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Water From Air for a Thirsty World
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Water Crisis in Africa
 
 
 
 
 
 
This photograph of a starving Sudanese girl was taken in 1993 and made the cover of Time Magazine and the NY Times. According to http://photosthatchangedtheworld.com/starving-child-vulture/, the child did crawl to a UN food camp.  As for the photographer, Kevin Carter, he took his own life three months after taking this photograph.
 
 
Dr. Glen Barry, the conservation biologist and ecologist, claims this phenomenon as the result of dramatic climate change - where drought is severe, and people drinking their own piss to survive. It foreshadows humanity’s future. ( http://www.greendiary.com/entry/are-we-witnessing-ecological-collapse-with-east-african-drought-and-philippines-mudslide/ )

America.gov, May 17, 2007 cites: "Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa Chairman Donald Payne said.
 
According to BBC, Africa is also a site for water wars.
The lack of water is the reason for famine in much of the African continent.

Malawi, South Africa famine: “This is already causing higher mortality rates in all groups, with a crude mortality in some areas exceeding one per 10,000 people per day which means we are already facing a severe humanitarian crisis. (source: WHO)
Water Crisis in North America
According to Salon.com:
“After all, the Southwest is in the grips of what, according to Davis, some climatologists are terming a "'mega-drought,' even the 'worst in 500 years.'" More shockingly, he writes, such conditions may actually represent the region's new "normal weather.”

Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina are in a water war over who has use of the Catabwa River which supplies all three states. ( http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcsupply/8watewars2.html ).

Wyoming, Montana are fighting over the Tongue and Powder River basins, because Wyoming is diverting too much water. While Kansas and Nebraska are fighting over the Republic River, with South Dakota fighting it’s damming as it harms fishing. ( http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcconserv/7droutrig2.html )
 
In the Arctic, ice is melting to the extent of disrupting the ecosystem.  "Evidence indicates that global climate patterns are changing.  In the Arctic this has resulted in a decrease in sea ice extent and thickness." ( http://biology.usgs.gov/ecosystems/global_change/polar_bear.html )
 
Water Crisis in South America
South America provides 28% of the world’s fresh water sources, so the water crisis doesn’t effect South America, right?

Since 2005, the Amazon basin has been in a drought.  River is drying up.  Relief efforts needed to assist the Indians who live in the Amazon with food, medicine from water born illness due to the lack of fresh water. Amazon River Crisis
 
The Amazon Rain Forest is critical to global climate stability. ( http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/2008_news_item_10.html )
 
Water Crisis in Antartica
According to many climatologists, even though many places on the earth is experiencing drought, lack of precipitation, and lack of potable water, Antarctica has been getting colder, not warmer.  Why?  According to NOAA, the warming around the edge of the continent is causing snow in the interior, which is making the whole colder.  Some experts believe we are not in a global warming trend, but the beginnings of another ice age.
Overview:
According to international experts, the world is in grave danger of famine, disease and death due to the lack of water or water contamination. Throught this website, references are made to articles, reports, abstracts, graphs and other documentation from scientific sources, government agencies, international organizations, journals, and news and magazine articles.  Due to the large amount of information, only short pertinent references are printed, the link below the statistic or statement goes to the actual document cited.  The Sitemap page contains not only links to all the pages in this document, but all citations as well.
What if we could end this expensive waste of human life & resources by giving people the water they need?  Economically, and ABUNDANTLY?
Global Statistics
According to the UN, by 2025 one in 800 million will be living in absolute water scarcity.
Currently, 2.5 BILLION people do not have sanitation.  In undeveloped or emerging countries, 90% of waste water is dumped into lakes, streams and rivers---which they also use for their drinking water.

14,000 die each day from water related disease.
80% of all illness is caused by contaminated or inadequate water4. (http://www.un.org/summit/water.html)
 

 

Water Crisis in Europe
According to the US Water News, April 2006:
“About 41 million people in Europe lack sufficient access to drinking water, and 85 million lack basic drainage, sewage or sanitation services, officials said in a report presented at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico.

While Europeans are a small portion of the 1.1 billion worldwide without enough drinking water, or the 2.6 billion worldwide without sanitation, the report showed that water issues can afflict even people in some of the most developed countries, and on a continent that often seeks to export its water expertise.

Southern European countries are susceptible to droughts, for example, while northern nations are at risk of floods and the entire continent must help eastern countries and repair centuries-old waterworks, officials said.” 

Spain is suffering its worst drought in more than four decades, pitting the country’s regions against each other in a fierce battle over water resources.
 
Water Crisis in Oceania

Australia is spending $12.9 billion over ten years through Water for the Future to secure reliable water supplies, to educate people about water conservation and to plan for the changing climate---which is drying up previously reliable water supplies. ( http://www.environment.gov.au/water/index.html )

 Australia is depending on desalination to solve it’s lack of fresh water.  Desalination is shown to have a devastating effect on coral reefs, wetlands bringing many species of fish and other wildlife to extinction. ( source: WWF )
 
Due to a severe, nearly eight-year drought, intensive water restrictions are in place across most of Australia. Nearly all states have banned garden sprinklers and the use of hoses on cars or sidewalks. ( http://transitioniow.org/2008/04/16/drought-circles-the-world/ )


Water Crisis in the Middle East

 
Jordan River has been a watershed for the Cradle of Civilization for millennia, is now drying up.

Alternet article of Sept 24, 2008:
“Steadily drained over the past half century to quench the thirst and grow the crops of the people of Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian territories, the Jordan River has been dealt a deathblow recently by a severe drought and by yet another tributary dam, this one on the Jordanian-Syrian border.”

BBC, May 30, 2003:
“King Hussein of Jordan identified water as the only reason that might lead him to war with the Jewish state.”

Water which is more critical than gold or oil is becoming a point of contention in the Middle East.  Many of the ancient rivers which has flowed for thousands of years are drying up.
Wars have been faught over oil. Now, water is the 21st century point of contention.

Water Crisis in Asia

According to Earthscape.org regarding water quality in Asia: “Poor water quality of the rivers and water bodies resulting from increasing industrial, domestic, and other pollutants threatens both the region's environment and people's health.”

Hundreds of millions in Asia are suffering from a partially man-made water crisis.  China's hydro-engineering projects are diverting river water from the Tibetan Highlands, the source of water for most of the major rivers in Asia.  Also affecting the water crisis is the climate change.  The Tibetan glaciers are expected to melt by 50% by 2090.  Water mismanagement and environmental change are cited as causes for the water crisis affecting the populations of China, India, Burma, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Thailand.  These countries make up 47% of the world's population. ( paraphrasing "Billions of People Suffer from Acute Water Crisis"Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. )

The governments in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh are searching for alternative water solutions to ground water as the water is either contaminated or inadequate, due to water mismanagement throughout Asia. ( Reuters ).