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Sustainable Agriculture Channel On Current.com/tv"

I am now the Curator of the Sustainable Agriculture Channel on Current.com/tv. Please join me if you are interested in conversations/action items about sustainable agriculture as it relates to environment, industrialization/GMOS, health, and also its relationship to water and water scarcity. This is the most important problem we will deal with in the 21st century with population increases, climate change, and economic turmoil.

China To Displace 330,000 People For Water Project

China To Move 330,000 People For Water Project

About 330,000 people in central China are to be evicted from their homes to make way for a reservoir that will form part of a massive water diversion project, state media said Sunday.

More than two-thirds of the people in Hubei and Henan provinces would be relocated to about 50 nearby counties and cities, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Jiyao, head of the project, as saying.

Zhang did not say where the remaining 100,000 would be placed to make way for the Danjiangkou Reservoir, part of the multi-billion-dollar North-South Water Diversion Project. The project aims to bring water from the nation's longest river, the Yangtze, to the parched north of the country, which is plagued by droughts.

Xinhua has previously said that by 2010, when part of the project will have been completed, up to one billion cubic metres of water will be diverted to Beijing annually.

According to the project's website, the relocation of the 330,000 people is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.
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Discontent over China's huge water scheme


I am really exasperated in continuing to read about the proliferation of dams not only in Asia but also in Africa. As we have seen from every example of a dam being built in these areas, it does nothing but displace people, cause environmental devastation, and threaten agriculture thus exacerbating the very conditions already plaguing farmers in China now. I sometimes really do find myself speechless.

My previous entry on Three Gorges Dam with comment:

Three Gorges Dam-Hydropower At A Huge Human Cost

I have to honestly state that I am sad regarding human behavior today. We see the crisis and yet we continue to shield our eyes from it thinking business as usual is going to solve it when it is really a paradigm moral shift that must occur in our consciousness that will bring us the answers. In short, we have forgotten what it is to be human (if we even know what that means) and instead only care on the whole about survival at any cost (which is really not survival) instead of survival in balance with peace and ecological consciousness.

Water is our lifeblood not a commodity to be used carelessly without regard for the consequences. I think China is learning that lesson the hard way.

Spirit Of The Earth

We must find it again. It is in the sun that warms us, the air that gives us life, and in the water that flows as the blood of our planet. This is the way to sustainability and peace.

Turkey Blamed For Looming Crop Disaster In Iraq

Turkey Blamed For Looming Crop Disaster In Iraq

Iraq faces an agricultural "disaster" this summer if Turkey continues to retain waters from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which have sustained Iraqi agriculture for millennia, experts say.
The controversy over the sharing of the mighty rivers at the root of Iraq's ancient name of Mesopotamia -- meaning "between the rivers" in Greek -- is almost as old as the country itself.

But for Baghdad, the current shortage demands an urgent response from Turkey.

The reserves of all Iraqi dams at the beginning of May totalled 11 billion cubic metres (388 billion cubic feet) of water, compared to over 40 billion three years ago, although rain has not been below normal levels this winter.

The Euphrates is the most worrying situation.

Reserves at Haditha dam in the country's west, the first on the river, amounted to just 1.5 billion cubic metres on May 1, compared to eight billion two years ago.

"If the water level in the Euphrates continues to decrease, there will be a disaster in July because it will not be possible to irrigate crops," warned Aoun Thiab Abdullah, director of the National Centre for Water Resources.

"The drought will cause displacement," he said, noting that Iraqi agriculture depends on river water for 90 percent of its irrigation.

The negative impact on farming is already being felt in some provinces, including Najaf in the south that has banned its farmers from planting rice because it requires heavy irrigation.

"We will focus this year on the provision of drinking water and irrigation for other crops demanding less water," the director of the Centre for Water Resources in Najaf, Modhar al-Bakaa, told AFP at a water seminar.

The situation worsens as one moves down the Euphrates, according to Karim al-Yakubi, chairman of the agriculture and water committee in Iraq's parliament.

Yakubi said he fears an environmental disaster in the marshes of Nasiriyah farther south and notes that the lower water quantities increase the salinity of the river.

