Tag Archives: Tragedy Of The Commons

Massive Kenya water discovery will transform drought-prone ‘cradle of mankind’

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“UNESCO and the Kenya Government today announce the discovery of one of the worlds largest underground water aquifers in the desert north of Turkana, an area best known for fossils, famine and poverty. The finding by Radar Technologies International (RTI) was made using space based exploration technology called WATEX system. The largest aquifer at 250 billion cubic meters of water which is equivalent in volume to Lake Turkana one of the largest lakes in the Great Rift Valley, and 25 times greater than Loch Ness. More importantly the annual recharge rate, the amount of water that can be sustainably exploited per year, is estimated to 3.4 billion cubic meters.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/11/massive-water-discovery-will-transform-drought-prone-cradle-of-mankind-in-northern-kenya/

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Seized shark fins dumped in Marshall Islands ceremony

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“The gesture underscored the progress made towards protecting the marine predators since the Marshalls declared a two million square kilometre (770,000 square mile) shark sanctuary in 2011.  Villagomez said some commercial tuna fishermen still illegally cut the fins from sharks, even though they earned very little from the practice. ‘Fishermen only receive a few dollars (per fin),’ he said. ‘But once they are processed in China and sold in Hong Kong restaurants, the price can be as high as US$1,500 per kilo.’ The fins that were dumped off the capital Majuro were confiscated from a Chinese longline fishing vessel earlier this year that was fined $125,000.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/03/seized-shark-fins-dumped-in-marshall-islands-ceremony/

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Turning Off The Spigot In Western Kansas Farmland

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“Big irrigated fields of corn in this part of the country are taking water out of underground aquifers much faster than rain or snow can fill those natural reservoirs back up. If Kansas farmers keep pumping water out of the High Plains aquifer as they have in the past, the amount of water they’re able to extract will start to fall in just 10 years or so. They’ll still be able to continue harvesting more corn for another generation, though, because technology will let them use that water more efficiently. But after that, even the latest technology won’t save the corn fields. Irrigated fields will start to disappear, followed by cattle feedlots. The long expansion of agricultural production in western Kansas will end.”

http://wunc.org/post/turning-spigot-western-kansas-farmland

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The cost of being the world’s No.1 uranium producer

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“Kazakhstan has steadily risen to become the world’s No. 1 uranium producer, surpassing such nations as the United States, Canada, and Australia, which require more cleanup. Rather than employing miners to haul rock up to the surface, mine operators in Kazakhstan have embraced a newer – and generally cleaner – process by which a chemical solution is injected down a pipe to dissolve the underground uranium deposits and then is sucked back up to the surface. This in situ leach (ISL) method avoids making a mess above ground, but leaves toxic levels of heavy metals in the ground water.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0828/The-cost-of-being-the-world-s-No.1-uranium-producer

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Life in a Toxic Country

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“I recently found myself hauling a bag filled with 12 boxes of milk powder and a cardboard container with two sets of air filters through San Francisco International Airport. I was heading to my home in Beijing at the end of a work trip, bringing back what have become two of the most sought-after items among parents here, and which were desperately needed in my own household.  China is the world’s second largest economy, but the enormous costs of its growth are becoming apparent. Residents of its boom cities and a growing number of rural regions question the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/sunday-review/life-in-a-toxic-country.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all&

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A Texan tragedy: Plenty of oil, but no water

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“Even as the drought bore down, even as the water levels declined, the oil industry continued to demand water and those with water on their land were willing to sell it. The road west of town was lined with signs advertising ‘fresh water’, where tankers can take on a box-car-sized load of water laced with industrial chemicals. ‘If you’re going to develop the oil, you’ve got to have the water,’ said Larry Baxter, who installed two frack tanks on his land earlier this year. By his own estimate, his well could produce enough to fill up 20 or 30 water trucks for the oil industry each day. At $60 (£39.58) a truck, that was $36,000 a month, easily. ‘I could sell 100 truckloads a day if I was open to it,’ Baxter said.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/11/a-texan-tragedy-plenty-of-oil-but-no-water/

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Nepal’s tourism bureau promises to keep ‘tighter control’ of Mount Everest climbs

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“Nepal’s tourism ministry said Friday it plans to exercise tighter control of climbers scaling Mount Everest to make sure they keep the world’s highest peak clean and to prevent rows. The ministry will set up a 10-member team made up of government officials, veteran Nepalese climbers and security officers that will start work when the next climbing season opens in the spring. The team will ensure that climbers do not leave trash on the mountain, Purna Chandra Bhattarai, of the tourism ministry told AFP. Nepal has already made it mandatory for each expedition team to hire liaison officers from the ministry to ensure better relations with locals.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/02/nepals-tourism-bureau-promises-to-keep-tighter-control-of-mount-everest-climbs/

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Nearly half of US doctors struggling with burnout

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“Job burnout strikes doctors more often than it does other employed Americans, according to a national survey.  More than four in 10 physicians across the nation said they were emotionally exhausted or felt a high degree of cynicism, or ‘depersonalization,’ toward their patients.  Previous studies have shown burned-out doctors are more prone to thinking about suicide and to making medical errors than are their peers.  It’s not clear why burnout strikes so many doctors; possible reasons include excessive workloads, too much paperwork, loss of professional autonomy and a higher patient load to make up for declining reimbursement rates.”

http://www.healthnews.com/en/news/Nearly-half-of-US-doctors-struggling-with-burnout/1yWYelGMT018JRNz$hyOf0/

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Indian rail is world’s largest ‘open toilet’

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http://freedomwat.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Indian-railway-station-via-AFP1.jpg

“A top Indian minister has proposed projects worth $130 million project to rid India of the scourge of open defecation and clean up a rail system he described as the world’s ‘largest open toilet’.  Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said that India, where 130 million households are without a latrine, accounted for 60 percent of the global volume of open defecation.  He proposed a 5.0 billion rupee project to replace the open-hole toilets on the 50,000 coaches that ply India’s vast railway network with bio-toilets over the next five years.”  [If you really want to destroy something useful, put the government in charge of it.]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/27/indian-rail-is-worlds-largest-open-toilet/

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Powerless and clueless: 684 million Indians without power

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo/15299508.cms

“It was a Terrible Tuesday that 684 million Indians are not going to forget in a hurry. In the world’s biggest blackout that affected one-tenth of the global population, 21 states and Union Territories went on the blink after three arterial power lines collapsed at 1 pm. Who triggered the collapse? Fingers were pointed at Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab for overdrawing power. All three states stoutly denied the charge. PowerGrid chairman A M Nayak could not give a reason for Tuesday’s grid collapse.”  [If you really want to destroy something useful, put the government in charge of it.]

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-01/india/32980528_1_grid-collapse-north-eastern-grids-outage

 

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