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from The Human Impact:

Solutions for a hungry world

By 2050, experts say, the planet will need at least 70 percent more food than it does today as its population soars, cities sprawl and climate change takes its toll. Will it be possible?

That’s a question AlertNet put to hunger fighters worldwide for a special multimedia report out today probing the future of food. Their answer: The planet can feed itself – but only if two “revolutions” happen, and happen soon.

The first would involve sweeping changes to entrenched policies and practices that are, in the end, unsustainable. Policies such as spending trillions on agriculture and fuel subsidies. And practices such as eating so much meat and dairy.

This would mean radical policy shifts including potentially a ban on turning grain into biofuel, or placing limits on food speculation. It would mean persuading millions of newly affluent people in China and India not to take on Western-type diets.

Luckily, the second revolution seems a little more in our grasp. That’s because it’s already happening – in farms and fields, in laboratories and government offices, in factories and markets.

Unlike the last century’s “Green Revolution”, which relied on new high-yielding crops and more irrigation to boost production, this revolution relies on countless "green bullets" to tackle hunger.

For our special report, we’ve broken these solutions into four “how-to” categories:

from The Human Impact:

Expert urges unity in dialogue over water security

Disconnected approaches to water security are hindering efforts to launch more effective talks on providing universal access to fresh water and sanitation, an expert said at an international conference this week.

The division between discussions on boosting access to water for the poor and those on the challenges of managing water as a resource was plain to see at the water security conference at Oxford University, according to Tom Slaymaker, a senior policy analyst at WaterAid.

“The dominant narrative on water security reflects rich-country concerns and we mustn’t forget that in developing countries huge amounts of people still lack basic facilities,” Slaymaker said.

Unless the two camps link up, solutions to complex challenges across the water sector are unlikely to be found soon, he said.

“On the one hand, we have climate scientists and water-resource modellers debating the risks attached to periodic extreme events such as floods and droughts,” Slaymaker told AlertNet. “On the other, we have development agencies concerned that over 2 million people continue to die every year due to a lack of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities.”

To bridge the gap, there is a need for more holistic ways of thinking about how to tackle water-related risks, Slaymaker said, citing David Grey, an Oxford University water policy professor.

from The Human Impact:

Safer water, sanitation could save 2.5 mln lives – WaterAid

The lives of 2.5 million people could be saved every year if governments committed to universal access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation, charity WaterAid has said.

Citing the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), WaterAid said in a report that boosting access to clean water and sanitation could save people by reducing deaths from diarrhoea, malnutrition and related diseases.

Although the global Millennium Development Goal (MDG 7) water target to reduce by half the proportion of people living without safe water by 2015 has now been met, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Oceania are lagging behind, WaterAid said.

At current rates of progress, the MDG 7 sanitation target to reduce by half the proportion of people living without access to an improved toilet by 2015 will be missed by a huge margin, the report said, adding that there are now more people in the world without sanitation than there were in 1990.

“It is unacceptable that 37 percent of the world’s population live without a toilet,” said Barbara Frost, WaterAid Britain's chief executive. “The need for action is overwhelming.”

The MDGs are a framework of global targets set in 2000 by the United Nations to be met by 2015 to try and alleviate poverty.

from Photographers Blog:

Gas & Water

By Tim Wimborne

Coal Seam Gas drilling is controversial. It's also worth billions.

Some Australians love it, some hate it. The issues are big and they are complex. The industry is expanding like wildfire and the story develops daily. To more effectively tell this very thin slice of the story I combined pictures with audio, text and time-lapse video.

I believe this sector of Australia's massive resources boom has the potential to make major political shifts. While reporting on it a farmer, a traditionally conservative lot, said to me "thank god for the Greens".

Gas & Water from Tim Wimborne on Vimeo.

from Environment Forum:

Some good news for a thirsty world

Amid the worry about water and food scarcity, some hints of good news: a five-year, 30-nation analysis suggests there might be enough water -- and therefore enough food -- for Earth's hungriest and thirstiest as the human population heads toward the 9 billion mark sometime around mid-century.

Anxiety about food and water supplies stems in part from the effects of climate change, with its projected rise in droughts, wildfires, floods and other events that cut down on food production. Another factor is the increase in population, much of it grouped around water sources in the developing world. But water experts said at a conference this week in Brazil that there could be plenty of water over the coming decades if those upstream collaborate with those downstream and use water more efficiently.

The leader of the study, Simon Cook of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, said this is actually possible. And he said it wouldn't require the repeal of the more selfish impulses of human nature.

Citing an article in Harvard Business Review, Cook said, "It's not necessarily human to be totally individualistic. There's substantial evidence that people can collaborate."