Iraqi experts say the problem is the many dams Turkey has built over the past 30 years to irrigate its agricultural lands in the southeast. These dams allow Turkey to regulate the flow of rivers according to its needs.

The flow speed of the Euphrates, which runs from Turkey through Syria, is currently only 230 cubic metres (8,100 cubic feet) per second, down from the 2000 level of 950 cubic metres per second.

end of excerpt.

Mutant Seeds For Mesopotamia

Hmm, do you think Monsanto thought about this when they forced Order 81 on Iraqi farmers thus forcing them to plant their GM terminator seeds, and calling their centuries old natural seeds the "infringing varieties?" Apart from the water issues that clearly now put Iraqis at a dangerous crossroads regarding their ability to feed themselves, you now have Monsanto growing their evil in Iraq. You really must read this article. It will blow your mind. After all of the times we heard "we went there to give them Democracy", you now see Democracy was not at all the reason for the US govt. invading Iraq. Corporate profit at the point of a gun was the reason, and Monsanto is now just one multinational reaping the profits.

Here are some of my previous entries regarding dams in Turkey/Iraq:

Germany Suspends Funding For Ilisu Dam Project

The Ilisu Dam Controversy

Lake Mead Is Drying Up

LAKE MEAD IS DRYING UP

Excerpt:

The combination of a changing climate and a strong demand for the lake’s remaining water has resulted in 100 foot drop since 2000. While that’s just 10 percent under the lake’s high water mark in 1983, Lake Mead is like a martini glass—wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. That 10 percent dip represents a loss of half Lake Mead’s water supply in nine years, from 96 percent capacity to 43 percent.

Anyone who’s gone on a diet knows this simple equation: if you burn fewer calories than you eat, you’ll gain weight. But like a cheating dieter in Superman’s Bizarro world, the Western United States has been sucking more water out of Lake Mead than the dwindling Colorado River can provide to replace it. When output is greater than input, the reservoir shrinks.

And it continues to shrink. Lake Mead’s water level fell 14 feet last year, and the Bureau of Reclamation has projected the level will drop 14 more feet this summer. That will bring it perilously close to 1,075 feet, the point at which the federal government can step in and declare a drought condition, forcing a reduction of 400,000 acre-feet drawn from Lake Mead per year. A typical Las Vegas home uses a half acre-foot of water per year, so such a reduction would be equal toturning the tap off for 800,000 households.

In 2008, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography issued a paper titled “When will Lake Mead go dry?” which set the odds of Lake Mead drying up by 2021 at 50-50. No more water, no more electricity, no more pumping power.

“Today, we are at or beyond the sustainable limit of the Colorado system,” concluded the paper’s authors. “The alternative to reasoned solutions to this coming water crisis is a major societal and economic disruption in the desert southwest; something that will affect each of us living in the region.”

Conservation efforts are helping (Southern Nevada has significantly reduced its draw from 325,000 acre-feet a year in 2000 to 265,000 acre-feet today) but the Colorado River remains “oversubscribed.” Millions of acre-feet are sent to California, Nevada, and Mexico annually, draining Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell faster than they can be replenished. Conservation solutions include “grass buyback” programs to encourage people to install drought-tolerant landscaping, tax incentives for pool-covers, and inevitable rate hikes.

Frustratingly, Las Vegas residents tried to pass a bill that would allow homeowners to install graywater systems but the Southern Nevada Water Authority blocked it, offering up a piece of fuzzy math as a defense. Las Vegas Valley is alloted 300,000 acre-feet of water per year from the reservoir. The water that goes down drainpipes in Las Vegas gets pumped 12 miles back to a reclamation plant near Lake Mead. This returned water counts as a credit toward getting more fresh water from the lake. The Water Authority says if people start using graywater to water their lawns and gardens rather than using drinking-quality water, their lowered water bills will dissuade them from conserving water. In other words, the Water Authority believes that legalizing graywater will cause people to use more fresh water and return less dirty water to the reclamation plant.

