Ο πλανήτης μας στα όριά του

1. Στα όρια

1. “Moscow Temperatures Reach Record Highs,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), 26 June 2010; Jeff Masters, “Over 15,000 Likely Dead in Russian Heat Wave; Asian Monsoon Floods Kill Hundreds More,” Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Weather Underground, at www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters, 9 August 2010; Alexei Anishchuk, “Deadly Russian Heatwave Declared Over,” Reuters, 18 August 2010; Jeff Masters, “Colin Takes Aim at Bermuda; the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010: 102°F in Moscow,” Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Weather Underground, www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters, 6 August 2010; Terence Roth and William Mauldin, “Heat Wave and Drought Shrivel Harvests Across Europe,” Wall Street Journal, 4 August 2010; “Wildfires Rage on Shrouding Moscow in Blanket of Smog,” The Voice of Russia, 10 August 2010.

2. “Acrid Smog Covers Moscow after Three-day Relief,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), 14 August 2010; Tom Parfitt, “Moscow Death Rate Doubles as Smoke from Wildfires Shrouds Capital,” Guardian (London), 9 August 2010.

3. Masters, “Colin Takes Aim at Bermuda,” op. cit. note 1; Masters, “Over 15,000 Likely Dead in Russian Heat Wave,” op. cit. note 1; Anishchuk, op. cit. note 1; U.N. Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, at www,esa.un.org/unpp, updated 11 March 2009.

4. Masters, “Over 15,000 Likely Dead in Russian Heat Wave,” op. cit. note 1; Lucian Kim and Maria Levitov, “Russia Heat Wave May Kill 15,000, Shave $15 Billion of GDP,” Bloomberg, 10 August 2010; Anna Smolchenko, “Fires Cost Russia ‘300 Billion Dollars’ in Deforestation,” Agence France-Presse, 26 August 2010; Alfred Kueppers, “Wildfires Sweeping Russia Kill at Least 25,” Reuters, 30 July 2010.

5. Note: All mentions of “tons” in this book refer to metric tons. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), World Agricultural Production (Washington, DC: May 2010), p. 9; USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database, at www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 10 September 2010; Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia, Crippled by Drought, Bans Exports of Grain,” New York Times, 6 August 2010; Gleb Bryanski and Denis Dyomkin, “Putin Says No Grain Exports Before 2011 Harvest,” Reuters, 2 September 2010; Yelena Vassilieva, Russian Federation Grain and Feed October Update (Moscow: USDA, FAS, 1 October 2010); Masters, “Over 15,000 Likely Dead in Russian Heat Wave,” op. cit. note 1; Chicago Board of Trade futures data from CME Group, “Agricultural Products,” various dates, at www.cmegroup.com/trading/commodities.

6. Simon Shuster, “Will Russia’s Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts?” Time, 2 August 2010.

7. Ismail Khan, “400 Killed in Flooding in Pakistan, Officials Say,” New York Times, 30 July 2010; Karin Brulliard, “Livestock Losses Compound Pakistan’s Misery,” Washington Post, 30 August 2010; Sandra Postel, “Five Years After Katrina, an Important Lesson Goes Unlearned,” NatGeo News Watch, 30 August 2010; Mason Inman, “Pakistan Flooding Because of Farms?” National Geographic Daily News, 16 August 2010; U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),Executive Brief: Pakistan Flooding (Rome: 10 September 2010).

8. Humanitarian Communication Group, “Floods in Pakistan,” fact sheet (Islamabad: United Nations Pakistan, 24 September 2010); Government of Pakistan, National Disaster Management Authority, “Pakistan Floods,” at www.pakistanfloods.pk, updated 9 October 2010; FAO, Executive Brief: Pakistan Flooding (Rome: 5 October 2010); Brulliard, op. cit. note 7; “Pakistan Floods ‘Hit 14m People,’” BBC News, 6 August 2010.

9. Jeff Masters, “Asia Records Its Hottest Temperature in History; Category 4 Phet Threatens Oman,” Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Weather Underground, at www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters, 2 June 2010; Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Meteorological Department, “Record Breaking Heat in Pakistan,” press release (Islamabad: 26 May 2010); Inman, op. cit. note 7; “Melting Glaciers Main Cause of Floods,” Associated Press of Pakistan, 3 August 2010.

10. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3; Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications, updated August 2010; IUCN–The World Conservation Union et al., “Watersheds of the World Online,” Water Resources eAtlas, updated 2003, at www.wri.org/publication/watersheds-of-the-world; FAO,FAOSTAT, electronic database, at www.faostat.fao.org, updated September 2010; Inman, op. cit. note 7.

11. World Bank, World Development Report 1992: Development and the Environment (Washington DC: May 1992), p. 238; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3; UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2010: Reaching the Marginalized (Paris: 2010), p. 312.

12. “Summary for Policymakers,” in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 1–18; Gerald A. Meehl and Claudia Tebaldi, “More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st Century,” Science, vol. 305 (13 August 2004), pp. 994–97; James B. Elsner, James P. Kossin, and Thomas H. Jagger, “The Increasing Intensity of the Strongest Tropical Cyclones,” Nature, vol. 455 (4 September 2008) pp. 92–95; U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Outlook for Ice and Snow (Nairobi: 2007), p. 131; David Pimentel and Nadia Kounang, “Ecology of Soil Erosion in Ecosystems,” Ecosystems, vol. 1, no. 5 (September–October 1998), pp. 416–26; Jianguo Liu and Jared Diamond, “China’s Environment in a Globalizing World,” Science, vol. 435 (30 June 2005), pp. 1,179–86.

13. Mathis Wackernagel et al., “Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the Human Economy,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 99, no. 14 (9 July 2002), pp. 9,266–71; Global Footprint Network, WWF, and Zoological Society of London, Living Planet Report 2010 (Gland, Switzerland: WWF, October 2010).

14. Lester R. Brown, Outgrowing the Earth (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), pp. 101–02; Peter H. Gleick et al.,The World’s Water 2004–2005 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004), p. 88; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3; cropland losing topsoil is author’s estimate based on Mohan K. Wali et al., “Assessing Terrestrial Ecosystem Sustainability,” Nature & Resources, October–December 1999, pp. 21–33, and on World Resources Institute (WRI), World Resources 2000–01 (Washington, DC: 2000); FAO, op. cit. note 10; FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010(Rome: 2010), p. xiii; FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008 (Rome: 2009), p. 7.

15. “Summary for Policymakers,” op. cit. note 12, pp. 1–18; Meehl and Tebaldi, op. cit. note 12; Elsner, Kossin, and Jagger, op. cit. note 12.

16. I. Velicogna, “Increasing Rates of Ice Mass Loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Revealed by GRACE,”Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 36 (13 October 2009); UNEP, op. cit. note 12, pp. 103, 130–31, 139–40; Upali A. Amarasinghe et al., Spatial Variation in Water Supply and Demand Across River Basins of India (Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), 2005), p. 8; Upali A. Amarasinghe et al., Water Supply, Water Demand and Agricultural Water Scarcity in China: A Basin Approach (Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI, 2005), p. 10; Lester R. Brown, “Melting Mountain Glaciers Will Shrink Grain Harvests in China and India,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 20 March 2008). See Chapter 4 for a detailed discussion of ice melting and food security.

