Quick facts to worry about

Quick Facts About a World on the Edge

We are facing issues of near-overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Can we think systemically and fashion policies accordingly? Can we change direction before we go over the edge? Here are a few of the many facts from World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse to consider:

• There will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night–many of them with empty plates.
• If the 2010 heat wave centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago, it could easily have reduced the U.S. grain harvest of 400 million tons by 40 percent and food prices would have soared.
• Half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling as aquifers are being depleted. Since 70 percent of world water use is for irrigation, water shortages translate into food shortages.
• In Sana’a, the capital of Yemen–home to 2 million people–water tables are falling fast. Tap water is available only once every 4 days; in Taiz, a smaller city to the south, it is once every 20 days
• Virtually all of the top 20 countries considered to be “failing states” are depleting their natural assets–forests, grasslands, soils, and aquifers–to sustain their rapidly growing populations.

More to the article but chose these to highlight our next WAR ZONES. The next wars will be fought because of the environment, food and water.

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