According to Gwynne Dyer, the Chinese real-estate bubble, “the biggest in history,” could take down the whole world economy when it bursts.
As well, as oil prices go so go food prices, since modern factory food production is highly dependent upon fossil fuel based fertilizers and food transportation is based upon even more fossil fuel.
And before I can holler ‘enough already’, there’s the pending problems related to fossil water (Dyer’s term) to consider and act upon.
Not only has the use of fertilizer grown (“global fertilizer use tripled between 1960 and 1975”) but “there was an enormous expansion of the world’s irrigated area. It has more than tripled since 1950.”
[Please click here for link to Dyer’s article in The London Free Press, Aug. 13.]
Some highlights from Dyer’s article follow:
- 10% of the world’s cropland is irrigated but that 10% provides about 40% of the world’s food
- most new irrigated land uses water from deep underground aquifers (or “fossil” water) which will eventually be pumped dry
- the world will eventually have to make do with the one-third of the land watered by the weather
- it won’t be enough
Though the world’s aquifers won’t all run dry at the same time, Dyer states most aquifers will be dry in 30 years, and some in the US are passed their peak already (e.g., Texas in 1978, California in 1997).
China and India, the two most-heavily populated regions in the world, are straining water resources as well at this time (grain for 175 million Indians is produced by over-pumping water; 130 million Chinese face a dwindling supply now for grain), Israel imports 98% of its grain now and Saudi Arabia will import 100% of its grain by next year.
Rich countries and families will be able to pay when grain prices double from the current price (already we know that the average world price for grain soared by 71% in the last year), but not every country or family one is rich.
Already mounting debt throughout the world is a daily news story and the pile of solutions is getting slimmer by the minute. Is there a ‘bridge over troubled water’ for those who do not have the means to keep up with multiple rising costs? (Unfortunately, food is but one part of our budget).
Dyer concludes by saying, “Never mind what climate change will eventually do to the world food supply (although we will mind very much when it finally hits). The crisis is coming sooner than that, and it is quite unavoidable. We are living way beyond our means.”
["Can we live under our means and still sing and dance?": photo GH]
Many will be tempted to say it’s just “Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody” and that’s the extent of their problems.
If we collectively put off living under our means much longer, however, we may miss the satisfying opportunity to do even that.
***
Please click here to read PT 2 It’s “Another Saturday Night” and I ain’t got no money.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment