing clashes with police in recent weeks has left dozens injured in a country where the Nile River provides 95 percent of fresh water and irrigation uses up 80 percent of that.

The Arab world's most populous nation, with 76 million people, has a water deficit of 20 billion cubic metres (706 billion cubic feet) a year, according to government statistics.

Many inhabitants of the desert nation's villages are forced to resort to buying jerry cans of water from occasional tanker trucks or improvising wells to bring up often unclean water.

"Last week the tap water was yellow and smelled bad," said Nefertiti, 23, who lives in the Nile delta village of Borg el-Borollos, to the north of Cairo, declining to give her last name.

Water-borne illness, diarrhoea and dehydration are common in Egypt and "the thirsty," as the road-blocking protesters have been dubbed by the Egyptian press, say the government is doing nothing to end their plight.

Some accuse the government of prioritising water for the wealthy and for tourist destinations while villagers often have to pay water bills even when their taps are dry.

New, middle-class residential developments outside Cairo and the requisite golf courses and swimming pools further strain resources.

Faced with the mounting popular anger, Habitat Minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi announced the release of one billion Egyptian pounds (130 million euros/117 million dollars) in emergency measures to relieve those most affected.

New water pipes will be laid, around one hundred purification plants built and 500 wells dug in a country where many villages have not had running water for months or even years.

"Medium-term measures seem to be adequate, but they're not going to solve the immediate problems," said Hamdi al-Sayyad, president of the doctors' syndicate.

Egypt's water war, he said, is going to take years to resolve and, by then, new problems will have arisen.

End of excerpt.
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This is absolutely insane. 80% wasted in irrigation when there are currently methods available to save water in this process? It is the same story we hear about in countless places around the world. Overpopulation and waste is leading the world to a moral reckoning. And as per this article, political indifference in order to make profits and exclude the poor is also a common tale. This then does not just entail laying new infrastructure, it entails the government of Egypt working with its citizens to provide family planning to stem the tide of new births that is putting pressure on existing resources if there is not a way to use them more conservatively, wisely, and equitably.

Our Earth as she stands now is finding it more and more difficult to sustain us with the finite reources she has in balance to the infinite number of ways we continue to find to despoil her. And what we are seeing now in all areas of the world is a lack of planning and moral will by people to do what is right by her over what is convenient for themselves, and that is a formula for disaster.

I also see this as a class war of sorts. It always is the poor who must suffer from the policies of the rich and where it concerns water it is a human rights abuse in my view. It is then good to see that the Habitat Minister has designated funds to dig wells, lay pipes, and do what is necessary to bring water to the people in need of it. However, this will not be the end as population increases, waste continues, and climate change makes itself evermore prevalent in this area of the world. And in an arid land such as Egypt, such waste is most definitely deadly.

More information on the history of Egypt's water woes:

Taming The Nile's Serpents

The Nile is looked upon as sacred and fearsome to the people in Ethiopia and that is something that has in turn hurt their existence as they only use 2% of the water available to them. This is a fascinating account of a trip down the Blue Nile posted by National Geographic, and to me brings out a point regarding water scarcity in areas where the water is sacred. Would people choose to use the water for their sustinence when faced with a true crisis, or would they choose to die to protect the sacred waters? And if this river is so sacred, why is it being so polluted? Like the Ganges River In India which is also considered sacred by its people, it is however one of the most polluted waterways in the world. This is where ancient traditions clash with modern reality.

The Blue Nile

My other entry on states working to share the Nile from last year:

African States Work To Share Nile

World Water Week In Stockholm/12-18th August

World Water Week

From the site:

What’s World Water Week?

World Water Week (held in Stockholm between 12 and 18 August) brings together experts in water and sanitation from across the globe with 40 seminars and nine workshops under the overall theme of ‘Progress and Prospects on water - striving for sustainability in a changing world’. The event will explore the complex relationships between the economy, government, infrastructure and livelihoods. It will also review progress on water and sanitation and look to build partnerships for sustainable development.
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Once this event is over I will post comments on the decisions made in Stockholm. Suffice it to say that at this particular conference climate change is going to be paramount among the topics discussed, as it is causing many areas of our world to become more water scarce in tandem with the problems already plaguing them.

This is also why the effects on water resources in light of the more prevalent use of biofuels must also be a great consideration. In areas where the poor are already experiencing water scarcity and famine, cutting down trees and using the land specifically for growing first generation sources for biofuel alone is not feasible. In areas of the world such as Africa and South America, biofuels should not be the first source of fuel unless they can be made from swichgrasses, algae, and other forms of biofuel currently under experimentation. Solar energy is also very viable as well as wind and must be considered in the overall solution planning in regards to maintaining water sustainability.

I am hoping some good initiatives come from this week and that more people are motivated in finding out about this global crisis that affects us all and what they can do to help.

If you look to the side of the blog you will see an icon for Water Partners International. I am a sustaining donor of this organization because they provide potable water to those who would not have it otherwise and they give hope to millions. This World Water Week, please consider a donation to them or another organization you may know of that is working to provide this life saving resource to those in dire need of it. The Earth has water enough to share with all the world if we but learn to use it wisely. Let us now work to see that made a reality.

Water is life.

Montessori Students Work With Amman Imman To Bring Life

Amman Imman

What hope reading this site brings me. To see children in our country caring about those who are less fortunate in other countries and working to give them water brings tears to my eyes. That is why I had to post about it on this blog to introduce anyone who reads this blog to this absolutely wonderful organization.

