About two-thirds of the world’s population faces water scarcity for at least one month out of the year.
Credit: Science Journals
The growing risk of worldwide water shortages is worse than scientists previously thought, according to a new study.
About 66 percent, which is 4 billion people, of the world’s population lives without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year, according to a new paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
Previous studies calculated a lower number, estimating that between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people lived with moderate to severe water scarcity for at least a month out of the year.
Scientists, led by Dr. Arjen Hoekstra of the Netherlands’ University of Twente, used a computer model that is both more precise and comprehensive than previous studies have used to analyze how widespread water scarcity is across the globe. Their model considers multiple variables including: climate […]
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Thursday, February 18th, 2016
Ben Norton, Politics Staff Writer - Salon
Stephan: It is my belief that the Privatization Trend is a symptom -- like blood in your urine, or jaundiced skin -- of the profit sickness that is eating American society alive. Privatization is the goal of the Theocratic Right, expressed through the Republican Party, because it is in essence a fascist world view seeing corporations, Christianity, and the state as one. One the basis of data, not political theory, philosophy, or polemics. In every instance, including this one, as the report describes, wellness-oriented policy is cheaper, more efficient, more effective, more enduring, and more productive of wellness. Things used in common, are best owned in common, and not run on the basis of profit. They are a shared good producing wellness.
Nothing is going to stop this but voting for the most wellness oriented candidate in every category in the election this November. We are as an Arkansas friend says "down to the licklog."
The Flint Water Plant tower is seen, Friday, Feb. 5, 2016 in Flint, Mich. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday defended how his office responded to an email flagging a potential link between a surge in Legionnaires’ disease and Flint’s water, saying an aide asked for further investigation but a state agency did not bring forward the issue again. Credit: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
The most affordable water systems in the U.S. are publicly owned and operated by the government, an exhaustive study reveals. At the same time, for-profit private water companies charge 58 percent more than publicly owned ones. (emphasis added)
Food & Water Watch, a non-governmental consumer rights organization based in D.C., […]
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Thursday, February 18th, 2016
Simon Tisdall, Assistant Editor of the Guardian and Foreign Affairs Columnist - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: I think this is exactly what Putin is doing. He is using mass migration as a tool pursuing a long term strategy of degrading and possibly breaking up the EU, while putting the U.S. in an untenable position, all without going to war. This is what old school geopolitics is about.
It is very important to remember that all of this has been made possible because of the Bush Cheney, et al Neocon policies. They destabilized the Middle East thereby creating the conditions Putin is exploiting. I believe that is the way history will assess it.
Russia’s flat denials of responsibility for the lethal bombing of hospitals and schools in Syria cut no ice in Ankara. Senior Turkish officials say Vladimir Putin and his Syrian allies are shamelessly using increased refugee outflows resulting from these and similar attacks as a weapon of war – one that is deliberately aimed at Turkey and Europe.
Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, categorically rejected claims by Turkey and other countries that Russian forces, acting in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Syrian Kurd militias, had committed war crimes in mounting Monday’s strikes, which killed about 50 people. “Those who make such statements are not capable of backing them up with proof,” Peskov said.
Reacting to Moscow’s denials and its decision to seek UN security council condemnation of Turkey’s cross-border shelling, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s prime minister, said Russia’s behaviour was “shameless” and “insolent”. Turkey would not allow a new influx of refugees from northern Syria, he said, and would take […]
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