Massive water shortages and other global catastrophes

Many people in Gardiner have been upset by a recent plan to build a cellular phone tower in a residential area bordering Yellowstone National Park. If it is built, this tower will change the character of our town, and there are good reasons to be concerned.

But sometimes it is important to put our local problems into a global perspective.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has just released a 572 page report entitled the "Global Environmental Outlook 4" or "GEO 4." Among this report's many frightening predictions is the following:

"The quantity and quality of surface and groundwater resources, and life-supporting ecosystem services are being jeopardized by the impacts of population growth, rural to urban migration, and rising wealth and resource consumption, as well as by climate change. If present trends continue, 1.8 BILLION PEOPLE will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress." (page 115)."

In 1950, the entire human population was only about 2 billion people. In less than 20 years, almost that many people (1.8 billion) will be seriously threatened by water scarcity.

Unless society works diligently to change "present trends," people living today might witness the largest loss of human life in all of history.

The GEO 4 report can be downloaded at:

http://www.unep.org/geo/