17. Wackernagel et al., op. cit. note 13; Global Footprint Network, WWF, and Zoological Society of London, op. cit. note 13, pp. 6–7.

18. Angus Maddison, “Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD,” at www.ggdc.net/maddison, updated March 2010; Herman E. Daly, “Economics in a Full World,” Scientific American, vol. 293, no. 3 (September 2005), pp. 100–07; Robert Nadeau, “The Economist Has No Clothes,” Scientific American, vol. 298, no. 4 (April 2008), p. 42.

19. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects: Fiscal Headwinds and Recovery (Washington, DC: 2010), pp. 1–3; Simon Kennedy, “Wall Street Sees World Economy Decoupling from U.S.,” Bloomberg, 4 October 2010; Deutsche Bank AG,Outlook 3rd Quarter 2010: Orientation Needed (Frankfurt: June 2010).

20. Maddison, op. cit. note 18.

21. International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), The Real Cost of Gasoline: An Analysis of the Hidden External Costs Consumers Pay to Fuel Their Automobiles (Washington, DC: 1998); ICTA, Gasoline Cost Externalities Associated with Global Climate Change (Washington, DC: September 2004); ICTA, Gasoline Cost Externalities: Security and Protection Services (Washington, DC: January 2005); Terry Tamminen, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006), p. 60, adjusted to 2007 prices with Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Table 3—Price Indices for Gross Domestic Product and Gross Domestic Purchases,” GDP and Other Major Series, 1929–2007(Washington, DC: August 2007).

22. Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, Libri VI (Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) (1543).

23. Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), pp. 13–21; Guy Gugliotta, “The Maya: Glory and Ruin,” National Geographic, August 2007; Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Penguin Group, 2005); Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

24. Postel, op. cit. note 23, pp. 13–21.

25. Robert McC. Adams quoted in Tainter, op. cit. note 23, p. 1.

26. Michon Scott, “Mayan Mysteries,” in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Earth Science Data and Information Systems Project, Supporting Earth Observing Science 2004 (Washington, DC: 2004), pp. 37–43; Gugliotta, op. cit. note 23; Dauna Coulter, “The Fall of the Maya: ‘They Did It to Themselves’,” Science@NASA Headline News, 6 October 2009; Heather Pringle, “A New Look at the Mayas’ End,” Science, vol. 324 (April 2009), pp. 454–56.

27. Peter Goldmark, Environmental Defense Fund, e-mail to author, 28 June 2009.

28. Postel, op. cit. note 23, pp. 13–21; Gugliotta, op. cit. note 23; Diamond, op. cit. note 23; Tainter, op. cit. note 23.

29. USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution,op. cit. note 5; Chicago Board of Trade futures data from TFC Commodity Charts, “Grain & Oilseed Commodities Futures,” at futures.tradingcharts.com/grains_oilseeds.html, viewed 11 October 2010.

30. FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010 (Rome: 2010), pp. 8–11; FAO, “Number of Undernourished Persons,” at www.fao.org/economic/ess/food-security-statistics, updated 13 September 2010; USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 5; USDA, Feed Grains Database, electronic database, at www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FeedGrains, updated 1 October 2010.

31. FAO, The State of Food Insecurity, op. cit. note 30.

32. Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy, “The Failed States Index,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2010, pp. 74–105.

33. Elizabeth Dickinson, “Anthropology of an Idea: Dangerous Weakness,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2010, p. 21; Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy, op. cit. note 32.

34. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3.

35. USDA, FAS, op. cit. note 5, p. 9; USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 5; Samir Shahbaz, “Russian Ban on Grain Export Has Intended Effect,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), 27 August 2010.

36. USDA, FAS, op. cit. note 5, p. 9; USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 5.

37. “In Depth: The Global Food Crisis,” Financial Times, at www.ft.com/foodprices, updated 6 May 2008; Catherine Belton, Jack Farchy, and Javier Blas, “Russia Grain Export Ban Sparks Price Fears,” Financial Times, 5 August 2010.

38. USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 5; Andrew England, “Saudis to Phase Out Wheat Production,”Financial Times, 10 April 2008. Countries with food bubbles from Table 3–1 in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 43; Isam E. Amin et al., “Major Problems Affecting the Principal Aquifers in Lebanon,” Paper 301-25 in Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 40, no. 6 (2008), p. 471; Dale Lightfoot, Survey of Infiltration Karez in Northern Iraq: History and Current Status of Underground Aqueducts (Paris: UNESCO, September 2009); and from “Afghanistan: Groundwater Overuse Could Cause Severe Water Shortage,” Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) News, 14 September 2008.

39. USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, op. cit. note 5; John Briscoe, India’s Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future (New Delhi: World Bank, 2005); World Bank, China: Agenda for Water Sector Strategy for North China(Washington, DC: April 2001), pp. vii, xi; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3.

40. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 3.

41. Fatih Birol, “Outside View: We Can’t Cling to Crude: We Should Leave Oil before It Leaves Us,” Independent (London), 2 March 2008.

42. Danielle Murray, “Oil and Food: A Rising Security Challenge,” Eco-Economy Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 9 May 2005); “Energy Use in Agriculture,” in USDA, U.S. Agriculture and Forestry Greenhouse Gas Inventory: 1990–2001, Technical Bulletin No. 1907 (Washington, DC: Global Change Program Office, Office of the Chief Economist, 2004), pp. 94–100; William Hague, “The Diplomacy of Climate Change,” speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, 27 September 2010.

43. Erik Eckholm, “Stunned by Floods, China Hastens Logging Curbs,” New York Times, 27 September 1998; Chris Brown, Patrick B. Durst, and Thomas Enters, Forests Out of Bounds: Impacts and Effectiveness of Logging Bans in Natural Forests in Asia-Pacific (Bangkok, Thailand: FAO Regional Office for Asia Pacific, 2001); John Aglionby, “Philippines Bans Logging After Fatal Floods,” Guardian (London), 6 December 2004.

44. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, at www.sipri.org/databases/milex, updated 2010.

2. Οι υδροφόροι ορίζοντες πέφτουν, οι συγκομιδές συρρικνώνονται

1. Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), pp. 77–78; Craig S. Smith, “Saudis Worry as They Waste Their Scarce Water,” New York Times, 26 January 2003; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database, at www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 11 May 2010.

2. Andrew England, “Saudis to Phase Out Wheat Production,” Financial Times, 10 April 2008; Souhail Karam, “Saudi Arabia Scraps Wheat Growing to Save Water,” Reuters, 8 January 2008; USDA, op. cit. note 1; U.N. Population Division,World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, at esa.un.org/unpp, updated 11 March 2009.

3. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Saudi Arabia,” AQUASTAT Country Profile, at www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries/saudi_arabia/index.stm, updated 2008; Javid Hassan, “Kingdom Leads in Desalination, But Needs More to Meet Demand,” Arab News (Riyadh), 22 March 2006.

4. Javier Blas, “Saudis Get First Taste of Foreign Harvest,” Financial Times, 4 March 2009; Summer Said and Tim Falconer, “A Desert Kingdom’s Quest for Food Security,” Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2010; U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), “Countries,” at www.wfp.org/countries, viewed 16 June 2010.

