Uncertainty on figures hampering food security efforts

Mark Kinver

BBC News, 4 October 2013

More than 600 scientists gathered in the Netherlands for a global food security conference, described as the first of its kind.

Organisers said science could help end uncertainty surrounding efforts to meet the food needs of future generations.

They added that, until now, there were many policy debates on food security but there was no scientific forum for researchers to share knowledge.

The next food security conference will be held in the US in 2015.

“A really key message from the conference for us is that we have got lots of estimates about needs of population growth etc, but at the moment we are so uncertain of the exact numbers – the uncertainty is really very high,” said conference co-chairman Ken Giller, professor of plant production systems at Wageningen University.

“We talk about the current population being seven billion, moving to 9.2 billion in 2050 and the estimate is that we need to increase production 70% or more.

“But there are many different ways of addressing that. If we don't know what the problem is then we can't get started in addressing them.”

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Food Security — Rotten Intelligence, Worse Ethics”

2013/10/022013/10/02

Graphic: World Water Risk

12 Water, Earth Orientation

2013/10/01

Eagle: Work at Risk from Water – Top Ten Cities Threatened with Disaster + Future of Water Overview Links

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300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

Under Water

Storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis — with more than half the world’s population now concentrated in cities, the economic threat of natural disasters in metropolitan areas looms ever larger.

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan set a new standard for disaster with almost 20,000 people killed and a record $300 billion in economic losses. Later that year, Bangkok broke the cost record for freshwater floods, with $47 billion in losses. A year later Hurricane Sandy caused $60 billion in storm-surge damage in New York and New Jersey.

A new report by Swiss Re Ltd., the world’s second-biggest reinsurer, ranks 616 metro areas by the value of working days at risk from five natural perils, as well as by number of residents potentially affected. Click ahead to see whether your city is among the most vulnerable. The areas are ranked by potential economic impact.

See all twelve screens.

2013/10/01

NIGHTWATCH: India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, & Water

08 Wild Cards, 12 Water

India-Pakistan: For the record. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif met in New York on the 29th. Shivshankar Menon, Indian national security affairs adviser, said that the talks were useful and constructive and that both sides agreed on the need to promote the realization of a complete ceasefire in Kashmir and accepted invitations to visit each other's country.

Comment: Although meetings at the UN General Assembly session are mostly symbolic, they become substantive when they do not take place. The reciprocal invitations stake out a way ahead for more substantive exchanges.

The fundamental obstacle to a durable peace is Kashmir. Pakistani governments must at least pay lip service to Kashmiri independence in some form in order to mollify powerful security and political interests. India cannot alter the status of Jammu and Kashmir State without amending its constitution, wherein the state is listed as one of the constituent Indian states.

There is little room for compromise except to agree to combat terrorism, maintain trade and a ceasefire along the Line of Control and the borders and not permit provocations to escalate. Yet there are hotheads on both sides that do and will violently oppose peace.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, & Water”

2013/09/30

Koko: Curiosity Rover Finds Water on Mars

12 Water

The first scoop of Martian soil analyzed by Curiosity Rover’s built-in laboratory has revealed a high amount of water in the soil, according to NASA.

“One of the most exciting results from this very first solid sample ingested by Curiosity is the high percentage of water in the soil,” said Curiosity researcher Laurie Leshin, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “About 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water, which is a great resource, and interesting scientifically.”

Researchers made their findings using Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) unit, which includes three sophisticated instruments: a gas chromotograph, mass spectrometer, and tunable laser spectrometer.

SAM allowed the scientists to identify a wide range of chemical compounds and to calculate the ratios of different isotopes of the sample’s key elements.

The same soil sample, when heated to 835 degrees Celsius, showed significant amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen and various sulfur compounds.

Read full article with photos.

2013/09/19

Graphic: Afghanistan Water Equals Peace

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

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2013/09/02

Berto Jongman: Ahmed Kashid on Why, and What, You Should Know About Central Asia

03 Economy, 05 Energy, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Peace Intelligence

EXTRACT:

China and Central Asia

None of the works under review provides the full answers to these questions, although Alexander Cooley’s book, Great Games, Local Rules, comes closest. They all agree on the unprecedented rise of China’s influence in Central Asia. Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse, scholars at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., demonstrate in The Chinese Question in Central Asia that China is already the dominant economic power in the region.

China has also taken care of one vital strategic interest since 1991: making sure that the Uighurs, China’s largest Muslim ethnic group who live in the western province of Xinjiang, do not seriously threaten to become independent and that the hundreds of thousands of Uighurs who live in Central Asia do not help them do so. During the 1950s large numbers of Uighurs fled the Maoist regime to seek shelter in Soviet Central Asia where they were relatively well treated.

After 1991 China put immense pressure on the three Central Asian states that border Xinjiang—Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan—to tightly restrict all Uighur political activity on their soil. China offered sweeteners such as resolving the border disputes that had plagued Chinese–Soviet relations in Central Asia for decades. Within a decade the borders between China and the Central Asian states were demarcated and settled, allowing for China’s rapid economic involvement in the region.

Still, Uighur nationalism and Islamic militancy have continued to mount in Xinjiang, as China has inundated the province with Han Chinese and severely repressed the Muslims. While the Uighur populations in Central Asia have been largely silenced, some Uighurs have been training and fighting with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

During the past decade China has invested heavily in Central Asia. Laruelle and Peyrouse write that

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Ahmed Kashid on Why, and What, You Should Know About Central Asia”