One of the more radical proposals involves pumping water from the eastern United States (where many regions are suffering the consequences of flooded rivers) over the Rockies to the West. In a Las Vegas Sun interview on May 1, Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said, “We’ve taken water from the West now for a hundred years, maybe it’s time to start taking water from the East, rather than from the West.” Another speculative proposal lies beyond the shores of California, where there’s an ocean of water available for desalinization. In April, the California Coastal Commission approved the West Basin Municipal Water District’s plan to build a desalination system in Redondo Beach that can desalt 100,000 gallons of seawater per day.

The power requirement for either proposal—desalting seawater or transporting water over great distance—is enormous. But if the only other alternative is a mass evacuation from the western United States, what other choice do we have?
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Here you have it. Look long and hard, because this is our future if our moral will is superceded by status quo business as usual behavior. In order to not only save our water but ourselves a paradigm shift is now in order. It will require a new behavior brought about by a totally new mindset in line with a moral will to do what is right for the future instead of only thinking of the present and wanting what you want when you want it. It will involve the human species finally coming to maturity. The question is, is that possible now? Because if not the three alternatives listed in this article which are the reality of it are only bandaids on a moral wound that will then never heal.

What is happening to Lake Mead is a direct result of human greed and apathy. We have no one to blame but ourselves. The first step in mitigating this crisis is to admit that, and from there we can work on solving the problem. Unfortunately, human pride dictates that we always find another source for the blame to absolve ourselves from our selfish wasteful behavior. In doing so it gives us license to continue said behavior safe in the knowledge that we can still have what we want when we want it... until the well runs dry. But of course, then we will just find another source to ravage to get what we want, and then another, and another... not thinking that sooner or later that too will run dry.

In writing about the global water crisis over these years I have seen that this is about more than even political will, bills, and budgets. This goes to the very core of what we are as humans. This is political, yes, but it is also moral, spiritual, and ethical, and unless we reconcile to that the political will not follow. How can we continue to degrade the very resources that give us life with such abandon? How will we ever look our children in the eye and say to them that we knew that our wasteful behavior would bring us here but we just didn't care because we thought someone else would fix it?

Well, as we see here we are finding that the only ones who can fix this are those who have made it. Therefore, how is this fixed? Moving water from the Great Lakes to be wasted? Absurd and expensive and sure to start a regional conflict. Desalination? Carbon intensive, expensive, not guaranteed for long periods of time, threat to marinelife, and another excuse to keep wasting.... especially with a report just released showing the great damage to the ocean off the West Coast by humans already. Mass migration from the West Coast? I can't even begin to process that. Conservation? What's that you say? Actually CONSERVING the water left? Wow, what a concept. Not building golf courses and communities in the desert? Not wasting water in irrigation? Water restrictions that are adhered to? Truly ADEQUATE GHG emission targets instead of ones that appease industry? Actually planning for the future? But gee, we can't do that. It's just so much easier to keep doing what we are doing denying the results and thinking all will be well.

Only thing though, it isn't. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, and even that river is running dry.

Brazil Drought Staunches Famed Iguazu Falls

This is as close as you can get to a divine experience. It brings me to tears. Sheer beauty. Water is life.

And now:

Brazil drought staunches famed Iguazu falls


Excerpt:

"An acute drought in Brazil has hit the famed horseshoe-shaped Igauzu falls which straddle two countries, cutting back the tumbling waters to reveal the rocky sides.
Only a third of the usual volume of water is now flowing over the top of the stunning falls, which were listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1984 and border both Brazil and Argentina, Globo television said.

At the foot of the falls on the Brazilian side, the bottom of the Parana river is now clearly visible, allowing environmentalists a rare chance to clean up mountains of accumulated trash.

The falls, which are actually made up of 275 waterfalls stretching some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles), are taller than the Niagara Falls and twice as wide.

They provide a panoramic backdrop to the tropical rainforest region, with an average of 553 cubic feet of water per second from the Iguazu River thundering some 269 feet over the falls and then draining into the Parana.

Divers have been cleaning up the garbage which has collected in the Parana, finding everything from cameras to combs, CDs and batteries as well as plastic bottles, tin cans and umbrellas.

