August, 2008

Will the 2012 International Climate Treaty burden the economies of rich countries and limit the growth of d

World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden began with a global reminder for everyone to wash their hands.

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“It is up to you to meet the energy demands of your city’s 3.9 million people…” says a SimCity-style game, Energyville, t

Natural disaster relief efforts represent a nexus between NGOs, private volunteer organizations, and the  military.

While we at GSI's Global Water Futures project are dedicated to promoting far-sighted thinking about the growing imbalance between global water sup

No matter how much some would like to think that sports should stand apart from politics and economics, this Director’s Corner | I.O.U.S.A. An Explanation

The rating notice asserts that “PG: Some material may not be suitable for children.” That couldn’t be more wrong.

The New York Times reported last week that beach goers should scratch deadly sharks from their worry lists, since there was only Consumer Spending and ‘Glocalization’

While global food prices and energy prices are on rise, increases have a relatively small impact on American’s consumer budgets according to the article ‘How the World Spends Its Money’ in this

Peter Rogers warns of the world’s impending water crisis in an article recently published in Scientific American. According to Rogers, a Harvard professor and senior adviser to the Global Water Partnership, freshwater scarcities could affect as much as three quarters of the earth’s population by 2050. By mid-century, that translates to as many as 6.9 billion thirsty people.

Future water shortages will be caused primarily by steeply increasing demand for water, the result of rapid population growth and increasing affluence around the globe. As demand increases, water resource stress will be exacerbated by climate change, which is increasing aridity and the incidence of drought worldwide, and by freshwater pollution caused by industrial contamination, agricultural runoff, and lack of adequate sanitation infrastructure in many communities.

Rogers argues that policymakers around the globe need to devise ways to ensure adequate and equitable distribution of water in coming years—and to do this without degrading the ecosystems that supply our water and sustain our societies. To this end, he proposes both low-tech and high-tech solutions to mitigate the water crisis. Water pricing, improved agricultural irrigation techniques, and sanitation systems decoupled from water supplies can all help to reduce the demand for water. Advances in desalination technology will complement these measures by increasing global freshwater availability.