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Water: Bigger Than Oil
July 31st, 2011
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an interesting report that water will become an even bigger commodity than oil in the years ahead, sparking massive geopolitical investment, audacious infrastructure schemes, and tensions along the way: In a 37-page note on Thursday, the bank’s global strategists recommend investors play the urbanisation trend by buying into water companies […]
Read more »The Case For Water Diplomacy
July 14th, 2011
Via USC’s Center for Public Diplomacy, an interesting article on water diplomacy: “Just turn on the faucet.†That’s the answer most Americans and others in the developed world would give if asked how to get plenty of clean water. But for about two billion people, such a response is meaningless. These people – almost a […]
Read more »Geopolitical Water and Food Security Melting Away In Face of Rising Temperatures
July 6th, 2011
Via Grist, an interesting article on impact that higher temperatures, melting glaciers, and depletion in aquifers may have upon food – and climate – security overall: Heat waves clearly can destroy crop harvests. The world saw high heat decimate Russian wheat in 2010. Crop ecologists have found that each 1-degree-Celsius rise in temperature above the […]
Read more »Water Wars: 21st Century Conflicts?
July 2nd, 2011
Via Al Jazeera, an interesting report on the how almost half of humanity will face water scarcity by 2030 and strategists from Israel to Central Asia prepare for strife. After droughts ravaged his parents’ farmland, Sixteen-year-old Hassain and his two-year-old sister Sareye became some of the newest refugees forced from home by water scarcity. “There […]
Read more »Global Water Use: An Environmental Ponzi Scheme
June 30th, 2011
Courtesy of The Guardian, two excellent articles on water scarcity around the world. The first looks at what it aptly describes as an environmental ponzi scheme as Earth’s water-stressed nations are borrowing against the future, as rising populations use stocks faster than they are replaced: Find water and you find life. This simple maxim guides […]
Read more »Water Grabbing? The Coming Conflict Over The (Re)appropriation of Finite Water Resources
May 28th, 2011
Via Water Alternatives, an interesting call for papers on water grabbing: In many river basins in the world, water resources have become the object of increasing competition between food production and other sectors. The rush to acquire new lands as sources of alternative energy, food crops, and environmental services have led to the so called […]
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