A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference.
Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government's Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
"The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We're facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it," he said.
"A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where three billion people live. That's almost half the world's population," he said.
The scientist who coined the term "global warming" in the 1970s has proposed a radical solution to the problem of climate change.
Wallace Broecker advocated millions of "carbon scrubbers" - giant artificial trees to pull CO2 from the air. The towers would use a special type of plastic to absorb the CO2. The gas would then be either liquefied under pressure and pumped underground or turned into a mineral.
Lackner said the process could not only offset but reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere, with an investment of $1.6 trillion.
"It's a big scale, so big it's unimaginable," said Wright. "But we as a species constantly build big things. If the Great Wall of China were an air collector, it would remove 8 billion tons a year."
Wright said 50 million shipping-container-sized devices would handle the problem.
The best place to put these huge tree-like scrubbers would be in the world's desert regions. The toughest obstacle to getting the plan implemented will be political interference, Broecker said. Bringing China, India and other developing countries onboard will be key to ensuring the scheme's long-term success.
It seems probable to us that these devices could be built within a reasonable budget, considering the astronomical cost of doing nothing. So, if enough willpower can be generated by world leaders (or perhaps imparted to them from the grassroots/netroots) then maybe something like this will be a big part of all that must be done.
And, in the meantime, if work keeps moving forward on molecular manufacturing -- which would make a huge difference in bringing down the cost of such herculean projects and speeding their completion -- then maybe we can look forward to dodging the biggest bullet we've ever faced.
Maybe...
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