As population continues to skyrocket water sources become depleted as the needs of that growing population are fulfilled. In China and India, citizens are dependent on glacial melts which will be gone within the century. People also get water through snow melts, which have been heavily altered by climate change – hastening the speed of snow melts and leaving noting to sustain people and their farms through the dry summers. China continues to pump underground aquifers, which are quickly being depleted, to water farms. And “the Yellow River has been diverted to the point that it no longer flows to the sea.” In India, upstream states sometimes stop water flow to downstream states when rainfall is poor, which is happening more and more often due to climate change.
However, solutions are costly. “…Better pricing of water will lead to much greater efficiency. Drip irrigation can reduce the water demand of crops. Desalination can vastly expand water supplies, though at high energy costs. Water storage systems can spare farmers the misery of crop failures. But these solutions presuppose vast expenditures of capital, and such solutions do not automatically address the needs of the poor, who are unable to pay for that capital.” The solutions are not easily accessible to the poor and countries that need it the most, will not bring about immediate and sweeping change, and could potentially have even worse affects on the environment.
A solution must be found soon, and fast for this global problem. And while the poor can’t afford some solutions, they (and everyone else) cannot afford to continue living unsustainably.
