Solar Storms Affirmative – 4 Week Lab [1/3]
Download 0.93 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Impact – Water Scarcity
Impact – AgricultureClimate change destroys all forms of agricultural activity EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Climate Change-health and environmental effects: agriculture and food supply.” http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/agriculture.html) 12/20/2007 Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes, such as droughts, floods and severe storms. The forces that shape our climate are also critical to farm productivity. Human activity has already changed atmospheric characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and ground level ozone. The scientific community expects such trends to continue. While food production may benefit from a warmer climate, the increased potential for droughts, floods and heat waves will pose challenges for farmers. Additionally, the enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture could make it less feasible to continue crop production in certain regions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded: Recent studies indicate that increased frequency of heat stress, droughts and floods negatively affect crop yields and livestock beyond the impacts of mean climate change, creating the possibility for surprises, with impacts that are larger, and occurring earlier, than predicted using changes in mean variables alone. This is especially the case for subsistence sectors at low latitudes. Climate variability and change also modify the risks of fires, pest and pathogen outbreak, negatively affecting food, fiber and forestry. Impact – Water ScarcityClimate change causes water scarcity (and food shortages) Brown, Lester (World-renowned environmental analyst and head of the non-profit research organization the Earth Policy Institute based in Washington DC. p.69: “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization” http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/pb3ch3.pdf) 2008 Beyond these traditional sources of water insecurity, climate change is now affecting water supplies. Rising temperatures are boosting evaporation rates, altering rainfall patterns, and melting the glaciers that feed rivers during the dry season. As the glaciers melt, they are threatening to convert perennial rivers such as the Ganges in India and the Yellow in China into seasonal rivers, increasing both water and food insecurity. With the earth’s climate system and its hydrological cycle so intertwined, any changes in climate will alter the hydrological cycle.3 Among the more visible manifestations of water scarcity are rivers running dry and lakes disappearing. A politics of water scarcity is emerging between upstream and downstream claimants both within and among countries. Water scarcity is now crossing borders via the international grain trade. Countries that are pressing against the limits of their water supply typically satisfy the growing need of cities and industry by diverting irrigation water from agriculture and then importing grain to offset the loss of productive capacity. The link between water and food is strong. We each drink on average nearly 4 liters of water per day in one form or another, while the water required to produce our daily food totals at least 2,000 liters—500 times as much. This helps explain why 70 percent of all water use is for irrigation. Another 20 percent is used by industry, and 10 percent goes for residential purposes. With the demand for water growing in all three categories, competition among sectors is intensifying, with agriculture almost always losing. While most people recognize that the world is facing a future of water shortages, not everyone has connected the dots to see that this also means a future of food shortages.4 Collapsing global water supply causes extinction. Barlow, 2001 (Maude, Spring) National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and IFG Committee on the Globalization of Water. “BLUE GOLD: The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply,” http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/BlueGold.pdf. Perhaps the most devastating analysis of the global water crisis comes from hydrological engineer Michal Kravèík and his team of scientists at the Slovakia non-governmental organization (NGO) People and Water. Kravèík, who has a distinguished career with the Slovak Academy of Sciences, has studied the effect of urbanization, industrial agriculture, deforestation, dam construction, and infrastructure and paving on water systems in Slovakia and surrounding countries and has come up with an alarming finding. Destroying water's natural habitat not only creates a supply crisis for people and animals, it also dramatically diminishes the amount of available fresh water on the planet. Kravèík describes the hydrologic cycle of a drop of water. It must first evaporate from a plant, earth surface, swamp, river, lake or the sea, then fall back down to earth as precipitation. If the drop of water falls back onto a forest, lake, blade of grass, meadow or field, it cooperates with nature to return to the hydrologic cycle. "Right of domicile of a drop is one of the basic rights, a more serious right than human rights," says Kravèík. However, if the earth's surface is paved over, denuded of forests and meadows, and drained of natural springs and creeks, the drop will not form part of river basins and continental watersheds, where it is needed by people and animals, but head out to sea, where it will be stored. It is like rain falling onto a huge roof, or umbrella; everything underneath stays dry and the water runs off to the perimeter. The consequent reduction in continental water basins results in reduced water evaporation from the earth's surface, and becomes a net loss, while the seas begin to rise. In Slovakia, the scientists found, for every 1 percent of roofing, paving, car parks and highways constructed, water supplies decrease in volume by more than 100 billion meters per year. Kravèík issues a dire warning about the growing number of what he calls the earth's "hot stains"—places already drained of water. The "drying out" of the earth will cause massive global warming, with the attendant extremes in weather: drought, decreased protection from the atmosphere, increased solar radiation, decreased biodiversity, melting of the polar icecaps, submersion of vast territories, massive continental desertification and, eventually, "global collapse." Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.93 Mb. Share with your friends:
|