Peak Oil and Low Water
I recommend you check out a couple of good videos featuring Lester Brown (Earth Policy Institute) where he discusses two environmental trends, aquifer depletion and rising temperatures, and the long-term implications these have for world food supplies.
Brown is a highly respected scientist that has for years been discussing the role of the economy in the environment, and how the economy should be compatible with the environment.
“We forget how important water is in the production of food. We drink each day, as water or in some other form, nearly four litres of water. Each of us. But the food we consume each day requires 2000 litres of water per day to produce. Food production is a water intensive process. If we’re facing a future of water shortages, we’re also facing a future of food shortages, but not everyone has connected the dots yet. I think most of us sense there are a lot of water shortages coming.
70% of all the water we use is used for irrigation. The other 30% is for industrial and urban, residential use. So, water and food are closely linked….We’ve been reading a lot about the depletion of the world’s oil reserves, and when oil production is going to peak and turn downward, five years from now, fifteen or twenty years, and there’s a lot of concern about the depletion of the world’s oil reserves. But the depletion of the world’s water reserves is far more important. We lived for millions of years without oil, but we’d only live for days without water. There are substitutes for oil. There are no substitutes for water. The water issue, I think, is the most underestimated resource issue in the world today.”