5. FAO, “Yemen,” AQUASTAT Country Profile, at www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries/yemen/index.stm, updated 2008; U.N. Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision Population Database, atesa.un.org/unpd/wup/unup, updated 2010; Keith Oblitas, Project Performance Assessment Report: Yemen (Washington, DC: World Bank, 22 February 2006), p. 1; Mario Zappacosta, Tayeb El Hassani, and Jan Delbaere, Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Yemen (Rome: FAO and WFP, December 2009), p. 5.

6. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; USDA, op. cit. note 1; oil exports falling from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Energy Statistics, electronic database, at tonto.eia.doe.gov, retrieved 19 May 2010; and from DOE, EIA, Country Analysis Briefs: Yemen (Washington, DC: March 2010); UNICEF,Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition: A Survival and Development Priority (New York: November 2009), p. 10; poorest country from International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, atwww.imf.org/external/data.htm, updated April 2010.

7. Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy, “The Failed States Index,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2010, pp. 74–105; Barak A. Salmoni, Bryce Loidolt, and Madeleine Wells, Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen: The Huthi Phenomenon(Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2010).

8. Lester R. Brown, Outgrowing the Earth (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), pp. 101–02; Peter H. Gleick et al.,The World’s Water 2004–2005 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004), p. 88; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; I. A. Shiklomanov, “Assessment of Water Resources and Water Availability in the World,” Report for the Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World (St. Petersburg, Russia: State Hydrological Institute, 1998), cited in Peter H. Gleick, The World’s Water 2000–2001 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000), p. 53.

9. Shiklomanov, op. cit. note 8, p. 52.

10. Tushaar Shah, Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia (Washington, DC: RFF Press, 2009); some 20 countries from Table 3–1 in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 43; Isam E. Amin et al., “Major Problems Affecting the Principal Aquifers in Lebanon,” Paper 301-25 in Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 40, no. 6 (2008), p. 471; Dale Lightfoot, Survey of Infiltration Karez in Northern Iraq: History and Current Status of Underground Aqueducts(Paris: UNESCO, September 2009); and from “Afghanistan: Groundwater Overuse Could Cause Severe Water Shortage,”Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) News, 14 September 2008; USDA, op. cit. note 1.

11. World grain harvest from irrigated land from Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick and Mark W. Rosegrant, eds., “Overview,” inOvercoming Water Scarcity and Quality Constraints (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, October 2001); country share calculated from FAO, ResourceSTAT, electronic database, at faostat.fao.org, updated April 2009; harvest from USDA, op. cit. note 1; Jian Xie et al., Addressing China’s Water Scarcity: Recommendations for Selected Water Resource Management Issues (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009), p. 21.

12. John Opie, Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land, 2nd ed. (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), p. 3; Craig S. Smith, “Saudis Worry as They Waste Their Scarce Water,” New York Times, 26 January 2003; Michael Ma, “Northern Cities Sinking as Water Table Falls,” South China Morning Post, 11 August 2001.

13. World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making (London: Earthscan, 2000), pp. 8–13.

14. Ibid.; Shah, op. cit. note 10; Sanjay Pahuja et al., Deep Wells and Prudence: Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India (Washington, DC: World Bank, January 2010).

15. Historical U.S. irrigated area compiled by Earth Policy Institute from USDA, 1987 Census of Agriculture: Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey (1988) (Washington, DC: 1989), p. 1; and from USDA, 2007 Census of Agriculture: Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey (2008) (Washington, DC: November 2009), pp. 3–4; figures for 2010 irrigated area are author’s estimates, based on ibid.

16. Historical U.S. irrigated area compiled by Earth Policy Institute from USDA, 1987 Census of Agriculture, op. cit. note 15, p. 1; and from USDA, 2007 Census of Agriculture, op. cit. note 15, pp. 3–4; Colorado Water Conservation Board,Statewide Water Supply Initiative Phase I Report (Denver, CO: November 2004), pp. 5-10, 5-11; Thomas E. Reilly et al.,Ground-Water Availability in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Circular 1323 (Reston, VA: USGS, 2008), pp. 16–19, 59–61; Claudia C. Faunt, ed., Groundwater Availability of the Central Valley Aquifer, California, USGS Professional Paper 1766 (Reston, VA: USGS, 2009).

17. USDA, op. cit. note 1; John Briscoe, India’s Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future (New Delhi: World Bank, 2005); U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; Pahuja et al., op. cit. note 14, pp. ix, 17; Tushaar Shah et al., The Global Groundwater Situation: Overview of Opportunities and Challenges (Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), 2000); Government of India, Ministry of Finance, “Union Budget and Economic Survey: Economic Survey 2009–10,” at indiabudget.nic.in/es2009-10/esmain.htm, viewed 17 June 2010.

18. Pahuja et al., op. cit. note 14, pp. 1–9; Columbia Water Institute, “Concept Note on Water Security in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh,” white paper prepared for Columbia Conference on Water Security in India, Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, 15–18 April 2009.

19. N. K. Garg and Q. Hassan, “Alarming Scarcity of Water in India,” Current Science, vol. 93 (10 October 2007), pp. 932–41; Matthew Rodell, Isabella Velicogna, and James S. Famiglietti, “Satellite-based Estimates of Groundwater Depletion in India,” Nature, vol. 460 (20 August 2009), pp. 999–1,002; Pahuja et al., op. cit. note 14; Upali Amarasinghe, IWMI, e-mail to J. Matthew Roney, Earth Policy Institute, 6 July 2010.

20. Ma, op. cit. note 12; Xie et al., op. cit. note 11, p. xx; People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Environmental Protection, “SOE 2007,” at english.mep.gov.cn/standards_reports/soe/soe2007, updated 2 September 2008; share of China’s grain harvest from the North China Plain based on Hong Yang and Alexander Zehnder, “China’s Regional Water Scarcity and Implications for Grain Supply and Trade,” Environment and Planning A, vol. 33 (2001); and on “Output of Major Farm Products,” in National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Yearbook 2008 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2008), on-line at www.stats.gov.cn/english.

21. Figure of 130 million is author’s estimate, based on World Bank, China: Agenda for Water Sector Strategy for North China (Washington, DC: April 2001), pp. vii, xi; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; USDA, op. cit. note 1; aquifers from Ma, op. cit. note 12.

22. Ma, op. cit. note 12.

23. Steven Mufson, “As Economy Booms, China Faces Major Water Shortage,” Washington Post, 16 March 2010; World Bank, op. cit. note 21, p. vii.

24. Xie et al., op. cit. note 11, pp. 1, 21–23.

25. Michael Richardson, “Dams in China Turn the Mekong Into a River of Discord,” YaleGlobal Online, atyaleglobal.yale.edu, 16 July 2009; Mukand S. Babel and Shahriar M. Wahid, Freshwater under Threat: Southeast Asia(Nairobi: U.N. Environment Programme, 2009), pp. 13–14.

26. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; FAO, “Syrian Arab Republic,” “Iraq,” and “Turkey,” AQUASTAT Country Profiles, at www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries/index.stm, updated 2008; Theib Oweis, “Rethinking Water Use,” Syria Today, January 2010; Republic of Turkey, General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works, Turkey Water Report 2009 (Ankara: 2009), pp. 36–45; Missy Ryan, “Drought Takes Toll on Iraq Revival Effort,” Reuters, 23 July 2009; Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration, Latest Situation on Southeastern Anatolia Project (Ankara: Republic of Turkey, Prime Ministry, June 2006), pp. 3–5; Christina Leb, SHARE Case Studies: The Tigris-Euphrates Joint Technical Committee–Deadlocked (Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature, Water Programme, 2008).

