Do you know enough about the world's most pressing issues? Are you familiar with the consequences of climate change and methods for sharing the permissible carbon quotas? Are you aware that we are using up nature's capital and not just its interest, that world poverty is rampant and urgently needs to be reduced, and that the consequence of current US immigration laws is unsustainable population growth? We Have to Change aims to highlight these issues, to make us stop and think seriously about them, and to encourage everyone to become actively involved in the global challenges facing the world today. It presents climate change, liquidation of nature's capital, world poverty, and unsustainable population growth together, in their interaction, in one concise volume. Author Maria Ronay reviews the world resources available, predicts the dangers ahead, and proposes courses of action for individuals and the world to mitigate climate change, preserve nature's capital, reduce world poverty, and stabilize the world's population by emphasizing existing United Nations programs. For the US carbon tax on gasoline and electricity invested in reducing atmospheric carbon and reforming legal immigration laws are recommended.
WE HAVE TO CHANGE
taking action to stabilize climate change, curb population growth including immigration, end poverty, and the liquidation of nature's capitalBy MARIA RONAYiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Maria Ronay
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-7131-8Contents
Preface................................................v1. Where Are We Now?...................................1LAND...................................................1WATER..................................................3AIR....................................................4GLOBAL WARMING.........................................5OIL....................................................5NATURAL GAS............................................7COAL...................................................7POPULATION.............................................82. The Danger Ahead....................................123. The Age of Healing..................................17US.....................................................17THE WORLD..............................................21Climate change.........................................21Preserving nature's capital............................26Reducing world poverty.................................30Stabilizing the world's population.....................33THE UNITED STATES......................................41Climate change.........................................41Housing................................................45Immigration............................................48The impact of immigration laws.........................51Afterword..............................................66Further Reading (References)...........................67
Chapter One
Where Are We Now?
Let us take an inventory of Earth.
Land
Firstly, in order to produce food, we need arable land. Currently, of the world's total land area (150 million square kilometers) about 10 percent is arable land. Meadows and pastures account for 24 percent, and forests and woodlands, 31 percent. The remaining 35 percent is either too dry, too cold, too hot, too rocky, too mountainous, or too poor in nutrients to be used for agriculture.
In addition to the use of pasture, more than half of US grain and about 40 percent of the world's grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans. Producing one meat calorie requires ten to twelve grain calories, while animal protein is only 1.4 times as nutritious for humans as plant protein is.
Arable land is not a given; it is constantly created and destroyed. Its creation is a slow process; it may take hundreds of years for an inch- thick layer of topsoil to develop. The destruction of arable land, however, occurs much more quickly. The loss of land that is used for food, feed, and fiber is due mainly to the following:
? desertification;
? deforestation;
? erosion; or
? urbanization.
Desertification proceeds with an alarming rate, particularly in Africa and Asia, caused by droughts and overuse. If current trends of soil degradation continue in Africa, the continent might be able to feed just 25 percent of its population by 2025, according to the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. Nearly 80 percent of potentially cultivable arable land is now under cultivation in Asia.
Deforestation is harmful in more than one way.
Forests regulate water supply by absorbing rainfall and releasing it at a steady rate. As long as forests are intact, rivers transport water fairly uniformly throughout the year from their basins. If forests are cleared, the water supply changes from being fairly uniform to the alternating between floods and droughts. One of the consequences is that the floods wash away the soil from the steeper slopes, causing erosion. Deforestation also opens up areas to the devastation of wind. Because of deforestation on the slopes of the Himalayas, droughts are plaguing 500 million people in the Ganges valley and Bangladesh.
Increasingly important is the forest's role as a carbon sink; they absorb carbon dioxide, thus helping reduce greenhouse gases.
Deforestation is carried out to clear arable land, cut firewood, clear land for cattle, and grow biomass for ethanol. About an area of Greece (131,990 square kilometers) is lost to deforestation per year. The greatest loss is that of the tropical forests, some of the most valuable parts of Earth's ecosystem.
More than 90 percent of US cropland is losing soil to wind and water erosion at thirteen times the sustainable rate. Urbanization takes land for buildings, roads, and pavement. Urban land expansion and arable land loss are particularly great in China.
Agriculture requires fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, which in turn require energy to produce. In addition, their manufacture releases large amounts of greenhouse gases to the environment.
Both agriculture and animal husbandry require vast amounts of water.
Water
The greatest amount of water is required for agriculture and meat production. Nine hundred kilograms of water go into the production of one kilogram of wheat, whereas about twenty thousand kilograms of water go into the production of one kilogram of beef. This amounts to more than the use of water for thermoelectric generation, as well as industrial and domestic uses, with the proportions depending on the specific area.
A prime cause of the global water concern is the ever-increasing world population. As populations grow, industrial, agricultural, and individual water demands escalate. According to the World Bank, worldwide water demand is doubling every twenty-one years, more in some regions. Scores of countries are over-pumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers: China, India, and the United States.
More than half of the world's people live in countries where water tables are falling. Chinese wheat farmers in some areas are pumping from a depth of three hundred meters, or nearly a thousand feet. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture reports that in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, three leading grain-producing states, the water table dropped by more than thirty meters (one hundred feet) since large-scale irrigation began in the late 1940-s. Although this mining of underground water is taking a toll on US grain production, irrigated land accounts for only one-fifth of the US grain harvest, compared to close to three-fifths of the harvest in India and four-fifths in China.
In developing countries water shortage looms just as large as food shortage. More than 1 billion people lack access to potable water, and adequate sanitation is lacking for 2.4 billion people. About five million people die each year because of poor drinking water and lack of sanitation. Women and children in places all over the globe walk long hours to get a few liters of dirty water.
Air
Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet and containing roughly 78.08 percent nitrogen, 20.95 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent argon, 386 parts per million carbon dioxide, 1,745 parts per billion methane and 314 parts per billion nitrous oxide, together with a varying amounts of water vapor and some trace elements.
We are mainly concerned about the amount of greenhouse gases in the air. It is a lesser-known fact, that livestock...
