The Future (80 page)
Authors: Al Gore
334
“where the world’s major irrigated lands are located”
UNEP, “Water Withdrawal and Consumption: The Big Gap,” 2008,
http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article42.html
.
335
water withdrawal in the coming decades
Ibid.; Matthew Power, “Peak Water: Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry. How Three Regions Are Coping,”
Wired
, April 21, 2008.
336
Europe is consuming only a slightly larger percentage
Ibid.
337
are already experiencing severe shortages
Paul Quinlan, “US-Mexico Pact Hailed as Key Step Towards Solving Southwest Water Supply Woes,”
New York Times
, December 22, 2010.
338
herded north from Texas to wetter, cooler pastures
Drover’s Cattle, “More Than 150,000 Breeding Cattle Leave Texas in 2011 Drought,” February 2012,
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/e-newsletters/drovers-daily/More-than-150000-breeding-cattle-leave-Texas-in-2011-drought-138513934.html
.
339
will run completely dry before the end of this decade
“Dry Lake Mead? 50-50 Chance by 2021 Seen,” MSNBC, February 2008,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23130256/ns/us_news-environment/t/dry-lake-mead—-chance-seen/#.UGSvsBh9lbo
.
340
has dropped more than 100 feet
Brown,
Plan B 4.0
.
341
two minutes on average, twenty-four hours a day
Charles Duhigg, “Saving US Water Systems Could Be Costly,”
New York Times
, March 14, 2010.
342
like groundwater resources—“out of sight, out of mind”
Ibid.
343
vast new quantities of needed freshwater
Power, “Peak Water.”
344
agricultural irrigation practices are still extremely wasteful
T. Marc Schober, “Irrigation: Yield Enhancer or Farmland Destroyer?,” Seeking Alpha, July 11, 2011,
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/362794-t-marc-schober/194359-irrigation-yield-enhancer-or-farmland-destroyer
; “No Easy Fix,”
Economist;
World Health Organization, “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update.”
345
farmers have been slow to make the change
Sandra Postel, “Drip Irrigation Expanding Worldwide,”
National Geographic
, June 25, 2012.
346
amounts of salt that build up with continued use
World Wildlife Fund, “Farming: Wasteful Water Use,” 2005,
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/impacts/water_use/
.
347
safe for watering plants
Nancy Farghalli, “Recycling ‘Grey Water’ Cheaply,” NPR News, June 2009,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105089381
.
348
purify it, and put it into drinking water systems
Kate Galbraith, “Taking the Ick Factor out of Recycled Water,”
New York Times
, July 25, 2012.
349
communities have successfully implemented the approach
Ibid.
350
more of the rainfall and store it for drinking water
Peter Gleick and Matthew Herberger, “Devastating Drought Seems Inevitable in American West,”
Scientific American
, January 2012.
351
roughly 10 percent of the Earth’s surface
Susan Lang, “ ‘Slow Insidious’ Soil Erosion Threatens Human Health and Welfare as Well as the Environment, Cornell Study Asserts,”
Cornell Chronicle
, March 2006.
352
accelerate the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Personal conversation with Rattan Lal.
353
increasing the fertility of the topsoil
David R. Huggins and John P. Reganold, “No-Till: The Quiet Revolution,”
Scientific American
, July 2008, pp. 70–77.
354
replenish soil carbon and nitrogen
Michael Pollan,
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
(New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 42.
355
expensive liability instead of a valued asset
Ibid., p. 78.
356
nontoxic manure as fertilizer and a three-year crop rotation
Mark Bittman, “A Simple Fix for Farming,”
New York Times
, October 19, 2012.
357
virtually all of the nitrogen is derived
U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Domestic Nitrogen Fertilizer Depends On Natural Gas Availability and Prices,” 2003, p. 1,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-1148
.
358
use per acre has been increasing dramatically
Jeremy Grantham, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever,”
GMO Quarterly Letter
, April 2011.
359
devoid of life, which are growing in several ocean regions
Robert Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems,”
Science
, April 15, 2008.
360
recent spectacular algae blooms in Chinese
“No Easy Fix,”
Economist
.
361
U.S., China, Southeast Asia, and parts of Latin America
“Nitrogen Pollution an Increasing Problem Globally,” PRI’s The World, January 27, 2009,
http://www.pri.org/stories/science/environment/nitrogen-pollution-an-increasing-problem-globally-8166.html
.
362
tripled the depletion of phosphorus from cropland
David Vaccari, “Phosphorus: A Looming Crisis,”
Scientific American
, June 2009.
363
where 65 percent of U.S. production now takes place
Ibid.; James Elser and Stuart White, “Peak Phosphorus,”
Foreign Policy
, April 20, 2010.
364
search for new reserves is beginning again
Ibid.
365
the “Saudi Arabia of phosphorus”
Ibid.
366
exports during the 2008 food price crisis
Elser and White, “Peak Phosphorus.”
367
order to extend the supplies of phosphorus for fertilizers
Mara Grunbaum, “Gee Whiz: Human Urine Is Shown to Be an Effective Agricultural Fertilizer,”
Scientific American
, July 23, 2010.
368
soil fertility and enhance the sequestration of soil carbon
Rifat Hayat et al., “Soil Beneficial Bacteria and Their Role in Plant Growth Promotion: A Review,”
Annals of Microbiology
60, no. 4 (December 2010): 579–98; Tim J. LaSalle,
Regenerative Organic Farming: A Solution to Global Warming
, Rodale Institute, July 30, 2008, pp. 2–3,
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/Rodale_Research_Paper_07_30_08.pdf
.