27. Oweis, op. cit. note 26; Francesca de Châtel, “Mining the Deep,” Syria Today, January 2010; Lightfoot, op. cit. note 10; NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI), “Water Scarcity in the Land of Two Ancient Rivers,” NCCI op-ed, atwww.ncciraq.org, 3 August 2010; USDA, op. cit. note 1.

28. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; USDA, op. cit. note 1; FAO, ProdSTAT, electronic database, at faostat.fao.org, updated December 2009.

29. Deborah Camiel, “Israel, Palestinian Water Resources Down the Drain,” Reuters, 12 July 2000; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; USDA, op. cit. note 1.

30. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; Chenaran Agricultural Center, Ministry of Agriculture, according to Hamid Taravati, publisher, Iran, e-mail to author, 25 June 2002; USDA, op. cit. note 1; 1,000 tons of water for 1 ton of grain from FAO, Yield Response to Water(Rome: 1979).

31. USDA, op. cit. note 1; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2.

32. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; “Afghanistan: Groundwater Overuse,” op. cit. note 10; USDA, op. cit. note 1.

33. USDA, op. cit. note 1; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; “Pakistan: Focus on Water Crisis,” Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) News, 17 May 2002; Asif Farrukh, Pakistan Grain and Feed Annual Report 2002 (Islamabad, Pakistan: USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), 2003); Asmat Raza, Pakistan Grain and Feed Annual Report(Islamabad, Pakistan: USDA, FAS, 2010); John Briscoe and Usman Qamar, Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005),p. xiv.

34. Shah et al., op. cit. note 17; Karin Kemper, “Groundwater Management in Mexico: Legal and Institutional Issues,” in Salman M. A. Salman, ed., Groundwater: Legal and Policy Perspectives, Proceedings of a World Bank Seminar(Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999), p. 117; U.N. Development Programme, Human Development Report 2006(Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 146; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2; Benjamin Juarez and Mark Ford, Mexico Grain and Feed Annual (Mexico City: USDA, FAS, 12 March 2010).

35. Water to make steel from Sandra Postel, Last Oasis (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), pp. 38–39; water to grain ratio from FAO, op. cit. note 30.

36. U.N. World Water Assessment Programme, The United Nations World Water Development Report 3: Water in a Changing World (Paris: UNESCO and Earthscan, 2009), p. 99; R. Srinivasan, “The Politics of Water,” Info Change Agenda, issue 3 (October 2005); U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 5.

37. Srinivasan, op. cit. note 36; Fred Pearce, “Asian Farmers Sucking the Continent Dry,” New Scientist, 28 August 2004.

38. Noel Gollehon and William Quinby, “Irrigation in the American West: Area, Water and Economic Activity,” Water Resources Development, vol. 16, no. 2 (2000), pp. 187–95; Water Strategist, various issues, at www.waterstrategist.com; Jedidiah Brewer et al., “Water Markets in the West: Prices, Trading and Contractual Forms,” Arizona Legal Studies, Discussion Paper No. 07-07 (8 February 2007).

39. Joey Bunch, “Water Projects Forecast to Fall Short of Needs: Study Predicts 10% Deficit in State,” Denver Post, 22 July 2004.

40. Dean Murphy, “Pact in West Will Send Farms’ Water to Cities,” New York Times, 17 October 2003; Tim Molloy, “California Water District Approves Plan to Pay Farmers for Irrigation Water,” Associated Press, 13 May 2004; The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, “The District at a Glance,” fact sheet (Los Angeles: May 2010).

41. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2.

42. Water to grain ratio from FAO, op. cit. note 30.

43. Brown, op. cit. note 8, pp. 101–02; Gleick et al., op. cit. note 8, p. 88; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 2.

3. Η διάβρωση του εδάφους και η ερημοποίηση

1. Cara Anna, “Huge Sandstorm Covers Beijing, Turns Sky Orange,” Associated Press, 20 March 2010; Christopher Bodeen, “China’s Sandstorms Blast Beijing with Dust, Sand,” Associated Press, 22 March 2010.

2. Anna, op. cit. note 1; Bodeen, op. cit. note 1.

3. Song Sang-ho, “Nation Hit by Worst-Ever Yellow Dust Storm,” Korea Herald, 21 March 2010.

4. Howard W. French, “China’s Growing Deserts Are Suffocating Korea,” New York Times, 14 April 2002.

5. Korean Meteorological Administration cited in Dennis Normile, “Getting at the Roots of Killer Dust Storms,” Science, vol. 317, no. 5836 (20 July 2007), pp. 314–16.

6. Ann Schrader, “Latest Import from China: Haze,” Denver Post, 18 April 2001.

7. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), “Dust Cloud from China Shows How We Share the Air,” Earth Observatory, 17 May 2010.

8. David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), pp 15–16, 23.

9. Stephen Leahy, “Peak Soil: The Silent Global Crisis,” Earth Island Journal, Spring 2008.

10. R. Lal, “Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security,” Science, vol. 304, no. 5677 (11 June 2004), pp. 1,623–27.

11. Cropland losing topsoil is author’s estimate based on Mohan K. Wali et al., “Assessing Terrestrial Ecosystem Sustainability,” Nature & Resources, vol. 35, no. 4 (October/November 1999), pp. 21–33, and on World Resources Institute, World Resources 2000–01 (Washington, DC: 2000); effect of topsoil loss on yields in Leon Lyles, “Possible Effects of Wind Erosion on Soil Productivity,” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, November/December 1975, discussed in Lester R. Brown, “Conserving Soils,” in Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 1984 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984), pp. 62–65.

12. United Nations, “UN Launches Decade-Long Effort to Tackle Desertification,” press release (Fortaleza (Brazil) and Nairobi: U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), 16 August 2010).

13. Guanghui Lin, “Dust Bowl in the 1930s and Sandstorms in 1999 in the USA,” in Yang Youlin, Victor Squires, and Lu Qi, eds., Global Alarm: Dust and Sandstorms from the World’s Drylands (Bangkok: UNCCD Secretariat, September 2002), pp. 77–121; John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1939).

14. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The State of Food and Agriculture 1995 (Rome: 1995), p. 175.

15. Ibid.; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database, atwww.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 11 May 2010; yield from FAO, ProdSTAT, electronic database, at faostat.fao.org, updated December 2009.

16. FAO, op. cit. note 15; livestock location from FAO, “Country Pasture/Resource Profiles,” atwww.fao.org/countryprofiles/index.asp?lang=en&iso3=CHN&subj=4, updated 2006.

17. Wang Tao et al., “A Study on Spatial-temporal Changes of Sandy Desertified Land During Last 5 Decades in North China,” Acta Geographica Sinica, vol. 59 (2004), pp. 203–12.

18. U.S. Embassy in Beijing, “Desert Mergers and Acquisitions,” Beijing Environment, Science, and Technology Update(Beijing: 19 July 2002), p. 2.

19. Yang Youlin, “Dust Sandstorms: Inevitable Consequences of Desertification—A Case Study of Desertification Disasters in the Hexi Corridor, NW China,” in Youlin, Squires, and Lu, op. cit. note 13.

