Shrinking glaciers caused by First World threaten Third World
LLCO.org
According to a group of Dutch researchers writing in the journal of Science, 60 million people living near and around the Himalayan mountains will suffer a shortage of food in the coming decades. The shrinking glaciers will cause water shortages. Crops will dry up. By 2050, Indus, Ganges and Brahamaputra basins in South Asia could see their water supplies decline by as much as 19.6 percent. In addition, climate change could devastate river basins in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China.
The scientific consensus is that glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate because the global temperature is increasing. Most scientists consider higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide to be responsible for the rise in temperatures. Over 90 percent of glaciers across the world are receding. Major losses are already witnessed across much of Alaska, the Alps, the Andes and numerous other ranges.
Some critics like Zhongqin Li, director of the Tianshan Glaciological Station in China, said the study omitted several other key basins in central Asia and northwest China. These basins will be hit hard by the loss of water from melting glaciers. Thus, the study underestimates the impending crisis. Other scientists have stated that the findings confirm what has long been known. The region will suffer an increase in food shortages. The problem of climate change is interconnected with the problems of poverty, pollution, overpopulation, and a weakening of the monsoon rains in parts of Asia.
“We estimate that the food security of 4.5 percent of the total population will be threatened as a result of reduce water availability,” the Dutch researchers wrote.
Water problems already affect half of humanity. Roughly 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water. 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Almost 2 in 3 people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day. And, 1 in 3 are living on less than $1 a day. More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day. In other words, they are all in the Third World. Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population. By contrast, 25% of the poorest 20% have access to piped water. Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhea. About half of all people in poor countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. Millions of women spend several hours a day collecting water. Water is wasted every day in the First World, it the Third World it is already a precious commodity that will only become more difficult to acquire as the glaciers melt.
Even though the bulk of greenhouse gasses are produced by the First World, the majority of the victims of the resulting environmental damage are in the Third World. This makes a bad situation worse. 80 percent of humanity lives on less than $10 per day. Over half the world lives on less that $2.50 a day. 24,000 children die each day from poverty, almost all in the Third World. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. A billion people are unable to read or write. The glaring divide between the First World and the Third World will only increase. The glaring opposition between the First and Third World is the principal contradiction. Only by destroying the First World can the Third World free itself.
First World people are the ones who consume the most. They are the ones who reap the majority of the benefits under capitalism. Their frivolous consumption and their luxuries such as their car culture lead to massive problems in the Third World. The First World standard of living kills, literally. The problem is bigger than shrinking glaciers. Billions suffer terribly so that First World peoples can maintain their bourgeois standard of living.
Capitalism is not capable of solving environmental problems in the long term. Capitalism is about increasing profits. It is not about serving the people. To capitalism, people, and their environments, do not matter. Capitalism is designed to meet the needs of market, not the needs of people. The anarchy of production under capitalism is irrational from the standpoint of eliminating human suffering. Billions across the Third World cry out for radical change. Only socialism and communism can organize production in a way that balances human need with the needs of the environment. Only when the masses take control over their own lives, organize their own lives rationally, will the ecological crisis truly be solved. Only then will the planet begin to heal. The road of global people’s war is a hard one, but the alternative is a dead planet.
Notes
1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100611/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_asia_melting_glaciers
2. http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats