From the droughts of Northeast Brazil to São Paulo’s thirst – Alliance for Water calls for emergency measures

By Mario Osava 10 March 2015 SÃO PAULO (IPS) – Six million people in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, may at some point find themselves without water. The February rains did not ward off the risk and could even aggravate it by postponing rationing measures which hydrologists have been demanding for the last six months. […]

It’s supposed to be the rainy season in Brazil, so where has all the water gone?

By Tom Di Liberto6 March 2015 (NOAA) – It’s amazing to think, but in Brazil, a country that boasts both the Amazon Rain Forest and River, parts of the country are in danger of seeing their water supplies dry up after back-to-back rainy seasons failed to live up to their name. Southeastern Brazil—the country’s most […]

Epic drought spurs California to build largest desalination plant in Western Hemisphere

By Cole Mellino10 March 2015 (EcoWatch) – “The U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly 40 percent of the state of California remains in exceptional drought, the highest level of drought and many communities are working to come up with long-term solutions as reservoirs and rivers continue to diminish,” says Jeremy Hobson of NPR’s Here and Now. […]

Water rationing alone won’t save São Paulo

By Marussia Whately and Rebeca Lerer11 February 2015 São Paulo (The Guardian) – It should be the rainy season. Instead São Paulo state is experiencing a third consecutive year with soaring temperatures and rainfall patterns well below historic records. The main water reservoirs are operating at their lowest capacity. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves […]

Brazil, world’s shower champ, grapples with drought – ‘I can’t live without them in this heat’

By Jenny Barchfield 12 March 2015 RIO DE JANEIRO (Associated Press) – During Rio de Janeiro’s long summers of sticky tropical heat, Viviane Vargas says she needs not one, not two, but three showers a day to feel clean. The saleswoman is not alone: Surveys say Brazilians are the world’s most frequent bathers, taking on […]

Why fresh water shortages will cause the next great global crisis – ‘For us, water is now more important than oil’

By Robin McKie, science editor7 March 2015 (The Guardian) – Water is the driving force of all nature, Leonardo da Vinci claimed. Unfortunately for our planet, supplies are now running dry – at an alarming rate. The world’s population continues to soar but that rise in numbers has not been matched by an accompanying increase […]

First major protest against the water crisis in São Paulo – ‘Police will guard the water for those who can pay for it, while we die of thirst’

By Mídia NINJA and Laura Capriglione  27 February 2015 (NINJA) – The Iguatemi Mall, on Faria Lima Avenue, did not seem to welcome the crowd. Neither did the Rolls Royce store, on Cidade Jardim Avenue. These sacred luxury consumer temples (where the water tanks are always full), lowered their doors before the march that brought […]

Graph of the Day: Three waves of drought in 21st Century California

By Bob Henson27 February 2015 (Wunderground.com) – […] California is entering its fourth consecutive year of widespread drought, as measured by the U.S. Drought Monitor, which takes into account soil conditions and streamflow as well as precipitation. This is the third multiyear drought in California since 2000, and as Figure 3 shows, it’s the worst […]

Crackdown on protestors of Chilean copper mine leaves eight injured

[Translation by Microsoft Translator. –Des] 6 March 2015 (El Ciudadano) – Yesterday, Wednesday 4 March, in Salamanca, Choapa Valley (IV Region of Coquimbo) police violently cracked down on hundreds of people mobilized, demanding a solution to the environmental crisis, suffering for years product of the functioning of the Los Pelambres. With the arrival of three […]

California farmers resign themselves to drought – ‘We’re having to go deeper and deeper. They say we’re tapping water millions of years old.’

By Rory Carroll 7 March 2015 Fresno, California (the Guardian) – Kim Hammond does not want responsibility for her neighbours’ livelihoods, or for the crops which stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see, or for the earth itself in this corner of California. But these days, her little bungalow office in […]

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