islanders arrived in Florida: John D. Sutter and Sergio Hernandez, “ ‘Exodus’ from Puerto Rico: A Visual Guide,” CNN, February 21, 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/puerto-rico-migration-data-invs/index.html.
Freshwater Drain
Seventy-one percent of the planet: USGS Water Science School, “How Much Water Is There on, in, and Above the Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, December 2, 2016, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html.
Barely more than 2 percent: USGS Water Science School, “The World’s Water,” U.S. Geological Survey, December 2, 2016, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html.
only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water: “Freshwater Crisis,” National Geographic.
Globally, between 70 and 80 percent: Tariq Khokhar, “Chart: Globally, 70% of Freshwater Is Used for Agriculture,” World Bank Data Blog, March 22, 2017, https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture.
twenty liters of water each day: “Water Consumption in Africa,” Institute Water for Africa, https://water-for-africa.org/en/water-consumption/articles/water-consumption-in-africa.html.
less than half of what water organizations: UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, “The Human Right to Water and Sanitation,” www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf.
global water demand is expected: “Half the World to Face Severe Water Stress by 2030 Unless Water Use Is ‘Decoupled’ from Economic Growth, Says International Resource Panel,” United Nations Environment Programme, March 21, 2016, www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-face-severe-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupled.
loss of 16 percent of freshwater: “Water Audits and Water Loss Control for Public Water Systems,” Environmental Protection Agency, July 2013, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents/epa816f13002.pdf.
in Brazil, the estimate is 40 percent: “Treated Water Loss Is Still High in Brazil,” World Water Forum, November 21, 2017, http://8.worldwaterforum.org/en/news/treated-water-loss-still-high-brazil.
a tool of inequality: In 2018, it was revealed that Harvard had aggressively bought up California vineyards for the water underground.
2.1 billion people around the world: “2.1 Billion People Lack Safe Drinking Water at Home, More than Twice as Many Lack Safe Sanitation,” World Health Organization, July 12, 2017, www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation.
4.5 billion don’t have safely managed water: Ibid.
Half of the world’s population: M. Huss et al., “Toward Mountains Without Permanent Snow and Ice,” Earth’s Future 5, no. 5 (May 2017): pp. 418–35, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000514.
the glaciers of the Himalayas: P. D. A. Kraaijenbrink, “Impact of a Global Temperature Rise of 1.5 Degrees Celsius on Asia’s Glaciers,” Nature 549 (September 2017): pp. 257–60, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23878.
At four degrees, the snow-capped Alps: Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2008), p. 202.
70 percent less snow: Christoph Marty et al., “How Much Can We Save? Impact of Different Emission Scenarios on Future Snow Cover in the Alps,” The Cryosphere, 2017.
250 million Africans: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries” (New York, 2007), p. 5, https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/impacts.pdf.
a billion people in Asia: Charles Fant et al., “Projections of Water Stress Based on an Ensemble of Socioeconomic Growth and Climate Change Scenarios: A Case Study in Asia,” PLOS One 11, no. 3 (March 2016), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150633.
freshwater availability in cities: World Bank, “High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy” (Washington, D.C., 2016), p. vi.
five billion people: UN Water, “The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018: Nature-Based Solutions for Water” (Paris, 2018), p. 3, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/261424e.pdf.
boomtown Phoenix: Marcello Rossi, “Desert City Phoenix Mulls Ways to Quench Thirst of Sprawling Suburbs,” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, June 7, 2018, news.trust.org/item/20180607120002-7kwzq.
even London is beginning to worry: Edoardo Borgomeo, “Will London Run Out of Water?” The Conversation, May 24, 2018, https://theconversation.com/will-london-run-out-of-water-97107.
“high to extreme water stress”: NITI Aayog, Composite Water Management Index: A Tool for Water Management (June 2018), p. 15, www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf.
water availability in Pakistan: Rina Saeed Khan, “Water Pressures Rise in Pakistan as Drought Meets a Growing Population,” Reuters, June 14, 2018, https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T7502.
the Aral Sea: NASA Earth Observatory, “World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea,” https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/WorldOfChange/AralSea.
Lake Poopó: NASA Earth Observatory, “Bolivia’s Lake Poopó Disappears,” January 23, 2016, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87363/bolivias-lake-poopo-disappears.
Lake Urmia: Amir AghaKouchak et al., “Aral Sea Syndrome Desiccates Lake Urmia: Call for Action,” Journal of Great Lakes Research 41, no. 1 (March 2015): pp. 307–11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.007.
Lake Chad: “Africa’s Vanishing Lake Chad,” Africa Renewal (April 2012), www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2012/africa%E2%80%99s-vanishing-lake-chad.
warmwater-friendly bacteria: Boqiang Qin et al., “A Drinking Water Crisis in Lake Taihu, China: Linkage to Climatic Variability and Lake Management,” Environmental Management 45, no. 1 (January 2010): pp. 105–12, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9393-6.
Lake Tanganyika: Jessica E. Tierney et al., “Late-Twentieth-Century Warming in Lake Tanganyika Unprecedented Since AD 500,” Nature Geoscience 3 (May 2010): pp. 422–25, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo865. See also, for instance, Clea Broadhurst, “Global Warming Depletes Lake Tanganikya’s Fish Stocks,” RFI, August 9, 2016, http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20160809-global-warming-responsible-decline-fish-lake-tanganyika.
16 percent of the world’s natural methane: E. J. S. Emilson et al., “Climate-Driven Shifts in Sediment Chemistry Enhance Methane Production in Northern Lakes,” Nature Communications 9, no. 1801 (May 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04236-2. See also David Bastviken et al., “Methane Emissions from Lakes: Dependence of Lake Characteristics, Two Regional Assessments, and a Global Estimate,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 18 (2004), https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002238.
could double those emissions: “Greenhouse Gas ‘Feedback Loop’ Discovered in Freshwater Lakes,” University of Cambridge, May 4, 2018, www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/greenhouse-gas-feedback-loop-discovered-in-freshwater-lakes.