In fact, Cook said, this kind of discussion between upstreamers and downstreamers -- the ones most likely to be at odds over how water should be used -- is already taking place. There is evidence that China's involved in a project to enable hydropower development along the Mekong River, one of several huge river basins examined in the water study. "They're actually engaged in dialog with the people who will be affected by it" in Laos, Cook said, with a bit of wonder in his voice. "So there are some glimmers of hope."

That would be different from what has often happened in developed countries, including the United States, where those who use water for irrigation may have scant discussion with those who use it for rain-fed farming, hydropower, aquaculture or other purposes.

The key is to communicate across borders and across sectors, Cook said. One problem is that those who have power tend to want to hang onto it.

from The Great Debate UK:

Ten years on – is it the end of the 9/11 moment?

-Sir Robert Fry is chairman of McKinney Rogers. His career in the British military includes being director of operations in the Ministry of Defence, advising then prime minister Tony Blair on the military strategic direction of the UK’s response to the September 11 attacks. The opinions expressed are his own.-

In his recent book “On China”, Henry Kissinger rather immodestly, but entirely knowingly, echoes the title of Clausewitz’s seminal work, “On War”. If you’re Henry Kissinger, you can do that. If you’re Henry Kissinger you can also offer a view of unrivalled authority on the politico/strategic landscape of the modern era, which is why his suggestion that China in the 21st Century might reprise the role of Germany in the 20th demands some attention. After the pre-occupation with terrorism of the last 10 years, this sounds rather different. Political ends may be timeless, but the means to prosecute them are rapidly changing, and currency, water, cyber and nuclear instruments may be the weapons of the post 9/11 era.

Chinese maritime capability now includes a missile inventory with the capacity to deny sea control in the Asian littoral to U.S. carrier groups, but why would China pick a conventional fight when its ownership of U.S. foreign debt offers profound strategic leverage without a shot ever being fired?

Timothy Geithner, speaking after the fall of Lehman Brothers, first raised the spectre of currency wars with charges that China was manipulating the yuan in a form of exchange rate mercantilism. But this is a complex and ambiguous area and Sino/American relations are underwritten by what looks like a re-run of the Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction, with the greenback playing the role of nuclear weapons: any large scale dumping of Chinese dollar holdings would not only torpedo its role as a reserve currency, but also devalue remaining Chinese reserves, leaving both nations in a mutually dependent financial embrace.

A more immediate cause of conflict is the voracious appetite of emerging economies for resources; above all, water. The Nile Basin, the swathe of the Middle East fed by the Tigress and Euphrates and, perhaps most important of all, the Tibetan headwaters of the North Indian river systems all provide potential flashpoints for inter-state confrontation, with the last of these coinciding with a Sino/Indian territorial dispute – water will be a weapon in its own right; it is also likely to be the recurring pretext for the use of others.

While water wars are in prospect, cyber wars are a reality. With the capacity to bring down critical national systems, cyber weapons succeed nuclear weapons in their capacity for mass effect; but unlike nuclear weapons, which have been used only twice in human history, cyber weapons are used on a daily basis, targeting everything from private bank accounts to national infrastructure. It is this very ubiquity that makes it difficult to distinguish between a criminal act and enemy action, and if the crooks, geeks and cyber terrorists are to be isolated a formal and declaratory deterrent framework may be necessary to distinguish the enthusiastic amateur from the determined state actor.

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A Week in Pictures 31 July 2011

Ramadan started in Asia on Sunday and Indonesia-based photographer Ahmed Yusef produced this beautiful image to mark the start of the most important period in the Muslim calendar. The viewer focuses on the young woman's eyes as the red scarf draws you to her through a sea of swirling white created by a slow exposure. Also in Indonesia, Dwi Oblo's picture draws you into the picture through  light and smoke to evoke a real feeling of people humbling themselves as they pay respects to their dead relatives as they also prepare for Ramadan.

Muslim woman attend mass prayer session "Tarawih", which marks the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at Al Markaz Al Islami mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi July 31, 2011. Muslims around the world abstain from eating, drinking and conducting sexual relations from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. REUTERS/Ahmad Yusuf 

 Indonesian Muslims pray at the graves of their relatives in Bantul in central Java, July 25, 2011, ahead of Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Indonesian Muslims traditionally visit the graves of their loved ones before and towards the end of the holy month. REUTERS/Dwi Oblo

Pakistan Chief photographer Adrees Latif, Karachi-based photographer Akhtar Soomro and Peshawar-based Fayaz Aziz marked the year since the Pakistan floods to return to the area that was devastated by the disaster which forced millions to move in search of shelter, drinking water and food.   Adrees tracked down the people and scenes he photographed a year ago and using the format of combination pictures produced a revealing set of pictures that just won't let you look away and prompts the question - how much better off are these people a year on? I was tempted to just to highlight the combination pictures but Akhtar's picture of the crying child cradled in his father's legs just too strong to leave out.

from Environment Forum:

The Beer-Water Nexus

Does the path to clean, safe water lead through a brewery?

