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Published online 19 March 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/452270a
Water: A long dry summer
In parts of the world already facing unreliable food supplies, an uncertain climate adds to the future stress for soils, plants and people. Quirin Schiermeier reports on water strategies for a drier world.
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> "....Falkenmark and other international experts recently declared dead the idea that water planners need consider only natural variability (and not human influence) when managing water supplies2...." ______________________________________________________________ That is correct. ______________________________________________________________ > "....What the developing world needs now is a second 'green revolution', aimed at increasing yields by improving green-water management, soil conservation efforts, and more efficient protection of crops from prolonged dry spells, she says....." _____________________________________________________________ That is not just incorrect, that is dangerously incorrect. Prior to the 'green revolution' there were ~2 Billion humans on Earth. With approximately 1/2 billion of them malnourished or starving. The 'green revolution' tripled the worldwide food supply. The humans responded by tripling their numbers to ~6 billion, and quadrupling their number of malnourished and starving to ~2 billion. Repeating the 'green revolution' would increase the human population to ~20 billion total, and the malnourished and starving by a factor of 5 this time to ~10 billion. What is the purpose of having ~10 billion malnourished and starving humans? What Falkenmark (and everyone else) is missing is that most peoples on Earth primary method of population control is malnourishment (lower fertility) and starvation (killing excess humans off) . Do nothing, absolutely nothing, to increase the world food supply until the humans find another primary method of population control besides malnourishment and starvation.