Anglican church must divest fossil fuels to cope with climate crisis, bishops say

Group of 17 bishops and archbishops write letter aiming to focus church’s attention on climate change and urging it to dump investments

The Guardian, Karl Mathiesen, Monday 30 March 2015

The Church of England is currently debating whether to dump fossil fuels
from its £6.1bn fund. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Murdo Macleod

An influential group of bishops have called on Anglican churches to remove their investments from the fossil fuel companies that are driving climate change.

In a declaration and set of requests aimed at focusing the church’s attention on the “unprecedented climate crisis”, the 17 bishops and archbishops said investments in fossil fuel companies were incompatible with a just and sustainable future.

“We call for a review of our churches’ investment practices with a view to supporting environmental sustainability and justice by divesting from industries involved primarily in the extraction or distribution of fossil fuels,” they said.

The bishops represent the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, a body that promotes environmental concerns within the 85 million-strong Anglican communion.

The Church of England is currently debating whether to dump fossil fuels from its £6.1bn fund.

A spokeswoman for the church’s commissioners said: “We are committed to completing the review of our climate change policy before the General Synod in July. We believe climate change is an urgent ethical issue and share the objectives of the bishops in transitioning to a low carbon economy.

“We believe there are many ways of practicing ethical investment including active engagement with companies and policy makers, as demonstrated in our activist resolutions to Shell and BP to be debated at their forthcoming AGMs.”

The World Council of Churches, of which the Church of England is a member, has already ruled out new fossil fuel investments and former Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for a divestment campaign on fossil fuels to mirror the anti-apartheid movement. “People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change,” he said.

The Guardian’s Keep it in the ground campaign has called for large philanthropic institutions to divest, highlighting the incongruity of working to fund major development and health research projects while funding companies that are exploring for new sources of carbon. Scientists estimate that more than twothirds of known fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned without exceeding the threshold for dangerous climate change impacts.

The man who has Tutu’s former job as Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Dr Thabo Makgoba, hosted the group in February in South Africa. He said the group accepted the science of climate change and identified climate action as a spiritual imperative for all Anglicans.

“The problem is spiritual as well as economic, scientific and political. We have been complicit in a theology of domination. While God committed the care of creation to us, we have been careless – but not hopeless,” he said.

“In the words of St Theresa of Avila, we are God’s hands and feet on earth – now is the time for us, rooted in prayer, to step up and take action on the climate crisis.”

The declaration also calls on churches to take a variety of other actions to combat climate change including adopting energy saving measures and encouraging biodiversity on church property. They also want to see more climate change education done by churches and for members to undertake a day of fasting for climate justice on the first day of each month.

Africa’s first woman bishop, the Right Reverend Ellinah Wamukoya, also a member of the ACEN, said the fact the burden of climate change would fall disproportionately on the world’s women was morally insupportable.

“Women are more often dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, so the contribution of women is essential in decisions around climate change. Our communities must be equal, as in the Eucharist,” she said.

Other Christian denominations have already voted to shed their fossil fuel assets. The United Methodists have committed to dump coal. The Unitarians and United Church of Christ are also reportedly divesting.

Related Articles:

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Six spills from Changqing Oilfield in March

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-28

Oil from the latest spill covers a ravine in Wuqi, Shaanxi province. (Internet photo)

The No. 9 oil rig at China National Petroleum Corporation's Changqing Oil Field in Wuqi, Shaanxi province, had another oil spill on Friday, reports Shanghai-based the Paper. It was the second spill for the rig and the sixth in the county for the oilfield this month.

The spill covered over land and water sources, creating swathes of oil as wide as four meters. In addition to the two oil spills of the No. 9 oil rig, the oilfield's No. 7 rig experienced three while the No. 8 rig had one this month.

A thousand bags of oil recovered from the previous spills were still placed in an idle corner at the No.9 rig.

The local environmental bureau said the spills have caused several clashes between local residents and the oil companies. One of its staff members said soil changes caused by temperature changes in spring had been one of the causes for the spills. The vice chief of the environmental supervision unit there who investigated the spills said another cause was corrosion of old pipes. Yet the Shanghai newspaper's source said human error could not be ruled out as a cause.

China's oil industry has boosted the county's economy but also caused severe pollution. In July last year, the No. 8 oil rig had a spill that polluting a wide range of land in the county. However, clean-up of the spill has yet to take place as CNPC has yet to reach an agreement with local villagers.

Three days before the spill, the environmental bureau in Gansu's Qingyang city said the Changqing Oilfield were in violation of a number of rules including those related to pollution, excessive emissions and noise, illegal excavation, the transport of hazardous waste without approval and oil spills.

