A study out of University of Colorado, Boulder, indicates that there could be about a 50% chance of depleting the Colorado River reservoirs in any given year by the 2050s. These reservoirs have the potential to hold 4 times the annual flow of the river, providing a major backup in case of drought or increasing demand that rises above what the river can provide. However, as a result of climate change and increasing demand, if water management practices are not changed, every year could see a 50-50 chance of depleting these reservoirs and being forced to rely on the river flow alone. This would be dangerous because the natural flow of the river is variable and also may soon be inadequate to meet water demand.
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Britain's biotechnology research council the BBSRC plans to open a research center that will decode the DNA of plants and animals used in agriculture better understand the genetic diversity of these crops, to increase yields, resist pests, and deal with climate change.
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Last year, Peruvian president Alan Garcia signed a series of laws vastly decreasing forest protection, opening up 111 million acres for potential development. The laws also authorize the government to approve development projects in the region without consulting existing residents. These and other laws essentially nationalize the ownership of much land, water and oil, in addition to other resources. Meanwhile, they push for formal, private ownership of agricultural land, which is incompatible with current communal systems and may reduce agricultural sustainability at a national level. As various jungle oil concessions were granted in April, Amazonian residents instituted a months-long road-block in protest of these laws, blocking oil lines and leading to a spike in oil prices in the capital. A State of Emergency was declared, allowing police to break the road block with violent measures on Friday, June 5. A reported 60 were killed that day, although some say the numbers are higher. Facing widespread popular resistance, the government temporarily suspended the laws on June 10. Protests continue throughout the country.
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Story a bartender from North Carolina that raised money through wine tasting events to fund clean water projects around the world. He then not only raised the money for the projects, but worked himself on installing clean water infrastructure in 5 countries.
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The Mexican government is needing to ship in water by truck to try to meet the demand of Mexico City, and outages affecting up to a quarter of the city have been seen.
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Scientists have been working on producing more flood tolerant varieties of rice in order to lower the loses in rice harvest that occur every year due to flooding conditions.
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Half the world's population could face a climate-induced food crisis by 2100, a new report by US scientists warns. This article describes the problems climate change poses for our staple food crops and debunks the myth that we can just move crops north as the world warms.
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Fisherman world-wide are catching fewer, smaller fish. It is predicted that if things continue as they are, none of the fishes consumed by humans may remain viable in the wild.
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Australia has been in such a deep drought for so long that they are looking towards a variety of solutions, including a desalination plant, to obtain enough water.
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Discusses the possible pitfalls of being too religious a follower of food miles, bringing up the fact that food miles are just one part of the equation. For example, driving an SUV many miles to remote farmers' markets may not better than walking down the road to a convenience store to buy foreign foods. It is also important to note that buying local only makes sense if you are replacing foreign goods with those that are easily grown locally. It is no use buying local fruit if it took twice as much energy to grow it locally.
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At the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting last week in New York City, former President Bill Clinton announced the launch of LeapFrog Investments, the world's first investment firm to focus on the insurance needs of low-income people.
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The Global Crop Diversity Trust, the group who brought us the Doomsday Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway are in a global hunt of the world’s seedbanks for ‘climate proof’ crop varieties.
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Native Seeds/SEARCH is a seed bank that specializes in creating drought-tolerant seeds from the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.
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In 2004, Mr. Qtaishat approached the Middle East Desalination Research Centre in Oman to fund his startup, called Water for All, and presented his method for developing a far more efficient way of turning seawater into drinking water. Although Mr. Qtaishat's solution is top secret while the patent is still pending, he says refining the process is all about the type of material used in the membrane. With this new material, his prototype is able to run on solar panels and produce 50 kilograms of water per metre square of the membrane per hour. That is 600 to 700 per cent more efficient than current technology, which produces about seven to eight kilograms per metre per hour.
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Economist article about the potential for desalination to solve some of the world's water shortage problems and the problems associated with desalination technology currently.
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Energy Recovery is a company that produces a product that greatly reduces the cost of desalination by recovering energy from reverse osmosis processes.
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60 Minutes look at the Svalbard "Doomsday" Seed Vault.
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It isn’t cheap and it requires lots of energy, but fresh water from the ocean might be part of Southern Nevada’s future as other sources dry up.
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A UK study of the impact on the environment of the food supply chain attempts to broaden the concept of measuring 'kilometres' travelled, to include sourcing, production methods, processing and packaging.
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(from the article) "When a group of environmentally concerned friends in San Francisco decided to buy nothing for a year, they unwittingly sparked an international trend."
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UK study shows that about 40% of people want information on food miles traveled on the products that they buy and that 20% make a conscious decision to avoid foods with high transportation costs.
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While protected areas such as national parks have been established to conserve charismatic animal and plant species, very few have been set aside to protect wild plants from which our crops originate, a WWF report reveals.
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Australia's largest scientific research agency joined with nine major universities in a membrane research program to reduce desalination energy costs, as well as maintenance costs associated with gunk sticking to membranes and fouling them up.
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A number of cities in Australia are turning to desalination powered by renewable energy to meet water needs.
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A project designed to protect the worlds crop supply was yesterday launched, with the Norwegian government announcing it is to develop a Noah's Arc of global seeds.
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Historically, humans utilized more than 7,000 plant species to meet their basic food needs, Esquinas says. Today, due to the limitations of modern large-scale, mechanized farming, only 150 plant species are under cultivation, and the majority of humans live on only 12 plant species, according to research by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
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The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), focuses on plants suitable for sustainable agriculture in arid climates. ICARDA banks seeds from 131,000 varieties of plants, gathered from across the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Unfortunately, according to a recent editorial in Nature, political tensions between the West and Syria may threaten ICARDA's already tenuous operations. Worse, ICARDA is not alone -- many seed banks elsewhere are struggling to preserve their collections.
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The Global Crop Diversity Trust, an initiative to conserve in perpetuity the Earth's most crucial agricultural biodiversity, entered into force today as an independent international organization.
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The world could lose its crop diversity -- vital to food security -- if plant gene banks were not immediately safeguarded for future generations, Christopher Higgins, Director of the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, said today at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.
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