369
soil and further protect against erosion
J. Paul Mueller, Denise Finney, and Paul Hepperly, “The Field System,” in
The Sciences and Art of Adaptive Management: Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management
, edited by Keith M. Moore (Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation Society, 2009).
370
fertility of the soil while diminishing erosion
Huggins and Reganold, “No-Till: The Quiet Revolution.”
371
carefully managed way can also improve yields and soil quality
David Laird and Jeffrey Novak, “Biochar and Soil Quality,”
Encyclopedia of Soil Science
, 2nd ed. (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2011), pp. 1–4.
372
when Victory Gardens were planted during World War II
National WWII Museum, “Victory Gardens at a Glance,” 2009,
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/victory-gardens.html
.
373
keep up with the extra food production needed
David Pimentel et al., “Impact of a Growing Population on Natural Resources: The Challenge for Environmental Management,”
Frontiers
3 (1997).
374
(approximately 25 million acres) every year
Lang, “ ‘Slow Insidious’ Soil Erosion.”
375
mostly in Kazakhstan (1954)—and created their own Dust Bowl
Lester Brown,
World on the Edge
(New York: Norton, 2011),
http://www.earthpolicy.org/books/wote/wotech3
.
376
Aral Sea, almost completely disappeared
NASA, “A Shrinking Sea, Aral Sea,” July 23, 2012,
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/landsat/news/40th-top10-aralsea.html
.
377
eroded land to grassland and a nationwide effort to fight soil erosion
Andrew Glass, “FDR Signs Soil Conservation Act, April 27, 1935,”
Politico
,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36362.html
.
378
“Drylands are on the front line”
Alister Doyle, “World Urged to Stop Net Desertification by 2030,” Reuters, June 14, 2011.
379
way of life for an estimated one billion people in 100 countries
Ibid.
380
“dust storm moved through a large swatch of Arizona”
“Historic Dust Storm Sweeps Across Arizona, Turns Day into Night,” July 6, 2011, Reuters.
381
unusually large number of them in recent years
“7 Haboobs Have Hit Arizona Since July,” KVOA, September 28, 2011,
http://www.kvoa.com/news/7-haboobs-have-hit-arizona-since-july/
.
382
describing what is in store for many regions of desertifying drylands
Joe Romm, “Desertification: The Next Dust Bowl,”
Nature
, October 2011.
383
“China, western Mongolia, and central Asia; the other in central Africa”
Lester Brown, “The Great Food Crisis of 2011,”
Foreign Policy
, January 10, 2011.
384
have increased tenfold during the last fifty years
Gaia Vince, “Dust Storms on the Rise Globally,”
New Scientist
, August 2004.
385
“activity and 40 percent of the continent’s population”
“Desertification Affects 70 Percent of Economic Activity in Africa,”
Pana Press
, October 24, 2011.
386
United States’ Midwest just prior to the Dust Bowl
Rattan Lal, interview with author, July 2, 2009; Rattan Lal, “Global Potential of Soil Carbon Sequestration to Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect,”
Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences
22, no. 2 (2003): 151–84.
387
the number of livestock exploded
Brown,
Plan B 4.0
.
388
Muslims moving from the north into non-Muslim areas
Ibid.
389
surrounding China’s Gobi Desert
Damien Currington, “Desertification Is the Greatest Threat to the Planet, Experts Warn,”
Guardian
, December 15, 2010.
390
goats compared to less than 10 million in the United States
Ibid.
391
China is now losing almost 1,400 square miles of arable land
Ibid.
392
Inner Mongolia and Gansu Province are merging and expanding
Ibid.
393
Taklamakan and Kumtag deserts are also merging and expanding
Ibid.
394
abandoned in northern and western regions of China
Ibid.
395
have already abandoned many villages to the encroaching desert
Ibid.
396
“a savannah-like region bordering the basin on its south side”
Ibid.
397
Amazon rainforest, adding even more risk to the integrity
David Lapola et al., “Indirect Land-Use Changes Can Overcome Carbon Savings from Biofuels in Brazil,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, January 2010.
398
suffered from two “hundred-year” droughts in the last seven years
Simon Lewis et al., “The 2010 Amazon Drought,”
Science
, February 2011.
399
greatest tropical rainforest on Earth into a massive dryland region
Brown,
Plan B 4.0
.
400
90 percent of the people affected live in developing countries
Currington, “Desertification Is the Greatest Threat to the Planet, Experts Warn.”
401
“The top 20 centimeters of soil”
Ibid.
402
to accommodate additional shelter for Egypt’s fast-growing population
Metwali Salem, “UN Report: Egypt Sustains Severe Land Loss to Desertification and Development,”
Egypt Independent
, June 17, 2011.
403
resulting in the loss of cropland to salinization
“Seawater Intrusion Is the First Cause of Contamination of Coastal Aquifers,”
ScienceDaily
, July 31, 2007,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070727091903.htm
.
404
Ganges Delta, the Mekong Delta, and in other so-called mega-deltas
K. Wium Olesen et al., “Mega Deltas and the Climate Change Challenges,” Eleventh International Symposium on River Sedimentation, September 6–9, 2010,
http://www.irtces.org/zt/11isrs/paper/Kim_Wium_Olesen.pdf
.
405
from whence 40 percent of Egypt’s food production comes
United Nations Development Programme, “Adaption to Climate Change in the Nile Delta Through Integrated Coastal Zone Management,” 2009, p. 9,
http://nile-delta-adapt.org/index.php?view=DownLoadAct&id=6
.
