Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

The quotation is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. It echoes the dilemma facing the planet today, where devastating droughts and floods are already leading to water shortages world wide.

The world population is expected to rise 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050, the increase being equivalent to the total population in 1950. The whole of the increase will be in the developing countries to reach 7.9 billion in 41 years, which for some countries will be standing room only. By that time, 3 billion people will be severely short of water.  

International Alert in a 2007 report A Climate of Conflict identified 46 countries home to 2.7 billion people, where climate change and water-related crises create a high risk of violent conflict. A further 56 countries, representing another 1.2 billion, are at high risk of political instability.

The danger of water shortage is not confined to the poorer countries. In the US, California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a few days ago that the state “is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history.” The state’s Department of   Works says that that California seems on track for its worst drought since the early 1990s.

Catherine Brahic (New Scientist February 1 2009) says that the three year drought may be a consequence of the expanding tropics, which are gradually growing as greenhouse gases warm the planet. “”Climate scientists have documented a slow progression of low latitude weather systems towards the poles, and matched by rising temperatures in many temperature regions.

Thomas Reichler of the University of Utah says the subtropics is more feared than widening of the tropical zone itself. While the tropical belt is hot and humid,the subtropics suffer from severe drought.  According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, 36 states will face water shortages by 2013, with the bulk of the population projected for the driest areas.

The intensity of the drought on the US west coast is mirrored in Australia, which has been severely affected by the worst drought in more than 100 years across the south eastern areas, hitting hard the food bowl of the Murray Darling river system.

The Pacific Institute in releasing the latest edition of the World’s Water 2008-2009, has an alarming chapter on China’s intense water problems. “China’s water resources are overallocated, inefficiently used, and grossly polluted by human and industrial waste, to the point that vast stretches of rivers are dead and dying, lakes are cesspools of waste, ground water aquifers are over-pumped and unsustainably consumed, and direct adverse impacts on both human and ecosystem health are widespread and growing.

Of the 20 most seriously polluted cities in tthe world,16 are in China. Three hundred million people lack access to safe drinking water. Significant outbreaks of illness, including cancers, are being reported in heavily polluted regions, driving up health care costs and growing public concern. There is growing internal dissent and conflict over both water allocation and water quality, raising new political pressres on the central and provincial governments to come to grips with water problems.”