Andy Wales, head of sustainable development at global brewer SABMiller, maintains it can happen.  The maker of Miller beer -- and 20 other brands, from Aguila in Colombia to Zolotaya Bochka Klassicheskoye in Russia -- likes the environmental angle, but the main impetus is to ensure production of their products in what is a highly variable business from location to location.

"Water is obviously a critical part of high quality beer," Wales said by telephone from London. One important part of this equation is figuring out how to use less water and still make good beer.

What this means in practice is working with groups like World Wildlife Fund and GIZ, a German organization that coordinates international development and sustainable development efforts. It also means recognizing the potential for water scarcity and the need for conservation. The four countries seen as having the biggest long-term water risk are South Africa, Ukraine, Tanzania and Peru, Wales said.

"The goal is to reduce our water use per liter of beer by 25 percent by 2015 over a 2008 base," Wales said. "So that's from 4.6 liters per liter of beer to 3.5 liters by 2015. Water efficiency's a big part of our operations everywhere."

What does this have to do with making good beer? In South Africa, beer-making hops grow in the George region of the Eastern Cape -- an area where weather patterns are shifting due to climate change. To keep the hops growing and beer flowing, SABMiller worked with a government scientific research organization called CSIR to understand risks to that watershed, and risks to the supply of water for irrigation of hops.

In Tanzania, water is scarce for another reason: infrastructure. The country's biggest city, Dar es Salaam, is home to 4 million people, with a water supply for only 400,000 drawn from a source 90 kilometers away. Because the infrastructure to carry the water has problems, many local businesses dig for water, draining the water table. Since Dar es Salaam is a coastal city, digging for water near the ocean allows salt water to intrude into the water supply. One response to this is to invest in equipment to protect the main water supply, Wales said. Another is to seek better enforcement and regulation of ground water.

from India Insight:

Delhi superbug a symptom of India’s ills

By Neha Arha

From objecting to biological samples in the form of "swabs of seepage water and tap water" being smuggled out of the country "on the sly" by British scientists, to calling the resultant Lancet report a western plot to kill India’s potentially $2.3 billion medical tourism industry, New Delhi’s defensive rhetoric appears misplaced as cases of poor health standards surface each day in India’s capital city.

A study, published last August in The Lancet Infectious Diseases citing the drug resistant NDM-1 bug that had evolved in India, and named after New Delhi, raised global concerns when the World Health Organisation endorsed the report.

Since its release, the Indian health establishment has downplayed its findings, and alleged a conflict of interest over the report’s funding.

However, despite its public misgivings, India has begun drafting a policy to regulate the use of antibiotics to prevent bugs from becoming resistant to drugs and recommending a ban on non-therapeutic usage of antibiotics in animals and farms to curb the spread of NDM-1 like bacteria in humans.

Even as India's finance minister showered a 20 percent hike in the annual health budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year, the country's 2 percent of GDP spending on health is paltry compared with the 9-11 percent of GDP spent by European countries.

The government is pushing for increased surveillance and chlorination of drinking water in response to the NDM-1 threat, but India's creaking health care systems still appear distinctly unable to properly service its 1.21 billion population.

from Davos Notebook:

Davos 2011: More people, fewer resources, big risk

Among the major issues global leaders will discuss at the upcoming annual World Economic Forum in Davos are the risks associated with the tightening of water, food and energy resources to meet the demands of an increasing global population.

The three interrelated resources impact both global economic growth and geopolitical stability and the Forum’s Global Risks 2011 report warns that “any strategy that focuses on one part of the water-food-energy nexus without considering its interconnections risks serious unintended consequences.”

Three recent news stories illustrate the risks associated with these precious resources.

Water

The situation in Yemen provides a perfect illustration of the growing problem countries face when it comes to fresh water supplies. Yemen’s population is increasing – exploding really. Currently at 23 million, it’s forecast to double in the next 20 years. Thanks to drought and overconsumption, the water is running out and farmers are abandoning their land for the cities.

A nonprofit network and affiliate of the policy think tank Pacific Institute called Circle of Blue offers 19 solutions to the global freshwater crisis here.

Food