Download Competition for water, food, and land

DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
PART OF THIS LIFE:
Competition for water, food, and land
LOOKING DEEPER:
Climate change’s effects on water, food, and land are most concentrated in
places where people are already living on the margins. Many of those
affected are subsistence farmers and fishers.
The pie these people share is very small. When a slice is lost, the
community that lost it must compete with its neighbors. This leads to
conflict.
80% of the people in Sudan are farmers. In Sudan’s Darfur region in 2003,
farmers couldn’t grow food because of a drought. The drought was partially
caused by climate change.1 2
DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
Places that are hot and dry are thirsty places. In the next 5 to 10
years, about half a billion people are expected to become waterpoor as a result of climate change. These people will lack water for
household use, like drinking, and agricultural use, like growing the food
they eat.6
These people will spend much of their day traveling to look for water.
Currently, the task of collecting water takes approximately 140 million
hours each day. 76% of the people who complete this task are women and
children. 7
Many people in the developing world rely on rain to grow their food. The
harvest from crops that are watered with rain is expected to fall by 50% in
the next 5 years in some African countries. 96% of the cropland in SubSaharan Africa is watered by rain.8
In order to grow the food they needed to feed themselves, the farmers
moved into the territory of nearby people. The resulting conflict has now
killed between 200,000 and 300,000 people. Nearly 2.5 million people have
had to move to refugee camps and other emergency shelters.3
Approximately 42% of the children under age 5 in Darfur are acutely
malnourished. Competition for resources has been integral to their lives.4
Weather models predict that drought will return to Darfur this year.5
PART OF THIS LIFE:
Scarce water
LOOKING DEEPER:
Climate change contributes to disruption in how and where rain falls. Some
communities receive less rainfall. In many of these places, hotter days mean
that more of the water they do receive soon evaporates into the air.
Farmers/population: CIA World Factbook
Drought/climate change: Statement by United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon
3 Numbers affected: UNICEF and UN High Commissioner for Refugees
4 Malnourishment: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
5 Weather models: NOAA National Weather Service
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2
Number water-poor: UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Time for water collection: Water.org
8 Rain-watered crop reduction: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
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DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
PART OF THIS LIFE:
Dirty water
LOOKING DEEPER:
A deeper look: Climate change makes extreme weather events more likely.
The water from these storms and floods pushes pollution, fecal matter, and
other contaminants into open water sources like streams and hand-dug
wells. 9
In approximately 20% of the world, one-fifth of the population gets it water
from sources that are open to contamination.10
In Somalia, approximately 70% of the people get their water from a source
that is open to contamination.11
Dirty water makes people sick, often with diarrhoeal diseases like cholera.
Because of a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation, approximately
1,270,000 children under the age of 5 die from diarrhoeal diseases each
year.12
DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
Climate change makes extreme weather more likely. Although
storms have always happened, with climate change we’re
loading the weather dice. Tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts,
violent storms, heat waves, and floods all increase in both number and
intensity as heat is added to our planet.13
Extreme weather, like a flood or a cyclone, can quickly devastate
communities in the developing world. 98% of the people who are affected
by climate disasters live in the developing world. Women are more likely
than men to be affected and to have less access to recovery resources.14
In contrast, sea level rise devastates communities slowly. The most
conservative reliable estimate for sea level rise is that the seas will rise
between 28 centimeters and 98 centimeters (11 to 38 inches) in the next 85
years. 150 million people live within a 1-meter elevation from the ocean.15
16
A rise in sea level of one meter would mean a loss of 20% of its GDP for
Jamaica; for the Maldives, it would mean all the land in the country is
submerged.17
PART OF THIS LIFE:
Extreme weather and sea-level rise
LOOKING DEEPER:
Extreme weather/climate change: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
People/climate disasters: UN Development Programme
15 Sea level rise: UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
16 Number of people/1 meter: UN Environmental Programme
17 Jamaica/Maldives: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
13
Extreme weather/contamination: World Health Organization
10 Population unimproved water source: The World Bank
11 Somalia/unimproved: Kaiser Family Foundation
12 Number of deaths: World Health Organization Water Sanitation and Health
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DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
PART OF THIS LIFE:
Not enough food
LOOKING DEEPER:
There are many reasons why climate change diminishes the developing
world’s food supply. Climate change disrupts the oceans, lakes, and rivers
that are a major source of food for people in the developing world. Hotter
days and nights are themselves damaging to food crops. Extreme weather
can sweep away a small family farm or reshape a piece of land in the course
of a few minutes or hours. And drought means that many farmers aren’t able
to grow their crops at all.18
Approximately 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are now
malnourished, which is partially attributed to climate change.19
In the next 65 to 75 years, it is estimated that climate change will cause an
additional 600 million people worldwide to become acutely malnourished.20
Mechanisms for food insecurity: UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Current malnourishment/climate change: NIH National Library of Medicine
20 Future malnourishment/climate change: UN Development Programme
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DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
DEVELOPING WORLD LIFE CARDS
A FEW FACTS TO BEAR IN MIND:
SCENARIO:
Each person in the United States is responsible for 17
metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
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QUESTION 1:
Imagine that you are the parent of a teenage girl in
the world you’ve just read about. What kind of skills
is your daughter likely to have? What kind of
opportunities will she find?
There are 62 countries in which each person is
responsible for 1 metric ton or less per year.
QUESTION 2:
All developing nations are expected to be severely
affected by climate change.
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GHG per capita: World Bank
How does this relate to our faith?