Some of the trash has floated down river from other towns, but most has been dropped by tourists, said environmentalist Tassio Lima."
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Now this should open your eyes. I have always thought that should these magnificent falls be diminshed that something surely was wrong with the climate balance of this planet. To stand and feel the raw energy and power and see the awe inspiring beauty of these falls is something to aspire to in life. To read these falls are now being diminshed due to drought leaves me sad, and must raise a flag.

We are changing the climate balance of this planet and it is affecting water beyond what I believe we could have comprehended or predicted. How much will we have to see disappear before we comprehend that as a species? And can you imagine, "tourists" throwing their garbage into the river there? Have we become that bereft of all respect for the natural beauty and power of this planet? We have forgotten our place and we are reaping the consequences of it now.

Asian Water Summit Ends In Dispute; Action needed

Asian Water Summit Ends In Dispute

Discussion of this summit at the link courtesy of Australian Radio.
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This is disappointing news. For all of my reporting here on the global water crisis about predictions of increased scarcity by 2030-2050, I always in the back of my mind believed that water disputes were actually in the end the one dispute that could and would be worked out amicably... as in MAD regarding nuclear issues where both sides have nukes therefore neither side strikes because they know it would only bring about their own demise.

Such is the situation with water. It is kind of like, MAWD... mutually assured water destruction. Countries must learn to mediate diplomatically regarding the crucial water issues such as freshwater resources now becoming scarcer in light of population growth, climate change, waste, pollution, and privitization. To do otherwise would only wind up destroying their own ecosystems and social structures. I fear however, that with so many issues given a political significance over the moral that the root causes of the global water crisis we face will be overlooked in lieu of working for political solutions that do not address the root causes but only exacerbate them.

As with the climate crisis, countries are looking for solutions that are overly technical, hard to manage, expensive for end users, and that will take longer to implement than we have time in order to avoid tipping points. Such as "clean" coal which is an oxymoron, cap and trade which is involved and open to fraud, and Co2 cuts that do not match the urgency of the threat simply because they wish to not upset the apple cart of those industries that have had close political ties with them for decades thus bringing this crisis on. All because it was made a political issue rather than a moral issue, which dictates looking to natural readily available solutions such as solar power, wind, reforestation, etc.

With the water crisis it appears that solutions are taking the same road, and we cannot afford to take that road. Expensive technologies like desalination that are actually CO2 intensive may work well in the Middle East, but in poor countries such as India and many in Africa that is simply not an option. Therefore, once again we see natural readily available options as the solutions we must be willing to provide which include education on sustainable agriculture (NO GMOs,) water conservation, population control through family planning, solar water pumps, sustainable irrigation practices, crop rotation that takes into account changing weather patterns as a result of climate change, and major reforestation to bring water up to the roots to also provide food, shelter, and a thriving ecosystem. These solutions are cheaper, easier to implement, and more timely than the costly time consuming political solutions that only deem to hold us back from achieving progress now.

We find ourselves now sitting at the abyss and looking in as we see a world shifting towards more hunger, poverty, war, and financial instability, along with the threat of global health crises like pandemics. All of these problems have been deepened in scope through political will only working to its own ends. Only through grassroots efforts and people movements seeking moral solutions to these crises can we bring about the political will to do the moral thing.

As with water disputes, there is no time for bickering out of selfish motivations. Water is the lifeline of our planet and should not be used as a bargaining chip at a political meeting. This is why I am so adamant about it being declared a global human right. This is why we need that to happen in order to open the door to lessen disputes, stop its privitization for profit (which would also go a long way in conserving it for agriculture and other needs of the people) and shifting the discourse from a strictly political focus to one that sees it as a transboundary transglobal problem with equitable solutions that maintain life for all. Like the climate crisis however, that requires a higher consciousness in seeing beyond political bickering to the future we wish to leave to future generations.

If only the leaders of this world would understand that addressing water issues first effectively would alleviate so much of the poverty, hunger, war, and financial instability the world is now experiencing, we would be on our way to the solutions for our species most pressing challenge now: Sustaining the habitability of this our only home.

Photograph credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/274762201/