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Water Day Warnings
FAO is helping to pump some fear into your veins by using the words,
"water scarcity" seven times in a recent article when the attention
should be on providing fresh water to people who don't have access,
while lessening the load on this resource where it is being overused for
mass production and growth, which causes the problem in the first place.
While poor and middle class people are asked to conserve water,
corporations and mass builders along with resource vacuum developers
over run the planet like weeds sucking it all up!
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FAO Marks Water Day with Dire Warnings
22 March 2007 - By Sabina Castelfranco -
voanews.com
The U.N. food agency (FAO) marked World Water Day
calling for greater efforts to combat water scarcity. The agency's
director general, Jacques Diouf, said this is the biggest challenge of
the 21st century. Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome.
FAO Director General Jacques Diouf told a
conference marking World Water Day that a global commitment is
needed to deal with the worldwide problem of water scarcity. He
said countries must learn to share water fairly or conflicts over
this vital resource can arise.
Diouf said global water use has been growing at more than twice
the rate of population growth in the last century.
Water scarcity,
he said, already affects every continent and more than 40 percent
of the people on the planet. |
Photo Credit: VOANEWS.COM
Mali villagers wait their
turn at a water well |
The food agency projects by 2025, 2.8 billion people will be living in
countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of
the world's population could be living under water stressed
conditions.
"Water scarcity is first and foremost an issue linked to poverty," he
said. "Unclean water and lack of sanitation are the destiny of poor
people across the world."
According to the FAO, 3,800 children die each day from diseases
associated with a lack of safe drinking water and proper sanitation. Diouf said the
poor always pay more.
"People in the slums of developing countries typically pay for their
water five to 10 times more than those who have access to piped
water," he added. "For poor people solving the
water scarcity problem
is about guaranteeing a fair and safe access to the water they need to
sustain their lives."
Food security is also at stake. Diouf said agriculture is the
number-one user of water worldwide, accounting for about 70 percent of
all freshwater withdrawn from lakes, rivers, and aquifers. He added
that demand from farms is set to increase by 14 percent in the next 30
years.
"It takes 1,000 liters to 2,000 liters of water to produce one kilo of
wheat, and 13,000 to 15,000 liters to produce the same quantity of
grain-fed beef," he explained.
Diouf said the water scarcity situation
is being exacerbated by climate change, especially in the driest areas
of the world. He said access to water and food are rights that are
universally recognized and that adequate institutional and legal
instruments must be found for water sharing.
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The
The
Labors in the Spirits of
Science
Living on the Lost Planet 
