Water Water Everywhere? The Future of our Water Supply

Worrying about water is nothing new. Finding reliable sources of water has long been a primary concern of our ancestors. Think how many major cities of the world surround rivers; the Nile, for example, literally acts as an artery of human civilisation (pictured).

Industrialisation and the subsequent explosion of population during the 1800s marked the start of major shortages, and by the turn of the 20th Century about 2% of people experienced 'chronic' water shortage. By 1960, this number had risen to 9% (280 million people) and by 2005 it affected a staggering 35% of the world's population (2.3 billion people).

In some areas, water is becoming as valued as oil and some predict it to be a major source of conflict and war in the 21st Century and beyond. Unfortunately, things may be about to get worse. Recently, research has indicated that climate change will seriously impact water availability and this, when coupled with our rapidly rising population, makes water supply one of the most serious challenges facing human development. 

The Rise of Renewables - The Stats and Facts of Renewable Energy

A society fuelled solely by renewable energy must surely one of the ultimate goals of humanity. Whether you subscribe to anthropogenic climate change or not, no one can deny that fossil fuels will, eventually, run out. You can argue that finding new reserves, using new technologies, the rise of fracking, etc. etc. will ‘save’ us. But ultimately these options are, at best, a short term solution if millions – billions - of humans want to live the modern way for more than the next few centuries.

We are, however, on the right track. Each year a network of renewable and policy stakeholders, called REN21 (Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21^st Century), publish a report on the state of renewable investment and policy in the world. It’s an interesting and optimistic read.

Here are some of the most interesting facts of their latest report.

Frack from Fiction - The Pros and Cons of Fracking

It seems that everybody is talking about fracking recently. It has been the cause of many polarised debates and is a hot topic amongst environmentalists and energy companies alike. Yet it is nothing new; breaking rocks to extract gas was first experimented with in the late 1940s and the method used today has been a serious source of gas since the late 1990s.

With the cost of fracking declining and the demand for cheap natural gas increasing, it looks as if the argument is here to stay. The number of new fracking sites have now outstripped the building of new conventional rigs and in excess of 200,000km³ of recoverable shale gas is reportedly trapped under our feet. 

It's probably time, therefore, to take an impartial look at the facts of fracking.

The Aral Sea - A Microcosm of Environmental Action

Along the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is a desert like no other. Amongst the archetypal sand dunes lies a graveyard of ships; a bizarre sight that epitomises the rapid degeneration of an ecosystem. 

The Aral 'Sea' - if it can still be called that - was once the fourth largest lake in the world and of great economic and ecological importance to the area. Its fishing industry employed 40,000 people and its waters were a sanctuary of life amongst the surrounding desert. It was an oasis in ancient times and formed an important point along the Silk Road – the great connecting route between Europe and Asia.  

A Timelapse of Deforestation

The world's first satellite, Sputnik 1, marked the beginning of the space age when it was successfully launched in October 1957. More than 56 years later, there are now over 1000 functioning satellites, collecting and providing a myriad of information and data.

The Landsat Program represents just a few of those satellites but has collected millions of images of Earth in its 40 years of operations. Launched in 1972 by the US, the program has been a continuous eye-in-the-sky ever since, recording and photographing almost every corner of Earth at resolutions of at least 30 metres every 16 days. If you've ever used Google Earth, you've accessed Landsat's vast dataset.

The North Dakota Problem

North Dakota does not have a good environmental record at the moment. Its fossil fuel industry has been established since the 1950s, but recent geological surveys have revealed the vast scale of its oil reserves -  a conservative estimate puts the amount of recoverable oil at 7.4 billion barrels.

The vast Bakken formation in the western part of the US state has seen a significant oil boom in recent years. The rush to tap into this gold mine has left inevitable corner cutting on the part of the oil companies and the environmental cost is quickly becoming apparent.

Humanities Great Carbon Binge

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week made minor revisions to the amount of CO₂ it believes humans are responsible for emitting since the industrial revolution.

The main changes revise the total amount of carbon emitted since the mid 19th Century down

Could Typhoon Haiyan be the Catalyst for Progress at the UN Climate Talks?

Representatives from every corner of the globe descended on Warsaw today to continue the debate on global climate change. Although no major announcements are expected, the talks begin the long process of agreeing to a new emissions deal expected to be completed in 2015.

Carbon Dioxide - An Essential Ingredient of Life

Life on Earth formed a staggering 3.6 billion years ago. Conditions back then would have been pretty inhospitable to anything composed of more than just a few cells. In fact, that's so long ago that the crust had barely formed, asteroids were still pelting the Earth at an alarming rate and the atmosphere probably had upwards of 250 times more CO₂ than it does today.

Welcome to ClimateReach

Welcome to ClimateReach - a blog dedicated to approaching climate change, the environment and sustainability in an informative and approachable way.