Please visit the link and read about their tremendous work to bring clean water to the Azawak and their work in Niger and in other parts of the world. This truly is a story to uplift you and give you hope for the future.

My thanks to Debbie for posting here and for informing me of this site. I am most definitely going to be writing more about its work in the future and thank all those involved in bringing water and life to Niger. Now the people must be taught conservation methods (such as slow drip irrigation) that will allow them to keep their water longer, as Niger is one country experiencing deforrestation on a great scale.

Water Is Life/Amman Imman!

African Glaciers Disappearing

Rwenzori-Mt. Stanley

The Rwenzori Mountains which are described as, 'Mountains of the Moon' form a portion of the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the ice cap melt that is rapidly occurring due to global warming is simply part of the rapidly receding ice that is occurring on every continent on our planet now, and at a pace three times faster than the worst scenarios by scientists.

It is said that the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, described them as 'Mountains of the Moon' whose snows feed the lakes, sources of the Nile," which supposedly refers to the Rwenzori mountains that feed Lake Albert as it joins the Nile.

And now these 'Mountains of the Moon' are in danger of disappearing in two to three decades or sooner depending on the pace of melting ice. For me there is no more urgent an indication of global warming/climate change than ice cap melt, and it is alarming to me regarding the lack of water resources that will result from these glaciers melting.

But I now feel as though we are still stuck at an impasse as the world continues to melt around us and it is frustrating to say the least. While people in this country still argue over whether humans are even the cause of climate change, water resources for millions of people globally are being threatened, and I am coming to the conclusion that we have passed the tipping point regarding glacial melt in the interim.

It will now have to become incumbant upon us on a global basis to meet to institute measures that seek to conserve water through more effective CO2 mitigation techniques, irrigation methods, conservation, waste management, infrastructure upgrades, and looking to stem the tide of corporate control of resources that keep it from being equitably distributed to indigenous peoples, as well as stemming the penchant for dam building that destroys traditional homelands and wastes water causing floods that ruin agricultural land.

And it is not only the lack of water resources that is a concern in this. Many of these places hold spiritual significance to those who live in these areas and those who do not, and losing them is losing a piece of ourselves. We are sacrificing so much all for the sake of what we call progress. However, progress is not only measured monetarily, and now is the time we must find a balance in assessing value as well to the spiritual, moral, and ethical progress that goes hand in hand with monetary progress.

It saddens me to read articles like this because the world we once knew is becoming something that we could have prevented, and in many ways still can. But how close are we really coming to taking those steps? This isn't just about one political campaign. This is about all of us forming our own campaigns to save ourselves and taking it public. I think the people who are living this up close and personal globally are coming to that conclusion as well.
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Uganda: Reduced Ice Cap On Mountain Rwenzori Irks Scientists
New Vision (Kampala)

8 August 2007
Posted to the web 9 August 2007

Gerald Tenywa
Kampala

THE ice cap on Mountain Rwenzori has reduced from six square kilometres to less than one square kilometre in the last 100 years, according to researchers.

"Glaciers that covered six square kilometres in 1906 have reduced to 0.86 square kilometres," said professor Giorgio Vassena.

Scientists attribute the problem to global warming, adding that research was ongoing to analyse the cause of the drastic recession of the glaciers.

Speaking at a conference at the Italian embassy, Vassena added that the Italian government was working with partners like Makerere University, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and AVSI, an Italian non-governmental organisation, to improve the environment around the mountains.

The decision to conserve the mountain comes after the celebrations to mark 100 years of the first ascent to the Margherita peak on the mountain by the Italian Duke of the Abruzzi.

The festivities were held last year in the Rwenzoris and in Kampala.

The Italians have also installed high altitude meteorological stations. The first was installed at the Bujuku peak, over 4,000 metres on the mountain and the second close to Elena Hut, at the Stanley peak, over 4,600 metres on the mountain.

Vassena pointed out that two more stations would soon be installed to monitor the changes caused by climate change.

"This data is of great importance to understand the impact of global warming on Uganda and the Central Africa range," said Vassena.

Citing the current rains as part of the changes in weather, he called for more research to be conducted to encourage new crops that can benefit from the rains.

Professor Cecilia Pennacini from the University of Turin was concerned that measures to mitigate climate change, such as the protection of Mountain Rwenzori, had denied the locals access to some of the resources.

She, however, said the locals were compensated by the revenue sharing agreement with the wildlife authority and the Rwenzori Mountaineering Services.

The professors said the annual visitors, estimated at 500, should be increased to earn more revenue for better management of the mountain.

Also see:

Snowy Mountaintops in Africa to Disappear

By Bjorn Carey, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 15 May 2006 03:35 pm ET

The picturesque snowy tops of equatorial mountains in Africa might disappear within two decades as air temperatures rise, scientists announced today.

The Rwenzori Mountains-also known as the "Mountains of the Moon"-straddle the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Uganda. They are renowned for their spectacular, and rare, plant and animal life. The mountains are home to one of the four remaining tropical ice fields outside of the Andes and are a popular tourist attraction.

The glaciers feed lakes that eventually flow into the Nile.

The glaciers were first surveyed a century ago when glacial cover over the entire range was estimated to be 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers). But recent field surveys and satellite mapping, conducted by the University College London, Uganda's Makerere University, and the Ugandan Water Resources Management Department, show that some glaciers are receding tens of yards each year.

Cut in half

The glacier area was cut in half from 1987 to 2003, and with just half a square mile (about one square kilometer) of glacier ice remaining. The researchers expect these glaciers to disappear within the next 20 years.

End of excerpt.