more water

Another follow up article of a pending water crisis caught my eye .
Its not all doom and gloom -- if we get socialism -- but i don't hold out much 
hope under capitalism for the changes required to be carried out to avoid 
planet catastrophe .

 A while ago there was a call by comrades for  further research upon the facts 
and figures concerning the needs of socialist re-organisation of resources to 
provide food , clothing and shelter and free access . 
I suggest that the World Water Week conference has produce much valued data and 
if the committees or sub-committees require more information then acquiring the 
reports from such conferences as International Water Week would be desirable . 
As would collating a list of organisations that are in business to produce such 
necessary data for their respective industries .

It  has also shown how such international bodies and quangos as the 
International Water Management Institute will be co-opted to create plans and 
options for a future socialist society to begin to implement and how rapid and 
efficient the start of the transformation of society could be .

I believe that all the necessary information is already existing out there 
somewhere at the moment and the closer we approach towards achieving socialism 
, the more definite and concrete our re-construction plans will become thus 
strengthening our case  and dismissing the utopian charges and therefore 
accelerating the rate of winning the arguements and the hearts and souls of the 
worlds populations. 
Shame , though , that we are so limited in numbers and resources ourselves at 
present  that we can't really get out of  the starting gates and create the 
science for a sustainable socialist society . 
The infernal circle  - we are small because we cannot convince enough people 
and we can't convince enough people because we are small .

a johnstone , edinburgh br 

Surging demand for irrigation to produce food and biofuels is likely to 
aggravate scarcities of water but the world's supply is not running out, an 
international report said on Monday. 
"One in three people is enduring one form or another of water scarcity," the 
International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said in a report compiled by 
700 experts and backed by the United Nations and farm research groups.

"Conquering hunger and coping with an estimated 3 billion extra people by 2050 
will result in an 80 percent increase in water use for agriculture on rainfed 
and irrigated lands," it added. 

Demand for irrigation -- which absorbs about 74 percent of all water used by 
people against 18 percent for hydropower and other industrial uses and just 8 
percent for households -- was likely to surge by 2050. 

Many nations are also shifting to produce biofuels -- from sugarcane, corn or 
wood -- as a less polluting alternative to fossil fuels. Oil prices at $75 a 
barrel and worries about global warming are driving the shift. 

"If people are growing biofuels and food it will put another new stress. This 
leads us to a picture of a lot more water use," David Molden, who led the study 
at the Sri Lanka-based IWMI, told Reuters. 

Still, the report said that "the world is not 'running out' of water", 
concluding that there was enough land, water and human capacity to solve the 
shortages. 

"The big solution is to find ways to grow more food with less water. Basically, 
more crop per drop," Molden said. "The number one recommendation...is to look 
to improve rain-fed systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia." 

"Those are also the places where most poor rural people live. The potential 
improvements are much bigger than the north China plains and Europe where 
people have already met the potential for more crop per drop," he said. 

SOLUTIONS 

Solutions included helping poor countries in Africa and Asia to grow more food 
with available fresh water via simple, low-cost measures in a shift from past 
policies that favoured expensive dams or canals, the report said. 

"We will have to change business as usual in order to deal with growing 
scarcity," said Frank Rijsberman, director general of the IWMI, of the report 
released at a "World Water Week" conference in Stockholm. 

The report said that about 1.5 billion of the world's 6.1 billion population 
lived in areas where water was scarce -- such as North Africa, northern China 
or parts of the southwestern United States. 

Another billion lived in regions where water was available in rivers and 
aquifers but where people lacked infrastructure to exploit it, such as in large 
tracts or sub-Saharan Africa or northern India. 

Better irrigation, rainwater harvesting from roofs or use of simple water 
pumps, operated manually, could help in Africa. 

Another way to cut poverty was to raise the value of farm production once basic 
food needs were met. 

"If a poor person grows flowers instead of maize that's a way of getting more 
value per drop," Molden said. 

Understanding the value of water also could help. 

The report said that a calorie of food took roughly 1 litre (0.2200 Imp 
gallons) of water to produce. But a kilo of grain needed only 500-4,000 litres 
while a kilo of industrially produced meat took 10,000 litres. 

http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=1415844&section=news&src=rss/uk/topNews






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