Iran’s insatiable demand for water, which is being drawn out of aquifers far faster than it can be replenished, is causing large chunks of farmland to sink and buildings to crack, according to a new study.
Estimates suggest the water levels in Iranian aquifers have declined by an average of nearly 1.5 feet (half a [...]

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by Larry EdelsonI’ll discuss the state of the markets shortly. First, I’d like to discuss the state of the world’s future.
According to a long-term study just released by the U.S. Naval Services Department, a series of tipping points could dramatically alter the global prospects for economic growth and humanity — for the worse.
Right now, for [...]

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As drylands get drier and violence grows, new crises resembling Darfur will arise.
The world will experience a growing risk of conflicts over food, energy and water in coming years. The population rises each year by about 80 million people, with most of the increase in impoverished regions already facing environmental stress. Climate change, water scarcity [...]

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Beijing has promoted its 2008 Games as a nature-friendly festival of sport, but water for the expanses of greenery and sparkling waterways greeting visitors in August will be pumped from sources already battered by over-use and over-engineering, says Probe International, a Canada-based conservation group.
Read More…

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T. Boone Pickens thinks water is the new oil—and he’s betting $100 million that he’s right.
In the coming decades, as growing numbers of people live in urban areas and climate change makes some regions much more prone to drought, water—or what many are calling “blue gold”—will become an increasingly scarce resource. By 2030 nearly half [...]

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FORTUNA, Spain — Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — dozens of them, all recently built — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.
There is only [...]

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India is using groundwater so rapidly that some areas have already run out. In a village in Rajasthan, the state sends in water by train.
TEJA KA BAS, India — Bhanwar Lal Yadav, once a cultivator of cucumber and wheat, has all but given up growing food. No more suffering through drought and the scourge [...]

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Grain production in Saudi Arabia is now down 42 percent from the peak of 4.9 million tons reached in 1994 and is now on track to decline rapidly in the coming years. Thanks to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute for compiling these figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
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Peak water in Saudi [...]

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If China were to follow the U.S. in individual demand on natural resources, it would need the available capacity of the entire planet, the report issued by WWF in Beijing said.
China uses 15 percent of the world’s total biological capacity—resources such as water, land and timber, the report said.
“In the next 10 to 20 years, [...]

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Is there any end to Chinese ambitions in Asia? China wishes to dominate Asia with blockades, blockages, military diplomacy and political Machiavellism.
China’s building of the port of Gwadar at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in fact is meant to blockade the oil supplies of the world. Its military diplomacy is on display at the [...]

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That the news is familiar makes it no less alarming: 1.1 billion people, about one-sixth of the world’s population, lack access to safe drinking water. Aquifers under Beijing, Delhi, Bangkok, and dozens of other rapidly growing urban areas are drying up. The rivers Ganges, Jordan, Nile, and Yangtze — all dwindle to a trickle for [...]

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DENILIQUIN, Australia — Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”
The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once [...]

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Soccer crowds in England like to abuse match referees by chanting: “You don’t know what you’re doing.” If protesters had been able to get near the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, they could justifiably have aimed the same chant at the world leaders who assembled in the Alps.
These people are meant to be [...]

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And don’t expect the government’s environmental watchdog to do much about it.
These days China’s environmental bureaucrats know how to talk the talk. They readily admit that pollution is poisoning the country’s water resources, air and soil. They acknowledge that carbon emissions are soaring. If only, they lament, the government would give them the means to [...]

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The world is on the verge of a water crisis. As the global economy and the world’s population continue to expand, we are becoming a much thirstier planet. It is important to realise just how much water we need to make the various aspects of our economy work.
Every litre of petrol requires up to 2.5litres [...]

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Water consumption has tripled in the past 30 years and there’s a growing danger that disputes over the most necessary of resources could erupt into violence.
Many parts of the world, notably the Middle East, are running out of water to feed themselves. In response, a vast global trade is emerging. Not in water itself, but [...]

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BEIJING: Industrial discharge and household wastewater have polluted a northern Chinese river so severely that the water is dark red in some parts and has caused chronic illnesses among villagers, a government publication reported.
Some of the 50,000 affected villagers living along the Futuo River in Hebei province said sweet potatoes and soy beans grown there [...]

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With the largest open-cast chromite ore mines in the world, India’s Sukinda valley endures significant pollution; 60 percent of the drinking water is contaminated with carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, affecting nearly 3 million people. Health officials say 85 percent (Times of India) of the population suffers from “pollution-induced” diseases and fatalities, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, tuberculosis, [...]

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For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China’s galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China — even as demand [...]

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