20. Ajai et al., “Desertification/Land Degradation Status Mapping of India,” Current Science, vol. 97, no. 10 (25 November 2009), pp. 1,487–83; “Nutrition,” table in UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children, Special Edition, Statistical Tables(New York: November 2009), p. 13.

21. Rattan Lal, “Erosion-Crop Productivity Relationships for Soils of Africa,” Soil Science Society of America Journal, May–June 1995.

22. African Development Bank and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, African Economic Outlook 2007 (Tunis and Paris: 2007), p. 386; Bouteflika in Kaci Racelma, “Algeria Worries over Desertification,” Africa News, 3 January 2007; USDA, op. cit. note 15; “Algeria to Convert Large Cereal Land to TreePlanting,” Reuters, 8 December 2000.

23. FAO, op. cit. note 15; FAO, 1965 Production Yearbook (Rome: 1965);U.N. Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, at esa.un.org/unpp, updated 11 March 2009; Southern African Development Coordination Conference, SADCC Agriculture: Toward 2000 (Rome: FAO, 1984); Pierre Ozer, “Dust Variability and Land Degradation in the Sahel,” Belgeo, vol. 2 (2002), pp. 195–209; Aiguo Dai, Kevin E. Trenberth, and Taotao Qian, “A Global Dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870–2002: Relationship with Soil Moisture and Effects of Surface Warming,” Journal of Hydrometeorology, vol. 5, no. 6 (December 2004), pp. 1,117–30.

24. NASA, “Dust Storm off Western Sahara Coast,” Earth Observatory, 9 January 2005.

25. Paul Brown, “4x4s Replace the Desert Camel and Whip Up a Worldwide Dust Storm,” Guardian (London), 20 August 2004.

26. Ibid.

27. Government of Nigeria, Combating Desertification and Mitigating the Effects of Drought in Nigeria, Revised National Report on the Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (Nigeria: April 2002); U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 23; livestock figures from FAO, op. cit. note 15, with 1950 estimate based on FAO, op. cit. note 23.

28. Kenya National Environment Secretariat, Ministry of Environmental Conservation, National Action Program to Combat Desertification (Nairobi: 1999), p. 6; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 23; Republic of Kenya Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, National Action Programme: A Framework for Combating Desertification in Kenya in the Context of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (Nairobi: February 2002), pp. 12–14.

29. UNEP, Afghanistan: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment (Geneva: 2003), p. 52.

30. “Afghanistan: Environmental Crisis Looms as Conflict Goes On,” Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) News, 30 July 2007.

31. FAO, op. cit. note 15; Iranian News Agency, “Official Warns of Impending Desertification Catastrophe in Southeast Iran,” BBC International Reports, 29 September 2002.

32. Liz Sly, “Iraq in Throes of Environmental Catastrophe, Experts Say,” Los Angeles Times, 30 July 2009.

33. NASA, “Dust Storm Over Iraq,” Earth Observatory, 7 July 2009; NASA, “Dust Storm Over Iran,” Earth Observatory, 23 July 2009.

34. FAO, FAOSTAT, electronic database, at faostat.fao.org, updated 2 September 2010.

35. Ibid.

36. FAO, “FAO/WFP Crop and Food Assessment Mission to Lesotho Special Report,” at www.fao.org, viewed 29 May 2002; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 23.

37. Michael Grunwald, “Bizarre Weather Ravages Africans’ Crops,” Washington Post, 7 January 2003; USDA, op. cit. note 15.

38. USDA, op. cit. note 15; FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 (Rome: 2006), p. 193; U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), “Lesotho,” at www.wfp.org/countries/lesotho,viewed 21 July 2010; WFP, “Haiti,” atwww.wfp.org/countries/haiti, viewed 21 July 2010.

39. UNEP, Mongolia: State of the Environment 2002 (Pathumthani, Thailand: Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific, 2001), pp. 3–7; USDA, op. cit. note 15.

40. USDA, op. cit. note 15.

4. Η άνοδος της θερμοκρασίας, η τήξη των πάγων και η εξασφάλιση των τροφίμων

1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), “Ice Island Calves Off Petermann Glacier,” Earth Observatory, 13 August 2010; Randy Boswell, “Federal Service Tracking Gigantic Ice Island Adrift in Arctic,” Montreal Gazette, 7 October 2010; “Greenland Glacier Calves Island Four Times the Size of Manhattan, UD Scientist Reports,” University of Delaware U Daily, 6 August 2010.

2. Paul Brown, “Melting Ice Cap Triggering Earthquakes,” Guardian (London), 8 September 2007.

3. Louise Gray, “Ice Sheet in Greenland Melting at Record Rate,” Daily Telegraph (London), 13 August 2010.

4. Jeff Masters, “Paula Dying; Zambia Records its Hottest Temperature in History,” Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Weather Underground, at www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters, 15 October 2010; Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Meteorological Department, “Record Breaking Heat in Pakistan,” press release (Islamabad: 26 May 2010); John Vidal, “World Feeling the Heat as 17 Countries Experience Record Temperatures,” Poverty Matters,blog, at guardian.co.uk,12 August 2010.

5. Christopher C. Burt, “The Remarkable Summer of 2010,” Weather Extremes Blog, Weather Underground, atwww.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian, 22 September 2010; Bob Pool and Rong-Gong Lin II, “L.A.’s Hottest Day Ever,” Los Angeles Times, 27 September 2010; Jeff Masters, “TD 16 Organizing; Mexican Landslide Kills Hundreds; Hottest Day Ever in Los Angeles,” Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Weather Underground, atwww.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters, 28 September 2010; Gerald A. Meehl et al., “Relative Increase of Record High Maximum Temperatures Compared to Record Low Minimum Temperatures in the U.S.,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 36 (1 December 2009).

6. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contributionof Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 749–51; Jay Gulledge, “Climate Risks: Lessons from 2010’s Extreme Weather,” Climate Compass: The Blog of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, at www.pewclimate.org/blog, 23 August 2010; James Hansen, “How Warm Was This Summer?” atwww.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20101001_SummerTemperatures.pdf, 1 October 2010.

7. NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), “Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 Degrees Celsius,” at data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt, updated September 2010; Amy Heinzerling, “Past Decade the Hottest on Record,” Eco-Economy Indicator (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 14 January 2010); Cecilia Bitz, “Polar Amplification,” Real Climate, blog, at www.realclimate.org, 2 January 2006; IPCC, op. cit. note 6, p. 237.

8. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, “GFDL Climate Modeling Research Highlights,” at www.gfdl.noaa.gov/cms-filesystem-action?file=user_files/kd/pdf/gfdlhighlight_vol1n5.pdf, updated 15 October 2008; Oregon State University, “Abrupt Global Warming Could Shift Monsoon Patterns, Hurt Agriculture,” Science Daily, 14 June 2009; IPCC, op. cit. note 6, p. 238.

9. John E. Sheehy, International Rice Research Institute, e-mail to Janet Larsen, Earth Policy Institute, 1 October 2002; Shaobing Peng et al., “Rice Yields Decline with Higher Night Temperatures from Global Warming,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 27 (6 July 2004), pp. 9,971–75; David B. Lobell and Christopher B. Field, “Global Scale Climate-Crop Yield Relationships and the Impacts of Recent Warming,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 2, no. 1 (16 March 2007); U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), “Climate Change: Billions Across the Tropics Face Hunger and Starvation as Big Drop in Crop Yields Forecast,” press release (Nairobi: 8 November 2001); Liangzhi You et al., “Impact of Growing Season Temperature on Wheat Productivity in China,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol. 146, no. 6–7 (15 June 2009), pp. 1,009–14.

