A Green Degree

This blog intends to bring a new perspective on all things 'green' and sustainable, covering (mostly) energy, politics, the economy & more, what I feel as the most pressing concerns we face. In short, sustainability needs to progress & become the social everyday. That's my passion, and our solution. Screw business as usual people!













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April 25th 2012

Should Climate Change Be Elevated To A Human Rights Issue?

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I read an article recently written by Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (via the Guardian) in which he outlined how the issue of climate change, and the myriad critical, human-related problems associated with it, should be brought up to the status of a human rights issue - by damaging our climate and endangering our societies, we are actively ignoring a basic human right. Well that’s the premise at least.

As we all know, climate change, whether it be natural or man-made, or more than likely a complex combination of both, is directly affecting every human on the globe and is a severe problem we are in desperate need of fixing.

The advent of multiple climate conventions and meetings of world powers began decades ago and still continues on today, but they’re becoming more and more like a session in the House of Commons or a high-school debate than a truly successful stage for solving the issues. Each nation leader has their own opinion and they’re not afraid to shout it loudly to the rest of the world, most of the time in contention with almost everyone else in the room. 

We are quick to finger those developed and rapidly developing states which act almost to stagger climate decisions, such as Canada, the US or China to name a few, but in all reality, it’s the whole crowd. As De Schutter suggests in his article, “does this mean that democracy has failed, and must be sacrificed for authoritarian solutions?”. While it may seem that our democratic way of debating and considering things has done little to affect response to climate change, I feel it is still a premature idea to condemn the process altogether just yet.

The idea of branding the climate issue as a human rights issue thus stems from this, as these rights are global, powerful and upheld by almost every country on the planet, although there is plenty of scope for local tweaks and bending of the rules for evil. However, in a broad sense, De Schutter believes it will bring about a hyper-democratic approach, as climate change affects all those other human rights in which so many depend upon - water, food, electricity, sanitation and development.

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Posted at 1:33pm and tagged with: human rights, UN, poverty, food, water, shortage, electricity, energy, development, human, climate change, emissions, developed, democracy, sanitation, charity, NGO, law, government,.

April 4th 2012

Saudi Arabia Living On Borrowed Time, Just 50 Years Of It

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NASA has recently published some astonishing satellite imagery of the Syrian Desert in Saudi Arabia and the seemingly impossible growth of bright-green agricultural land and apparently fertile soils. This can be seen below, showing the transition between 1987-2012, with further images available on the NASA site.

The fields appear circular due to the system of irrigation employed by the Saudi’s, which pumps the water up through drilled wells into a sprinkler system which distributes it in this fashion. They have cultivated a desert in just 24 years.

This doesn’t seem right does it? To have such rich looking land sprout in the middle of an extremely dry desert goes against both common sense and science. To combat this obvious problem however, the Saudi’s began tapping a resource of fossil water lying in reservoirs underground, water laid down during the last Ice Age, and water which is likely to last roughly 50 years. With no new Ice Age on the horizon and just an inch of rainfall per year, this is shaping up to be one of the most shortsighted solutions I’ve ever seen.

I can understand that to feed a growing population, such as Saudi Arabia is experiencing and demanding, that the chance to utilise a hidden source of water to provide this necessity would be a chance the government could not pass up. What is surprising is that, despite the fact that two-thirds of the country’s water needs are imported in from their neighbours, they ploughed ahead in tapping this fossil water likely knowing it was not destined for a long life. Once it runs dry, not only will the agriculture and food production in the region rapidly die back, but imported goods will become ever more relied on. 

Considering that water is quickly becoming a scarce resource in regions such as the Middle East and N. Africa, the idea of drinking from a reservoir which could be used in much better ways (think drinking-water) is hard to swallow.

My thoughts turn to Dubai when thinking of this story, yet another region which should be dry and uncultivated, and yet the world’s tallest skyscrapers and richest people live out their lives there. Water is pumped in from other countries which could be using it for much more noble and necessary causes, rather than to sustain the ridiculous gardens and fountains of the desert-city. Again, shortsightedness prevails. Maybe once the Syrian Desert eventually runs dry around 2040 they will simply pick up the slack by demanding foreign water, forever perpetuating the vicious cycle.

It’s not hard to see from this example that the next few wars, however large or small, could easily be fought over water and not oil. Fossil water becomes the new dirty word.

NASA site - http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/saudi-green.html

http://grist.org/list/incredible-nasa-images-of-saudi-arabias-careless-use-of-water/

Posted at 1:33pm and tagged with: Saudi Arabia, water, irrigation, NASA, fossil water, desert, agriculture, fertile, dubai,.