Implications of Climate Change on Water: Investment in water has been patchy and neglected

Climate Change changes the way plants grow. It increases problems of water management. Larger floods overwhelm existing controls. Reservoirs do not store enough to get people or plants through longer droughts. In addition, global warming melts glaciers and causes snow to fall as rain. Since snow and ice are natural regulators, storing water in winter and releasing it in summer, countries are swinging more violently between flood and drought. That is one big reason why dams, once a dirty word in development, have been making a comeback, especially in African countries with plenty of water but no storage capacity. The number of large dams (more than 15 metres high) has been increasing and the order books of dam builders are bulging.
And Climate change has persuaded western governments to subsidise biofuels, which could prove as big a disaster for water as they already have been for food. - Economist.com

SHOOT: If you want to be part of the solution, eat less meat. Having a more produce-oriented diet is healtheir for you, more energy and water efficient and combats Climate Change.

clipped from www.economist.com So the shift from vegetarian diets to meaty ones—which contributed to the food-price rise of 2007-08—has big implications for water, too. In 1985 Chinese people ate, on average, 20kg of meat; this year, they will eat around 50kg. This difference translates into 390km3 (1km3 is 1 trillion litres) of water—almost as much as total water use in Europe. The shift of diet will be impossible to reverse since it is a product of rising wealth and urbanisation. In general, “water intensity” in food increases fastest as people begin to climb out of poverty, because that is when they start eating more meat. So if living standards in the poorest countries start to rise again, water use is likely to soar. There is growing evidence that global warming is speeding up the hydrologic cycle—that is, the rate at which water evaporates and falls again as rain or snow. This higher rate seems to make wet regions more sodden, and arid ones drier. It brings longer droughts between more intense periods of rain.

Seoul commits 81% of their stimulus to New 'Green' Deal [GRAPH]

Less than 5% of British electricity came from renewable sources in 2006, compared with 26% in Denmark and 48% in Sweden. Ambitious goals to derive 30-35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 are widely considered impossible. A related pledge that 15% of total energy consumption (of which electricity accounts for roughly a third) will be renewable by that date looks even less plausible.

On March 31st HSBC, a big bank, published a report ranking countries by how green their economic-stimulus packages were. The bank reckons that Britain is allocating just 7% of its fiscal stimulus to greenery, compared with 12% in America, 34% in China and a whopping 81% in South Korea (see chart).

SHOOT: No kidding HSBC is a 'big bank'. Very impressive to see confirmation - South Korea committing 81% of its stimulus package to greenery. When I visited the country a year ago (before the current crisis had fully manifested) the mayor told us about comprehensive plans re-green Seoul.

Nuclear-power stations take many years to build, so new ones will not help Britain meet its 2020 targets for curbing emissions. But the technology is well understood. Politicians may have calculated that a few nuclear-power stations will be easier to sell the public than thousands of wind turbines. And energy does not have to be renewable to be low-carbon.

SHOOT: It may not be the most desirable technology, but nuclear is one of the few viable proposals. It's really going to be between nuclear and coal. The problem with nuclear is that in an environment that becomes increasingly...degraded...these sophisticated utilities may be hard to maintain. But as much as 70% of France's power comes from Nuclear. If you have it in place now, you're in a good position. Nuclear is an investment in the future.

The other argument is that it is very difficult to prognosticate on the quality of the future. Some talk of the human population needing to shed 6 of every 9 people in the next decades in order for people to be able to feed themselves (be sustainable). It may sound like an extreme figure but we are only beginning to see our troubles unravel around us. The signs are few and far between that leaders are taking the right steps to address our troubles. As such I'd tend to stick to the Jeremiah's in seeing a bleaker future with some sort of catastrophic die-off. And then life will go on, locally, with far fewer choices and far less moving around.

clipped from www.economist.com The British government has been playing up the parallels, with much ministerial talk of a “Green New Deal”. In March Gordon Brown promised the creation of a “low-carbon economy” for Britain that would provide jobs and clean up industry. Lord Mandelson, his business secretary, talked of a new industrial revolution and said that there was “no high-carbon future”. It is a seductive vision. If Keynesian stimulus is to be the order of the day, greenery seems a good sector in which to apply it. There are benefits besides decarbonisation. Much of the contribution would come from changing the way electricity is generated, and many of Britain’s old power plants need replacing anyway. Windy, storm-lashed Britain is a good place to harness the weather; boosters talk excitedly of a splurge on renewable electricity and the possibility of capturing the market for offshore wind turbines or wave-power machines, creating tens of thousands of jobs.