10. Mohan K. Wali et al., “Assessing Terrestrial Ecosystem Sustainability,” Nature & Resources, vol. 35, part 4 (October–December 1999), pp. 21–33.

11. Sheehy, op. cit. note 9; Pedro Sanchez, “The Climate Change–Soil Fertility–Food Security Nexus,” presented at Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020, Bonn, Germany, 4–6 September 2001.

12. I. Velicogna, “Increasing Rates of Ice Mass Loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Revealed by GRACE,”Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 36 (13 October 2009); Göran Ekström, Meredith Nettles, and Victor C. Tsai, “Seasonality and Increasing Frequency of Greenland Glacial Earthquakes,” Science, vol. 311 (24 March 2006), pp. 1,756–58.

13. Velicogna, op. cit. note 12; “Giant Antarctic Ice Shelves Shatter and Break Away,” Environment News Service, 19 March 2002; National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), “Larsen B Ice Shelf Collapses in Antarctica,” atnsidc.org/news/press/larsen_B/2002.html, 21 March 2002; NASA, “Rapid Sea Ice Breakup along the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf,” Earth Observatory, 22 January 2010; UNEP, Global Outlook for Ice and Snow (Nairobi: 2007), p. 103.

14. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Impacts of a Warming Arctic (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 22; NASA GISS, “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Global Maps, 1950–2010,” atdata.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps, updated 9 July 2010.

15. Josefino C. Comiso et al., “Accelerated Decline in the Arctic Sea Ice Cover,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35 (3 January 2008); “Summer Sea Ice Likely to Disappear in the Arctic by 2015,” Mongabay.com, 31 August 2009; NSIDC, “Processes: Thermodynamics: Albedo,” at nsidc.org/seaice/processes/albedo.html, viewed 22 July 2010.

16. James A. Screen and Ian Simmonds, “The Central Role of Diminishing Sea Ice in Recent Arctic Temperature Amplification,” Nature, vol. 464 (29 April 2010), pp. 1,334–37; W. T. Pfeffer, J. T. Harper, and S. O’Neel, “Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise,” Science, vol. 321 (5 September 2008), pp. 1340–43; IPCC, op. cit. note 6, p. 7.

17. World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 100; U.N. Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, at esa.un.org/unpp, updated 11 March 2009; IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 485; U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change (New York: 2007), p. 100; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database, at www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 11 May 2010.

18. USDA, op. cit. note 17.

19. Number of glaciers, defined as bodies of ice exceeding 100,000 square meters, in Stephen Saunders, Tom Easley, and Theo Spencer, Glacier National Park in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption (Louisville, CO, and New York: Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and Natural Resources Defense Council, April 2010), pp. 10–12.

20. L. G. Thompson et al., “Glacier Loss on Kilimanjaro Continues Unabated,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 47 (24 November 2009), pp. 19,770–75; Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, e-mail to author, 21 October 2009.

21. World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), “Preliminary Glacier Mass Balance Data, 2007/2008,” atwww.geo.uzh.ch/wgms/mbb/sum08.html, updated 9 February 2010; Wilfried Haeberli et al., Fluctuations of Glaciers 2000–2005 Vol. IX (Zurich, Switzerland: WGMS, 2008); Tandong Yao et al., “Recent Glacial Retreat and Its Impact on Hydrological Processes on the Tibetan Plateau, China, and Surrounding Regions,” Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, vol. 39, no. 4 (2007), pp. 642–50.

22. UNEP, op. cit. note 13, pp. 130–31, 139–40; Upali A. Amarasinghe et al., Spatial Variation in Water Supply and Demand Across River Basins of India (Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), 2005), p. 8; Upali A. Amarasinghe et al., Water Supply, Water Demand and Agricultural Water Scarcity in China: A Basin Approach(Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI, 2005), p. 10; Lester R. Brown, “Melting Mountain Glaciers Will Shrink Grain Harvests in China and India,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 20 March 2008).

23. Brown, op. cit. note 22; USDA, op. cit. note 17.

24. Emily Wax, “A Sacred River Endangered by Global Warming,” Washington Post, 17 June 2007; Amarasinghe et al.,Spatial Variation in Water Supply and Demand, op. cit. note 22, p. 8; IUCN–The World Conservation Union et al., “Watersheds of the World Online,” Water Resources eAtlas, updated 2003, at www.wri.org/publication/watersheds-of-the-world.

25. “Glacier Study Reveals Chilling Prediction,” China Daily, 23 September 2004; Tandong Yao, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, e-mail to Alexandra Giese, Earth Policy Institute, 8 September 2010; “China Warns of ‘Ecological Catastrophe’ from Tibet’s Melting Glaciers,” Agence France-Presse, 5 October 2004.

26. IUCN, op. cit. note 24; Jian Xie et al., Addressing China’s Water Scarcity: Recommendations for Selected Water Resource Management Issues (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009), p. xx; “Yangtze River–Agriculture,” Encyclopedia Britannica, online encyclopedia, viewed 21 May 2010; USDA, op. cit. note 17; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 17.

27. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 17; Michael Ma, “Northern Cities Sinking as Water Table Falls,” South China Morning Post, 11 August 2001; Sanjay Pahuja et al., Deep Wells and Prudence: Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India (Washington, DC: World Bank, January 2010).

28. Lester R. Brown, “The Copenhagen Conference on Food Security,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 10 November 2009); “Nutrition,” table in UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children, Special Edition, Statistical Tables (New York: November 2009), p. 13.

29. Gino Casassa et al., “Detection of Changes in Glacial Run-Off in Alpine Basins: Examples from North America, the Alps, Central Asia and the Andes,” Hydrological Processes, vol. 23, issue 1 (2009), pp. 31–41.

30. James Painter, “Deglaciation in the Andean Region,” in UNDP, Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World, Human Development Report 2007/2008 Occasional Paper (New York: 2007), pp. 4, 8; Lonnie Thompson, “Receding Glaciers Erase Records of Climate History,” Science News, vol. 175, no. 4 (14 February 2009), p. 32.

31. “Climate Tipping Point Near Warn UN, World Bank,” Environment News Service, 23 February 2009; U.N. Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision Population Database, at esa.un.org/unpd/wup/unup, updated 2010; Blanca Rosales, “Peru: Water Isn’t for Everyone,” Inter Press Service, 18 April 2009; Painter, op. cit. note 30, p. 8.

32. Alvaro Soruco et al., “Glacier Decline Between 1963 and 2006 in the Cordillera Real, Bolivia,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 36 (11 February 2009); James Painter, “Huge Bolivian Glacier Disappears,” BBC News, 12 May 2009; Simon Romero, “Bolivia’s Only Ski Resort Is Facing a Snowless Future,” New York Times, 2 February 2007.

33. U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 17; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Administration (EIA),International Energy Statistics, electronic database, at www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html, viewed 3 August 2010.

