India suffering worst water crisis in its history – New Delhi and 20 other cities to run out of groundwater by 2020 – 600 million people already face high-to-extreme water stress

By Rahul Bedi 19 June 2018 New Delhi (The Telegraph) – An Indian government think tank has warned that New Delhi is set to run out of groundwater within two years as climate change and dramatic population growth hit supplies [Composite Water Management Index – June 2018 –Des].Based on data collected from 24 of 29 […]

Earth Overshoot Day 2018 is August 1, the earliest date since ecological overshoot started in the early 1970s – “Our current economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet”

OAKLAND, California, 13 June 2018 (Global Footprint Network) – On August 1, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint resource accounting metric. The Ecological Footprint adds up all of people’s competing demands for productive areas, including […]

Cape Town’s harrowing journey to the brink of water catastrophe

By Brett Walton 12 July 2018 CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Circle of Blue) – This is what a water panic looks like in a major global city.People hoard water. They queue for hours, well into the night, to fill jugs at natural springs. Like mad Christmas shoppers, they clear supermarkets of bottled water. They descend […]

How climate change in Bangladesh impacts women and girls

By Kareeda Kabir 16 July 2018 (Teen Vogue) – When people think about the impact of climate change, many consider the physical damage: homes destroyed, communities forced to start over, maybe even a number of bodies discovered after an intense weather event. But sometimes forgotten are the social consequences the physical destruction leaves in its […]

The future we don’t want: Billions of urban citizens at risk of climate-related heat waves, drought, flooding, food shortages, and blackouts by 2050

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, 19 June 2018 (Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy) – Billions of people in thousands of cities around the world will be at risk from climate-related heatwaves, drought, flooding, food  shortages,  blackouts  and  social  inequality by  mid-century without  bold  and urgent  action  to  reduce  greenhouse  gas  emissions. Fortunately,  cities  […]

São Paulo faces another drought as Brazil’s second corn crop yields 10 million tons less than last season – “We have learned little or nothing from the crisis”

By Roberto Samora and Ana Mano; editing by Grant McCool 24 May 2018 SAO PAULO (Reuters) – A severe drought has compromised Brazil’s second corn, the country’s largest crop of the cereal, which is now expected to be 10 million tonnes lower than last season, consultancy Agroconsult said on Thursday. The firm, which is leading […]

Dry, the Beloved Country: A dispatch from Cape Town – “Dust is everywhere now”

By Eve Fairbanks 19 April 2018 (Highline) – When I moved to South Africa nine years ago, one of the first things some locals told me was to be careful using GPS. The country had rules of navigation, they told me, but ones more complicated and intuitive than a computer could manage. You could drive […]

No nation currently meets its citizens’ basic needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use – “The more social thresholds a country achieves, the more planetary boundaries it exceeds”

5 February 2018 (University of Leeds) – A study led by the University of Leeds has found that no country currently meets its citizens’ basic needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use. The research, published in Nature Sustainability, is the first to quantify the sustainability of national resource use associated with meeting basic […]

Hundreds begin 95 km protest march against plans to mine bauxite in Ghana’s Atewa forest reserve

By Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku 19 March 2018 (Citi News) – Members of a group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Atewa Landscape are embarking on a six-day walk from Kyebi in the Eastern Region to Accra, in a bid to put pressure on government to preserve the Atewa forest reserve against any form of mining […]

World water problems on tap at Brazil conference – “Countermeasures to protect supplies remain very slim compared to the impacts we’re seeing”

BRASILIA, 18 March 2018 (AFP) – Brazil, the country with the world’s greatest fresh water reserves, hosts an international conference next week on growing fears over the fragility of drinking water supplies in a heating planet. Under the slogan “sharing water,” the 8th World Water Forum will bring together 15 heads of state and government, […]

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