ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Resource Depletion" scenario from this week
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Sun, Sep 21, 2008
from UPI:
Iranians deplete aquifers, land is sinking
Researchers say increasing demand for groundwater in Iran is depleting that nation's water supplies, resulting in land surface deformations.
An international team of scientists said decades of unrestrained groundwater extraction are linked to land surface deformation on local and regional scales.... "Comparing ground deformation in Iran with other basins around the world revealed that Iran currently hosts some of the fastest sinking valleys and plain aquifers in the world," the scientists said. ...
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Is that trouble I see ahead? Is the ground shifting 'neath our feet?
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Sat, Sep 20, 2008
from The Economist:
Running dry
The world has a water shortage, not a food shortage: MOST people may drink only two litres of water a day, but they consume about 3,000 if the water that goes into their food is taken into account. The rich gulp down far more, since they tend to eat more meat, which takes far more water to produce than grains. So as the world's population grows and incomes rise, farmers will -- if they use today's methods -- need a great deal more water to keep everyone... ...
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Instead, why don't the rich simply drink the blood of the poor.
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Fri, Sep 19, 2008
from International Rice Research Institute:
Global food situation at a crossroads
Declining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads. Failure to act now through a wholesale reinvestment in agriculture -- including research into improved technologies, infrastructure development, and training and education of agricultural scientists and trainers -- could lead to a long-term crisis that makes the price spikes of 2008 seem a mere blip. ...
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Investment advisers recommend increasing your holdings in riot gear.
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Thu, Sep 18, 2008
from BusinessWeek:
Kyrgyzstan Rations Electricity
Trolleybuses stand abandoned, and cars jam intersections because traffic lights do not work. Economic activity is also at a standstill, and people return home to darkness.
Since late August, when the government imposed nationwide electricity rationing, this has been life in Kyrgyzstan. It is the first time since the dire years of the 1990s that Kyrgyzstan has faced widespread outages. Every day power is cut for eight hours in different parts of the country. The government has imposed a rotating rationing scheme to preserve dwindling water supplies from the main regional reservoir in Toktogul. Three hundred kilometers west of Bishkek, Toktogul is the largest water reservoir in Central Asia. ...
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Rationing is quite rational, even if it's not fashionable.
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Thu, Sep 18, 2008
from Online Opinion (Australia):
Water for food: the forgotten crisis
This year, the world and, in particular, developing countries and the poor have been hit by both food and energy crises. As a consequence, prices for many staple foods have risen by up to 100 per cent.
When we examine the causes of the food crisis, growing population, changes in trade patterns, urbanisation, dietary changes, biofuel production, and climate change and regional droughts are all responsible.... The causes of water scarcity are essentially identical to those of the food crisis. There are serious and extremely worrying factors that indicate water supplies are close to exhaustion in some countries. Population growth in the next approximately 40 years will see an increase from 6.5 to up to 9.0 billion. Essentially every calorie of food requires a litre of water to produce it. Therefore, on average we require 2,000-3,000 litres of water per person [per day] to sustain our daily food requirements. ...
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That's a lot of water! And most of it will contain endocrine disruptors and pharmaceuticals -- an added bonus!
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Thu, Sep 18, 2008
from Environmental News Service:
Hurricane Ike Shuts Largest U.S. Biodiesel Refinery
The nation's largest biodiesel refinery, located on the Houston Ship Channel, will be shut down for the next six to eight weeks because of damage and loss of power caused by Hurricane Ike, company officials say.
The publicly traded owner-operator GreenHunter Energy says damages at its Renewable Fuels Campus were mainly due to floodwater, which crested the 100-year flood plain level, rather than wind damage from Hurricane Ike.
Completed in March, the refinery is capable of producing 105 million gallons of biodiesel a year.
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No, water in the fuel doesn't help.
Much.
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Tue, Sep 16, 2008
from Scientific American:
Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent?
No one disputes that a lot of oil lies untapped under the rocky floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans off the U.S. coasts... The [Minerals Management Service] has estimated that there are around 18 billion barrels in the underwater areas now off-limits to drilling. That's significantly less than in oil fields open for business in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal Alaska and off the coast of southern California, where there are 10.1 billion barrels of known oil reserves as well as an estimated 85.9 billion more... But here's the catch: There is a chance that the MMS has miscalculated the amount of offshore oil, because its estimates are based on 30- to 40-year-old data. ...
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They've been too busy servicing each other to come up with new estimates!
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Tue, Sep 16, 2008
from University of Illinois:
New study says high grain prices are likely here to stay
An ethanol-fueled spike in grain prices will likely hold, yielding the first sustained increase for corn, wheat and soybean prices in more than three decades, according to new research by two University of Illinois farm economists.
Corn, an ethanol ingredient that has driven the recent price surge, could average $4.60 a bushel in Illinois, nearly double the average $2.42 a bushel from 1973 to 2006, said Darrel Good and Scott Irwin, professors of agriculture and consumer economics.
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Good news for Illinois. Bad news for Botswana.
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