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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2011-12-14
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2wCANFLpM
mmhm nnst I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts and experiences on water and they say of that every talk should start at the beginning so I guess I need to start at the beginning with water so here goes in the beginning before there was even the life spirit of god hovered over the waters of the earth the oldest fossils we find on the
planet are stromatolites three billion year old fossils opposed informed by blue green algae in the primeval city the waters of the tigris and Euphrates rivers nourished the cradle of civilization John baptized Jesus in water the Koran tells us that all law made all living things from water I can go for weeks without eating but after about three days without water I begin to die so it's
no it's no wonder that something of such critical importance when it's in limited supply and has to be shared can become a point of contention and that's what I'd like to talk about I've gone the wrong way I into thousand six I had the opportunity to visit Cambodia and traveled up the Mekong river across the tone was soft southeast Asia's largest lake and I saw how
people in Cambodia depended upon water for everything fifty percent of Cambodia's protein resources come from the waters of the total I saw and I heard about how concerned people were with what was happening upstream in Laos and in China where the Mekong and its tributaries were being down for power and for agriculture and I heard how concerned people war in Cambodia about their future and about
their faith Cambodia is a downstream user and not very well armed in the Middle East most of the nations are currently using greater than one hundred percent of their renewable water resources that's not a good thing in Egypt home to eighty million people the nihilist the pillar of life depend upon this for everything unfortunately for Egypt the Nile runs through Sudan and finds its origins up
in the highlands of Ethiopia so Egypt like Cambodia is a downstream user unlike Cambodia though each pretty well armed in nineteen fifty nine Egypt entered into an agreement the Niles water agreement with Sudan and giving our Egypt seventy five percent of the total flow of a mile Sudan the other twenty five percent this despite the fact seventy five percent of the miles flow starts up in
the highlands of Ethiopia Egypt is said the only thing it will go to war over in the future is water so for now the people in Ethiopia go hungry go thirsty and tread lightly in two thousand nine I had the opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia as a consultant on a water engineering project the Saudis have burned through about fifty percent of their aquifers and despite
the fact that in two thousand five we installed low flow toilets and all the palaces if we continue on this course they may be down to the bottom of their aquifers by twenty twenty five so with the cell Saudis have done is turned to desalination to make up this water that they've been depleting desalination is really a miraculous technology for the Saudis in the desert kingdom
I in one side of this plant will feed sea water and the other side whale is incredibly in energy intensive process %HESITATION and what is the product product of this manufacturing process it's potable water the Saudis currently apply seventy percent of the potable water demand in their country with desalinated water only a small fraction goes to agriculture the Saudis are the lucky ones in this region
in that they have this technology and they still have oil but there are others in the Middle East and in North Africa were not so lucky every year since two thousand five I've taken students from Penn state overseas to Morocco to study water resources with their classmates at the Ecole Mohammed DHEA in the capital city of robot although Morocco is an Arab country the only rely
on about forty percent of their renewable water resources so they're in pretty good shape future it's quite a bit dryer for Morocco and for the countries in this region because of climate change remarkably before I can talk to my students from the United States about the effects of climate change on countries like Morocco I have to talk about the reality of climate change and the politics
the perceived politics of climate change %HESITATION because it appears that climate change is a political issue in this country and it appears that way because of a few very vocal very on remarkable French politicians but I'm here to tell you today that climate change probably outside of the scientific community within the scientific community there's a consensus outside of the scientific in the community we find that
there's agreement on this issue of climate change from people different ends of the political spectrum and from seemingly disparate laces you don't believe me approved to climate change is the one thing that George Bush and Al Gore agree on in two thousand seven President Bush told us that climate change the greatest challenge facing the United States in the twenty first century and we as Americans need
to lead the world in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming the EPA and industry often at odds CEO's of our major corporations from across the manufacturing spectrum it said that we need to begin cutting down on our greenhouse gas emissions stabilizing global temperatures and in fact by doing so across our manufacturing sector will actually create more economic opportunities then quickly create risks
