“This Special Report by The Economist “Thirsty Planet“ draws attention to the planet’s less than 3% freshwater crisis on which all current human food supplies and clean drinking water depend. This freshwater crisis, caused by mis-use, waste and pollution, requires immediate attention by all sectors and new priorities for governments to steer private sector and consumer responses. Must reading!
However, there is no mention of the planet’s available 97 % of saltwater and the thousands of food plant species now available that thrive on saltwater (halophytes, e.g. quinoa, China’s salt-tolerant rice) which are the other half of the Earth’s plant kingdom. These already grow in 22 countries along with many ignored wild food plants, without fertilizers or pesticides, thriving often wild on many areas of the planet’s 40% of degraded, unused or desert lands.
As we point out in our annual Green Transition Scoreboard 2018: “CAPTURING CO2 WHILE IMPROVING HUMAN NUTRITION & HEALTH“ expanding human food through investing in saltwater agriculture, as well as all the plant-protein startups we cover, is the lowest hanging fruit to address this looming food and freshwater crisis!
These halophyte plants’ deep roots also are the most efficient way to capture CO2 from the air. (free download, see also our TV program, with NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell “Investing In Saltwater Agriculture“), and my video presentation “Greening the Global Food System” at the Family Office Forum, Singapore, March 5, 2019.
Yet more evidence for a global Green New Deal that can address the IPCC‘s warning to keep the planet’s warming below 1.5 degrees! All hands on deck!
~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
Climate change and population growth are making the world’s water woes more urgent
And they are exacerbated by bad management, says Simon Long
If water is a proxy for life itself, it is perhaps not surprising that worries about the health and availability of supplies here on Earth can take on apocalyptic overtones. A scorching, arid future marked by a fierce, bloody struggle for a few drops of water is a standard theme of dystopian fiction and film-making. This report will examine how close such nightmares are to reality. It will look at the state of the world’s freshwater and at the increasing demands on it, and consider the ways they can be met.