I believe that excessive affluence has caused the current dilemma of water shortages. Trees trap and absorb water through leaves, trunk and roots. But when trees are cut down, the water supply is depleted. I believe that deforestation could be caused by excessive affluence. I’ll discuss two aspects of this topics.
First, excessively increasing livestock farming. We are in abundant environment that we can easily purchase meet on the market. According to one report, 40% of tropical rain forests in
Second, land clearing. The rapid increase in the number of Slash and burn agriculture in order to produce food. Slash and burn agriculture is particularly important throughout the tropics where, when done properly, it can provide people with a secure source of food and income. Many critics point out however that when done improperly, slash and burn agriculture can quickly degrade large areas of forest which do not recover. We are too much in affluent environment. For example, it is said that 30% of lunch box sold at convenience store are thrown out. What a waste it is! Let’s reduce the variety of lunch box. We should refrain from excessive supply on the market.
We should not forget that we can get affluence in return for environmental destruction.
In conclusion, excessive affluence is absolutely dealing a significant blow on water supply.
3 comments:
Will the world eventually deplete drinkable water?
It is very difficult to predict quantity of remaining drinkable water in the future. So I cannot give you a difinite answer. But it would be true that we are going to use so much of water that in the relatively near future, the water would become so scarce and then something so valuable.
This story is backed also with the estimated increasing population.
Most of environmental issues are closely concerned with the increasing population. The more population we have, the more damage we give to the environment, and the less share we get. This rule applies to all kinds of resources on Earth. So is the case of water. Besides you should know the fact that more than half of fresh water is used for agricultural purpose.
Currently on this glove there are about 6 billion people, and according to WHO, this number is expected to increase up to 9 billion till 2050, if my memory is correct. Even now we are sometimes asked by authorities to pay attention to quantity of available fresh water.
It is true that 70% of the earth's surface is sea and the rest is land. But salt water is currently very costly to desalinate to make it drinkable.
And on the land, we have so tiny amount of fresh water, and most of this fresh water lies in underground. What is worse is that underground water can be contaminated so easily by human activity.
Up until around 26 years ago, in Japan we were able to get good quality of water very easily by just turning on a faucet, but after that time people began making complaint about quality of tap water. Some people said tap water did not taste good because of aging water pipes and chroline added as disinfectant (antiseptic), others began to claim water from the faucet was not safe due to contamination caused by rapid industrialization. So since then health conscious people have been buying bottled water (spring water).
Thinking of this situation, the future of supply of fresh water does not look bright.
It is true that as urbanization and industrialization progress, we produce more and more waste water and we dump it into river and sea, and those waste water eventually gets into our body by one way or another.
Even if there is a law about regualation of quantity that they can release, so many factories probably have been dumping its waste with exceeding its limit.
Waste water once goes into waste water treatment facilities, but waste water treatment facility cannot filtrate out all chemical substances of waste water. Nowadays we can detect trace amount of some organic compund that came from shampoo, hair dye, pill and various kinds of drugs including anti-depressant drugs in drinking water. And its concentration is increasing.
So what would happen in the futer. The price of drinking water would shoot up, given the law of supply and demand, and it means some portion of population in our society become impossible to obtain healthy drinking water.
Desertification
Human beings are making enormous changes to the surface of the earth. The deserts are expanding due to various reasons like, according to one theory, less rain fall caused by global warming and spread of sand to neighbouring areas by wind. It is said that one third of the world's land surface is threatened with desertification. So large areas are becoming imporverished beyond the hope of recovery. Ten thousand years ago about half the world was covered with forests, but now more than three quaters of them have been destroye or degraded.
To slow this process, what we can do is to supply water to this dry land by irrigation like drawing canals from nearby lakes, or bringing in wet fertile soil then planting on it. But, both methods cost so much money, and nobody gets benefit, so actually nobody wants to do it. Are you willing to dig a canal for them under intensive sun light without pay? The desert is so worthless, actually nobody wants it, therefore currently its price is very low. Even if you occupy their land and claim it your own property, it is hard to imagine somebody accuses you. If the desert turns into greenland, then some powers would come here to start war. One American economist says that if Iraq's major export was broccoli, would USA invade Iraq?
Hunger in industrialized countries?
Is there any possibility that we suffer hunger in near future? Japan imports most of food for their tables. Japan is in a very unique position in terms of food supply among industrial countries. In Europes it is very common to grow their crops within their countries. Not only crops, they also make meat products like ham and sausage by themselves and store them in their home for possible emergency. European countries have experience of femine in the past, and they never forget it. Now, in some part of Australia, people suffer rise in food prices, due to drought which led to increase of transport costs, and some people are concerned about how to get cheap food in near future to balance their household budgets.
But how about Japan? Why only Japan among developed countries does not grow its own? Japan also ,especially in northern part of it, has experienced terrible femine in the past. Then why shouldn't we go growing ourselves? Are we totally have become num about risk?
But it is also true that those cases would rarely happen in the future, although not toally without risks. Nowadays we have technology to get enough food production, and the world somewhere has enough food. In an very emergency case, we can import very cheap Chinese food materials which currently no Japanese wants to eat.
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