34. Michael Kiparsky and Peter H. Gleick, Climate Change and California Water Resources: A Survey and Summary of the Literature (Oakland, CA: Pacific Institute, 2003), pp. 9–11, 14–15; Timothy Cavagnaro et al., Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions for California Agricultural Landscapes (Sacramento, CA: California Climate Change Center, 2006), pp. 11, 34.

35. John Krist, “Water Issues Will Dominate California’s Agenda This Year,” Environmental News Network, 21 February 2003; Michael J. Scott et al., “Climate Change and Adaptation in Irrigated Agriculture–A Case Study of the Yakima River,” paper for Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) and National Institutes for Water Resources Conference,Water Allocation: Economics and the Environment, Portland, OR, 20–22 July 2004; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, “Global Warming to Squeeze Western Mountains Dry by 2050,” press release (Richland, WA: 16 February 2004).

36. UNEP, op. cit. note 13, pp. 130–131; Mehrdad Khalili, “The Climate of Iran: North, South, Kavir (Desert), Mountains,”San’ate Hamlo Naql (March 1997), pp. 48–53.

37. Jamil Anderlini, “Chinese Inflation Spiking on Food Prices,” Financial Times, 14 November 2007; “China Intervenes in Commodity Prices,” Xinhua, 18 January 2008.

38. USDA, op. cit. note 17; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 17.

39. “Cereal Offenders,” The Economist, 27 May 2008; Fred H. Sanderson, “The Great Food Fumble,” Science, vol. 188 (9 May 1975), pp. 503–09; U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities,” current and historical data tables, at www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt, updated 16 September 2010.

40. Coal from DOE, EIA, International Energy Outlook 2010 (Washington, DC: July 2010), p. 87. For a discussion of the renewable energy potential, see Chapter 9.

41. Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), pp. 13–21.

5. Οι αναδυόμενες πολιτικές της έλλειψης τροφίμων

1. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Soaring Food Prices: Facts, Perspectives, Impacts, and Actions Required,” paper presented at the High-Level Conference on World Food Security: The Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, Rome, 3–5 June 2008; historical wheat, rice, corn, and soybean prices are Chicago Board of Trade futures data from TFC Commodity Charts, “Grain & Oilseed Commodities Futures,” atfutures.tradingcharts.com/grains_oilseeds.html, viewed 21 July 2010; Ian MacKinnon, “Farmers Fall Prey to Rice Rustlers as Price of Staple Crop Rockets,” Guardian (London), 31 March 2008.

2. Daniel Ten Kate, “Grain Prices Soar Globally,” Christian Science Monitor, 27 March 2008; U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), “Countries: Sudan,” www.wfp.org/countries/sudan, viewed 26 July 2010; Nadeem Sarwar, “Pakistan’s Poor, Musharraf Reeling Under Wheat Crisis,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 January 2008; Keith Bradsher, “High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asian Unrest,” New York Times, 29 March 2008; Kamran Haider, “Pakistani Troops Escort Wheat Trucks to Stop Theft,” Reuters, 13 January 2008; Khalid Qayum, “Pakistan Wheat Output May Miss Target, Fuelling Rally,”Bloomberg, 8 April 2008; Kent Garber, “How Countries Worsen the Food Price Crisis,” U.S. News and World Report, 9 April 2008.

3. Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani, “Egypt: Rising Food Costs Provoke Fights Over Subsidised Bread,” Inter Press Service, 26 March 2008; Ellen Knickmeyer, “Egypt’s President Urges Family Planning,” Washington Post, 11 June 2008; Robert F. Worth, “Rising Inflation Creates Unease in Middle East,” New York Times, 25 February 2008; Julian Borger, “Feed the World? We are Fighting a Losing Battle UN Admits,” Guardian (London), 26 February 2008; Tansa Musa, “Hungry Crowds Spell Trouble for World Leaders,” Reuters, 2 April 2008; “Clashes Over Food Prices Trouble Political Leaders,” Reuters, 2 April 2008; Bradsher, op. cit. note 2; Joseph Guyler Delva, “Four Killed as Haitians Riot Over Prices,” Reuters, 5 April 2008; Peter Apps, “Soaring Food Prices Raise Investment Risk,” Reuters, 14 April 2008; Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney, “Haiti’s Government Falls after Food Riots,” Reuters, 12 April 2008.

4. Chicago Board of Trade futures data from TFC Commodity Charts, op. cit. note 1; FAO, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, no. 2 (Rome: April 2008); Javier Blas, “UN Pleads for $500m to Avoid Food Crisis,” Financial Times, 24 March 2008; Celia W. Dugger, “As Prices Soar, U.S. Food Aid Buys Less,” New York Times, 29 September 2007; WFP, “Our Work: Operations List,” at www.wfp.org/operations, viewed 9 June 2009; Edith M. Lederer, “U.N.: Hunger Kills 18,000 Kids Each Day,” Associated Press, 17 February 2007.

5. FAO, op. cit. note 1; Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), pp. 145–46; Fred H. Sanderson, “The Great Food Fumble,” Science, vol. 188 (9 May 1975), pp. 503–09; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Crop Production,” news release (Washington, DC: 12 August 2005).

6. U.N. Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, at esa.un.org/unpp, updated 11 March 2009.

7. USDA, Production, Supply and Distribution, electronic database, at www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline, updated 9 July 2010; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 6.

8. USDA, op. cit. note 7; F.O. Licht, “Too Much Too Soon? World Ethanol Production to Break Another Record in 2005,”World Ethanol and Biofuels Report, vol. 3, no. 20 (21 June 2005), pp. 429–35; U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “World Crude Oil Prices” and “U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices,” attonto.eia.doe.gov, viewed 31 July 2007; Lester R. Brown, “Distillery Demand for Grain to Fuel Cars Vastly Understated: World May Be Facing Highest Grain Prices in History,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 4 January 2007).

9. USDA, op. cit. note 7; USDA, Feed Grains Database, electronic database, at www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FeedGrains, updated 14 July 2010.

10. Miguel Robles, Maximo Torero, and Joachim von Braun, When Speculation Matters, Issue Brief No. 57 (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), February 2009).

11. Lester R. Brown, “Paving the Planet: Cars and Crops Competing for Land,” Eco-Economy Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 14 February 2001).

12. Patricia Jiayi Ho, “China Passes U.S. as World’s Top Car Market,” Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2010; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 6; 2009 U.S. and world vehicle fleet size from Ward’s Automotive Group, “Vehicles in Operation by Country,” table from Lisa Williamson, e-mail to Alexandra Giese, Earth Policy Institute, 24 September 2010; paved land needed to accommodate 1 billion cars in China calculated by Earth Policy Institute using conservative estimate of 0.02 hectares per car, based on denser development typical of Japan and Europe—details available in Brown, op. cit. note 11; rice area from USDA, op. cit. note 7.

13. USDA, op. cit. note 7.

14. Ping-Ti Ho, “The Loess and the Origin of Chinese Agriculture,” The American Historical Review, vol. 75, no. 1 (October 1969), pp. 1–36; USDA, op. cit. note 7.

15. USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, The Amazon: Brazil’s Final Soybean Frontier (Washington, DC: January 2004); Philip Fearnside, quoted in Steve Connor, “How a Century of Destruction Has Laid Bare the World’s Rainforests,”Independent (London), 10 July 2004; Daniel Nepstad, The Amazon’s Vicious Cycles (Gland, Switzerland: WWF International, 2007); USDA, op. cit. note 7.

