TONY ON WATER WARS AND OTHER NEWS
Posted by anthonynorth on October 2, 2007
THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: Is the future going to be wars over water? … PLUS … Self defence laws … from Police; Cameron, get your finger out!
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CLIMATE AND EQUALITY
UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has recently told the UN that the greatest threat to equality throughout the world is climate change. As environments react to this problem, poor countries could suffer the worse.
This is, indeed, a serious problem, but he didn’t go into the worse case scenario – i.e. wars. And if anything is going to cause wars in the future, it is going to be water. Already a precious commodity in many countries, climate change will make it even more precious.
The future of water
The most greedy guzzlers of water are, infact, the most developed countries. Hence, it is highly likely that they will take military action to guarantee water supplies.
One possible answer to the problem is the mass use of desalination plants, yet at the moment they are costly in energy and require large infrastructures. Maybe one of the best ways to guarantee a modicum of peace in a rapidly changing environment is to begin research into better forms of desalination now.
After all, we’ll still have plenty of sea water, won’t we?
© Anthony North, October 2007
SELF DEFENCE LAWS
There has been much said about the UK’s self defence laws in recent days, after Justice Minister Jack Straw joined the clamour to wear Tory clothes at the Labour Party Conference …
… read more …
TIME FOR THE TORIES TO WAKE UP
It is becoming increasingly likely that the UK’s ‘esteemed leader’ is about to call an election. Personally, my instinct still says Brown would rather not, but pressure may be getting to him …
… read more …
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Inde-Pol
October 2, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Yup. I keep predicting there will be water wars. Forget the oil, it’s water that we’ll need in 25 years. The warmer the climate gets, the more fresh water we’ll lose to the oceans.
Here’s what I see happening at a frightening pace out here in the heartland of the US: In order to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, farmers jave been financially incentivized to grow more and more corn to make ethanol. Corn requires a LOT of water to grow, so in western Kansas the corn is irrigated. Now we’re using up one natural resource to save another. Not smart. In fact, dang crazy.
October 2, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Hi OB,
Too right. I’m convinced that, had we looked to alternative energy resources earlier - such as wind, wave and solar - and put adequate money into research, we could have solved our power problems - and most likely got a real alternative to the internal combustion engine.
And I’m equally convinced that we didn’t do so because the multi-nationals realised that alternatives didn’t need the huge organisations to run them. Power stations could have become the province of smaller companies.
Hence, we’re in this position so that the multi-nats can retain their hold on power.