Showing posts with label shortage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shortage. Show all posts

Climate Change is Inevitable

Australia is one the world's major producers of wheat. If climate change reduces national output there will be widespread consequences. The economy will suffer with the need to import wheat. Internationally, a wheat shortage will put prices up and many poor people will have to go without.

On the positive side some regions of Australia will get more rain. People will still be able to "fatten up" on sugar and rice, despite research showing that sugar contains no nourishment whatsoever for the human body. Two centuries ago a group of British sailors was shipwrecked on the west coast of Africa. The ship was beached. Even though the ship had a full load of West Indian sugar they all died of malnutrition.

Getting back to the main point. There will be competition for arable land pushing land prices up. There is also a link between the land and sea. Climate change will reduce the fish catch. Living in the bush will become impossible with farming failing to prop up local economies.

Potential for farmers to move up into higher areas is limited because Australia is a flat continent. Of course, we could all choose to move south. This would create the need for massive new investment in infrastructure.

These problems will affect the generation of children living today. By 2050, the food bowls in South Australia for sheep and beef will be no more. Man had little impact on the environment in the past, so we do not have the "genes" to change our ways. Pollution will inevitably continue until all the damaging changes above come to fruition. People working today will for the most part be dead. "It isn't our worry is it mate?"
Agriculture by Ty Buchanan

Water is the Problem not Oil

We are obsessed with the oil crisis. So much so that we fail to see other problems that face us in the near future. For example, what about fresh drinking water. If nothing is done soon, the world will be in crisis. Even countries with cold climates, in Europe, are facing a shortage of potable water because of the high population density. As people become Westernized they consume more water. They change from bathing when they can, to having showers every day.

Production oil also impacts on the availability of water. it takes 2.5 liters of water to produce every liter of oil. Even growing bio fuels puts pressure on water, with a thousand liters of water needed to make a liter of bio fuel. The modern way of life is water "heavy":


Wealthy people use 3,000 liters of water each day to live their lives. More drought in the world is putting prices of everything up. When water gets short it does so locally. Moving water from one place to another in bulk is problematical. In the short term it is possible, but in the longer term it is not. Food production will fall behind what is needed over the next two decades if nothing is done.

The oil crisis and carbon pollution are problems but a shortage of water will hurt most of all.

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