Climate change will destroy our already stressed water supply- resource wars
CNA 7 (CNA, http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf ) ET
Adequate supplies of fresh water for drinking, irrigation, and sanitation are the most basic prerequisite for human habitation. Changes in rainfall, snowfall, snowmelt, and glacial melt have significant effects on fresh water supplies, and climate change is likely to affect all of those things. In some areas of the Middle East, tensions over water already exist. Mountain glaciers are an especially threatened source of fresh water [3]. A modest rise in temperature of about 2° to 4°F in mountainous regions can dramatically alter the precipitation mix by increasing the share falling as rain while decreasing the share falling as snow. The result is more flooding during the rainy season, a shrinking snow/ice mass, and less snowmelt to feed rivers during the dry season [4]. Forty percent of the world’s population derives at least half of its drinking water from the summer melt of mountain glaciers, but these glaciers are shrinking and some could disappear within decades. Several of Asia’s major rivers—the Indus, Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow—originate in the Himalayas [4]. If the massive snow/ice sheet in the Himalayas—the third-largest ice sheet in the world, after those in Antarctic and Greenland—continues to melt, it will dramatically reduce the water supply of much of Asia. Most countries in the Middle East and northern Africa are already considered water scarce, and the International Water Resource Management Institute projects that by 2025, Pakistan, South Africa, and large parts of India and China will also be water scarce [5]. To put this in perspective: the U.S. would have to suffer a decrease in water supply that produces an 80 percent decrease in per capita water consumption to reach the United Nations definition of “water scarce.” These projections do not factor in climate change, which is expected to exacerbate water problems in many areas.
And, global warming causes resource wars
Thompson 7 (Andrea, Live Science staff writer, Live Science, http://www.livescience.com/environment/070709_gw_wars.html , 7-9-7) ET
Food and water shortages fueled in the future by global warming could spur conflicts and even wars over these essential resources, the authors of a new study warn. History suggests the controversial idea might be on track. Changes in climate, such as temperature and rainfall, can significantly alter the availability of crops, livestock and drinking water. Resource shortages could, in turn, prompt people to turn to war to get what they need to survive, several experts have warned. A new study, detailed in the August 2007 issue of the journal Human Ecology, suggests this was the case in the past. The authors reviewed 899 wars fought in China between 1000 and 1911 and found a correlation between the frequency of warfare and records of temperature changes. “It was the oscillations of agricultural production brought by long-term climate change that drove China’s historical war-peace cycles,” wrote lead author David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong. Similarly, several top retired American military leaders released a report in April warning of the national security threat posed by global warming, predicting wars over water, refugees displaced by rising sea levels and higher rates of famine and disease. Climate change could possibly improve growing conditions in some areas (particularly higher latitudes), while hurting them in others (especially the tropics), explained William Easterling of Pennsylvania State University.
Wars over resources are deadly, and lead to Armageddon
Lendmen 7 ( Stephen,Progressive Radio Newshour host, 6-6-7, global research.ca, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5892 ) ET
The new "Great Game's" begun, but this time the stakes are greater than ever as explained above. The old one lasted nearly 100 years pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia when the issue wasn't oil. This time, it's the US with help from Israel, Britain, the West, and satellite states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan challenging Russia and China with today's weapons and technology on both sides making earlier ones look like toys. At stake is more than oil. It's planet earth with survival of all life on it issue number one twice over. Resources and wars for them means militarism is increasing, peace declining, and the planet's ability to sustain life front and center, if anyone's paying attention. They'd better be because beyond the point of no return, there's no second chance the way Einstein explained after the atom was split. His famous quote on future wars was : "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Under a worst case scenario, it's more dire than that. There may be nothing left but resilient beetles and bacteria in the wake of a nuclear holocaust meaning even a new stone age is way in the future, if at all. The threat is real and once nearly happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. We later learned a miracle saved us at the 40th anniversary October, 2002 summit meeting in Havana attended by the US and Russia along with host country Cuba. For the first time, we were told how close we came to nuclear Armageddon. Devastation was avoided only because Soviet submarine captain Vasily Arkhipov countermanded his order to fire nuclear-tipped torpedos when Russian submarines were attacked by US destroyers near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had he done it, only our imagination can speculate what might have followed and whether planet earth, or at least a big part of it, would have survived.
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