16. Financial Times, “In Depth: The Global Food Crisis,” at www.ft.com/foodprices, updated 6 May 2008; USDA, op. cit. note 7.

17. Office of the President, Republic of the Philippines, “RP Assured of 1.5 Million Metric Tons of Rice Supply from Vietnam Annually,” press release (Manila: 26 March 2008); “Yemen to Seek Australian Food Cooperation,”WorldGrain.com, 19 May 2008; “Indonesia Set to Become Major Rice Exporter Next Year,” WorldGrain.com, 1 July 2008; “Bahrain to Own Rice Farms in Thailand,” TradeArabia News Service, 30 May 2008; Javier Blas, “Nations Make Secret Deals Over Grain,” Financial Times, 10 April 2008; Maria Kolesnikova and Alaa Shahine, “Russia, Egypt Agree on Wheat Deals to Boost Shipments,” Bloomberg, 23 June 2009.

18. GRAIN, Seized! The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security (Barcelona: October 2008); USDA, op. cit. note 7; Olivier De Schutter, “Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and Leases: A Set of Core Principles and Measures to Address the Human Rights Challenge,” briefing note (Geneva: U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 11 June 2009); Jarmo T. Kotilaine, GCC Agriculture: Bridging the Food Gap (Riyadh: NCB Capital, March 2010).

19. GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; John Vidal, “Fears for the World’s Poor Countries as the Rich Grab Land to Grow Food,”Guardian (London), 3 July 2009; ActionAid, “Biofuel Land Grabs Spell Disaster for Poor, Says ActionAid,” atwww.actionaid.org/pages.aspx, 1 April 2010.

20. GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; Joachim von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, “Land Grabbing” by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries, Policy Brief No. 13 (Washington, DC: IFPRI, April 2009); USDA, op. cit. note 7; Wendy Pugh, “Australian Wheat Sales to China Increase to Five-Year High, CBH Group Says,” Bloomberg, 22 July 2010; “Kazakhstan to Supply Wheat to China in March,” WorldGrain.com, 1 March 2010; Rod Nickel, “Canada to Double Wheat Sales to China,” Reuters, 5 July 2010; “China Purchases U.S. Corn,” WorldGrain.com, 29 April 2010.

21. GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; von Braun and Meinzen-Dick, op. cit. note 20; John Vidal, “How Food and Water are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab,” Observer (London), 7 March 2010; Shaimaa Fayed, “Sudan Eyes $6 Bln – $7 Bln Investment in 2010,” Reuters, 15 December 2009; Joanne Bladd, “ME’s Farmland Buys in Africa Seen as ‘a Win-Win Partnership’,” Arabian Business, 15 April 2010.

22. GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; von Braun and Meinzen-Dick, op. cit. note 20; Vidal, op. cit. note 21.

23. GRAIN, “The World Bank in the Hot Seat,” Against the Grain (4 May 2010); GRAIN, “Donors Open the Door for Land Grab in PNG,” at farmlandgrab.org/12716, 13 May 2010; Alexandra Spieldoch, Global Land Grab (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy in Focus, 18 June 2009); Vidal, op. cit. note 21; Jason McLure, “Ethiopian Farms Lure Investor Funds as Workers Live in Poverty,” Bloomberg, 31 December 2009; Friends of the Earth Africa and Friends of the Earth Europe,Africa: Up for Grabs—The Scale and Impact of Land Grabbing for Agrofuels (Brussels: Friends of the Earth Europe, August 2010), p. 6.

24. GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; “Land Deals in Africa and Asia: Cornering Foreign Fields,” The Economist, 21 May 2009; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Receives Minister of Commerce and Industry,” press release (Riyadh: 27 January 2009); “Saudi’s Hadco Eyes Sudan, Turkey in Food Security Push,” Reuters, 17 February 2009; WFP, “Countries,” at www.wfp.org, viewed 14 July 2010; UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – Ethiopia, Humanitarian Requirements Document – 2010 (Addis Ababa: January 2010).

25. “Buying Farmland Abroad: Outsourcing’s Third Wave,” The Economist, 21 May 2009; Javier Blas, “Hyundai Plants Seoul’s Flag on 50,000ha of Russia,” Financial Times, 15 April 2009; Vidal, op. cit. note 21; European Commission, “Biofuels and Other Renewable Energy in the Transport Sector,” atec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/biofuels/biofuels_en.htm, updated 11 January 2010.

26. von Braun and Meinzen-Dick, op. cit. note 20; USDA, op. cit. note 7; U.N. Population Division, op. cit. note 6; “China ‘May Lease Foreign Fields’,” BBC News, 29 April 2008; Gurbir Singh, “China is Buying Farm Lands Abroad to Ensure Food Supplies at Home,” Business World (New Delhi), 16 May 2008; “China Eyes Russian Farmlands in Food Push,”Russia Today (Moscow), 11 May 2008; GRAIN, op. cit. note 18; “Govt to Lease Land for FDI in Agriculture,” Myanmar Times, 11–17 September 2006; WFP, op. cit. note 24.

27. USDA, op. cit. note 7; “Buying Farmland Abroad,” op. cit. note 25; Vidal, op. cit. note 21; “Saudis Invest $1.3 Billion in Indonesian Agriculture,” Reuters, 24 March 2009; GRAIN, op. cit. note 18.

28. USDA, op. cit. note 7.

29. World Bank, Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can It Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits? (Washington, DC: September 2010), pp. xii, 12–14, 48, 71; James K. A. Benhin, “Agriculture and Deforestation in the Tropics: A Critical Theoretical and Empirical Review,” Ambio, vol. 35, no. 1 (February 2006), pp. 9–16.

30. Vidal, op. cit. note 21.

31. “Memorandum of Understanding on Construction of Agriculture Technology Transfer Center and Grain Production and Processing Base in the Philippines,” available atwww.newsbreak.com.ph/dmdocuments/special%20coverages/China%20Agri/Fuhua%20MOU.pdf, signed 15 January 2007; “China: ‘Going Outward’ for Food Security,” Stratfor, 30 April 2008; Luzi Ann Javier, “China’s Appetite for Filipino Paddies Breeds Farmer Opposition,” Bloomberg, 21 February 2008; Tom Burgis and Javier Blas, “Madagascar Scraps Daewoo Farm Deal,” Financial Times, 18 March 2009.

32. World Bank, op. cit. note 29, pp. vi, 3, 35, 36.

33. Ibid., pp. 35, 36; investment estimate from “The Great Land Grab: A Rush for Food Security and Profits,” UNCCD News, Issue 2.3 (May–June 2010), pp. 2–8.

34. Vidal, op. cit. note 21.

35. Oil price projections from International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2009 (Paris: 2009), pp. 64–66.

36. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, op. cit. note 24; “Hyundai Heavy Reaps Corns, Soybeans at its Russian Farmland,” Yonhap News Agency, 15 April 2010; Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd., “Hyundai Heavy Harvests Beans and Corns from its Russian Farm,” press release (Ulsan, Republic of Korea: 16 April 2010); Julie Zaugg, “Ethiopia. Now is Harvest Time,” L’Hebdo (Switzerland), 3 September 2009.

37. Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy, “The Failed States Index,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2010, pp. 74–105.

38. FAO et al., Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihoods and Resources, discussion note (Washington, DC: 25 January 20