and finally even hippies in the military agree about climate change our military leadership tells us that climate change represents a national security threat to our country so it's remarkable that fifty percent of the American people either don't believe that the planet is heating up I think it's heating up but it's just some some phase were going through %HESITATION remarkable %HESITATION ends its because of a few
loud French and under remarkable politicians we really need to change the conversation from our if climate change is occurring to what does it mean for our planet and to get a few glimpses of what the future might look like we can turn to the folks that office with the CIA in Langley Virginia the national intelligence council the N. I C. tells us that we can expect
I see in exacerbations of resource scarcity so in areas of the world where there is just barely enough food and barely enough water now because of climate change will find that these air in these areas there won't be enough food and there won't be enough water in addition climate change will act as a up to promote conflict as a threat multiply so where there are threats
these threats will be accentuated where there aren't threats threats will arise conflicts will be over the disappearing resource is the water in the food Mexico City is home to twenty million people the Mexico in the greater metropolitan area right now at best they have sporadic access to water Mexico City the water may be on for twenty four hours and then off for about seventy two and
I see tells us that Mexico is going to be particularly hard hit by climate change especially in the central and northern regions and unfortunately for Mexico they have a very weak adaptive capacity %HESITATION but it's a good thing we've been building or wall an offense down there on the border with Mexico to prevent that northern Mexican climate change from entering Texas clearly %HESITATION climate change will
affect Texas the same way it'll affect northern Mexico and we see that by twenty fifty of apple transpiration may exceed precipitation in the state of Texas that means when it rains or when it snows all of that water will effectively disappear Finnair the Texas water development board is just issued a report where they've been tracking temperatures in the state of Texas over the last ten years
temperatures have been steadily increasing the Texas water development board predicts that by the end of the first twenty first century temperatures in Texas maybe as much as ten degrees higher than they are now this will profoundly affect the way Texans lead their lives and perversely Texas leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions in fact if Texas were looked at as a nation it would be the
seventh largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world the same greenhouse gases that will result then this destruction of their state so that the final question is then what can we do about this %HESITATION you know here in %HESITATION here in central Pennsylvania fi put in a low flow toilets in my house water that I save is not going to be transferred cannot be conveyed to
folks in Ethiopia or Egypt or Morocco or even Texas so what is it that we can do here in the United States in terms of water resources on a global scale and the answer is we can begin to our reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to confront this climate change challenge probably the first thing we can do on a macro scale is stop subsidizing the combustion
of fossil fuels you know that in two thousand and ten on a global scale we've paid almost half a trillion dollars to promote the combustion fossil fuels by simply stopping this promotion it cut down on global energy demand by about five percent effectively eliminating the energy demands of New Zealand Japan Korea combine just by getting rid of these fossil subsidies we need to stop propping these
old fuels up %HESITATION and then also we really need to become its respective and we need to ask ourselves how we can begin leading a more sustainable life and maybe a place to start is in our homes our residential homes are responsible for twenty percent of our greenhouse gas emissions so we can start by tightening up our homes by looking at how we use electricity in
our lives by turning the thermostat down this winter putting a sweater on and then even the food choices we make we can minimize our greenhouse gas emissions you know red meat and dairy are very greenhouse gas %HESITATION intensive food groups and even buying locally you know that it at the our average food travels fifteen hundred miles here in the states before it reaches our plates fifteen
hundred miles look in the end it it boils down to really two choices right either we strategically an elective fully change how we live and maybe in rich our lives at the same time or the changing world will change things for us and hysteresis shown us that civilizations on the rise meet challenges just like the one we're being faced with they meet them squarely creativity innovation
and with bold brave action civilizations in decline meet these types of challenges with fear and denial so I'm gonna leave you with this if someone comes knocking on your door telling you that climate change is a hoax are telling you that there's nothing we can do about climate change it's impossible to do anything about climate change and it would be that bad on really all we
