Dateline 17th April 06: Water will become the "New Oil"
It has been estimated that by the year 2025 some two thirds of the world's population will live in areas which are short of water. Now if you thought that Oil Shortages cause us problems and create wars and conflict - wait until water becomes the base for power!
Are we looking at a Nightmare Scenario?
The world's population growth is placing increasing demands on raw materials of all kinds and in particular water. Global warming and climate change is pulling us inextricably towards unbelievable shortages as we consume and above all waste many of the planets resources, in particular Water. Heat-waves in Iran, Afgahnistan, Africa, the USA and China and many other countries around the world means that if this remains unchanged we will probably be facing a disaster of epic proportions. Frighteningly, if unchecked, it will be one for which there is no easy answer.
Although we are surrounded by water the UK is not without its problems.
- In the UK, water companies continue to apply sticking plaster approaches to stem the flow or water from leaks in pipe work.
- Dividends to share holders are seen as more important that spending money on the infrastructure
- Incompetence and miss-management at government level and the corporate level continues to thwart strategies to conserve resources
Never a defender of the selling off of the UK's family silver, (water, gas, coal, communications etc) the author firmly believes that the British Government of the day under Margaret Thatcher sold us short and consigned much of our wealth and power to foreign investors, who may have their own agendas in teh future. The water companies are typical of this, many being owned by those who could make decisions which are not in the best interests of our nation.
We wonder how much the selling off of water resources to private individuals and non-British companies will cost us in the future. Successive governments have failed to address the proper supply and monitoring or water, this most basic of needs to not only the human race but also to all fauna and flora.
Whilst we have an "Ombudsman" to oversee the industry little happens and the water companies appear to plough their own furrows. We do not have to look back too far for examples of failure which have been left un-punished by the Water "Watch Dog". Millions of gallons of water are leaking from pipes daily all over the UK and particularly in the drought affected south of England, so what do the water companies do? Bring in a hose pipe ban! Why not fix the leaks?
We'll tell you why! Because fixing the leaks will reduce the amounts paid in dividends to shareholders and leave less for those hyper inflated salaries. Fixing the leaks would not allow them to put the price up - Rationing does!
UN Concerns:
The United Nations warns that in the not too distant future disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict around the world. Concerns grow that where water shortages become more and more acute there is a strong possibility that it could lead to nuclear conflict.
Inevitably water, and its price on local and world markets, will acquire a greater importance that that placed on the current value placed on oil. Of course the difference is that while oil is not vital for life, water is! Countries rich in water will in future years enjoy an importance that they may not have today. In such scenarios power shifts are inevitable, and this phenomenon will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension but with more intense activity and reaction.
Dateline 12th March 06: Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets continue to lose ice
A study has found that there is a net loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to the ocean. Satellite data was used to plot changes in the height of the ice sheets over a ten-year period between 1992 and 2002 in one of the most comprehensive studies.
The research has established that an unimaginable 20 billion tonnes of water are added to oceans each year and the team involved with the research says that worryingly, these mass changes in the ice sheets match predictions from computer models of global climate change
In the last five years the amount of ice deposited into the ocean from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has doubled. Surveys of Greenland show the ice in the middle is getting thicker because of increased snowfall but at the edges, the ice is thinning.
Increases in the levels of ice being deposited into the oceans contributes to increased sea levels, a proposition which worries many low lying countries and coral atolls. However, with the latest news comes a mystery, the study indicates that the contribution of the ice sheets to sea-level rise during the decade studied was much smaller than expected, just two percent of the recent increase of nearly three millimetres a year.
Even when the scientific team took into consideration the loss from land locked glaciers etc., it did not account for the increase in sea level being recorded consequently scientists are confused as to where the additional water is coming from.
Global Warming
Greenland's Ice Sheets are melting Faster
The glaciers of Greenland are melting at a rate that has almost doubled in the past five years with great chunks falling into the Atlantic Ocean. Research by NASA suggests that the ice sheet could disappear much sooner than predicted and this could spell doom and gloom for the UK and many other European countries.
The more ice that melts the warmer our climate becomes and this phenomenon brings raging storms, drought, weather extremes and in the coming years potentially some major changes in sea levels which are predicted to rise by some 11 to 15 metres. Some scientists are actually saying the only thing we can do now is move to higher ground, insisting that we have left it too late to turn back the movement of Global Warming.
The fact is that the melting of polar ice-caps along with Greenland's Ice sheets is very worrying to many governments and predictions are not good if the current process continues, yet we still have the main polluters denying that they are contributing to Global Warming and the world's biggest polluter, the United States of America refuse to accept their role in the cause and effect despite recent disasters from hurricanes and tornados.
Rising sea levels will cause numerous "coral island" nations and low level lying countries like the Nederland's will lose massive areas of land to the sea. Africa will become one massive desert form coast to coast, water will become shorter in supply as sea levels contaminate existing supplies and much of the poorest populations face oblivion unless we do something about it.
Greenhouse Gasses:
Greenhouse gasses are actually being released some thirty times faster than the rate which last caused an extreme period of global warming in the earths past around 55 million years ago. We could be facing increases in carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere and burning fossil fuels is one of the main causes.
If mankind survives - what will our children's children think of us?