The oilfield spans Shaanxi, Gansu, and Shanxi province as well as the Ningxia and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions. It has produced 5 million tons of oil a year since 2007, the highest output in China.

'Ice vault' idea to keep climate's time capsule intact

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine Hours, 26 march 2015

File photo of a researcher analysing samples at the Laboratory for Glaciology

 and the Geophysics of the Environment, in Grenoble, southeastern France,

 in 2008 (AFP Photo/Jean-Pierre Clatot)

Imagine you are Sherlock Holmes bent on solving a mystery but the evidence is starting to crumble and eventually you will be left with worthless dust.

This is the worry which haunts ice scientists delving into Earth's threatened glaciers.

Deep inside them, the slumbering ice slabs hold information about Earth's climate past, and pointers for the future.

The frozen archive is formed from compacted layers snow which fell hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Jerome Chappellaz, senior scientist at the

 National Center for Scientific Research,

working at the Laboratory for Glaciology
and the Geophysics of the Environment in 

Grenoble, southeastern France, examines

 an ice sample (AFP Photo/Jean-Pierre 
Clatot)

Learning more about the past through examining the glaciers could help us predict how our planet will respond when global warming kicks into higher gear -- just decades from now, if predictions are right.

Only a tiny amount of this glacial material has ever been extracted and examined.

And as temperatures rise, the fringes of many glaciers are softening to mush, threatening the survival of this precious testament.

"We are the only scientific community working on climate history whose research material is disappearing," lamented Jerome Chappellaz at the Laboratory for Glaciology and the Geophysics of the Environment in Grenoble, southeastern France.

"It is time to do something -- we have to act now, while the glaciers are still a useable source."

That "something" is a new scheme to build a vault for ice cores extracted by scientists from the deep chill of Antarctica.

About 50-130 millimetres (two to five inches) wide, in sections between one to six metres (a yard to 20 feet) long, ice cores are glaciology's mainstay.

Within them are telltale bubbles of gas, notably the greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide (CO2).

By studying them, "past eras can be reconstructed, showing how and why climate changed, and how it might change in the future," says the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The deepest-ever core, drilled in Antarctica, is 3,270 metres long, and revealed the world has gone through eight ice ages over about 800,000 years.

These cycles, which profoundly affect life on our planet, generally move in lockstep with greenhouse gases.

Until the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, these heat-trapping gases had natural causes.

Today, the relentless burning of coal, gas and oil has taken carbon out of the ground and placed it in the atmosphere -- concentrations are now higher than at any time in the ice-core record.

'World's best refrigerator'

On present trends, Earth could face average warming of up to 4.8 degrees Celsius (8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more this century, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned.

But in some "hotspots," warming is happening faster than the global average, and for glaciers at lower altitudes and latitudes, time is running out.

"Antarctica is the best refrigerator in the world," Chappellaz told AFP.

In the envisioned vault, "the cores will be safe, even if a world war breaks out. There's no need for electricity. It will always be extremely cold. Even if there is 10 degrees (Celsius, 18 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming on the Antarctic plateaux, it will still be minus 43 C there, and the cores will be OK."

The vault would be at the French-Italian research base of Concordia, according to the scheme, which has the support of four other French institutes.

They are casting around for funding and sponsorships.

The UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) is considering joining the initiative.

"We support the idea although at this stage, we haven't really figured out how we can provide it," said Anil Mishra of Unesco's International Hydrological Programme.

Learning more about the past through examining glaciers could help us predict 

how our planet will respond when global warming kicks into higher gear, scientists

 say (AFP Photo)

Mountain glacier cores, as opposed to ice sheet cores, are generally 100 to 150 metres deep.

They provide more recent snapshots of climate but invaluable local insights.

They can shed light on how different mountain regions respond to sharp swings in temperature, weather patterns and atmospheric pollutants such as soot -- a useful tip in tackling flood risk and securing water supplies.

The first contributions to the vault will come next year, from the Col du Dome, a site 4,300 metres high on Mont-Blanc, Europe's highest peak, and more will come in 2017 from the Illimani glacier, 6,300 metres above the Bolivian capital of La Paz.

The scheme's organisers are hoping that American, Chinese, Italian, Swiss and South American researchers will also contribute cores.

Future generations may learn even more from the capsules than current science allows, said Chappellaz.

"A few centuries from now, who knows what kind of technology may be available for analysing the cores?" he asked.

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Antarctic ice shelves are melting dramatically, study finds - New


"The Weather" - Mar 1, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

THE RELATIONSHIP TO GAIA - April 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

New Mini Ice Age

"The weather you have today, and all the alarming attributes of it, is a scenario of what was scheduled to happen on Earth anyway. I review again that the weather changes you are seeing prophesied by myself, 21 years ago, are not a surprise. The changes are not caused by the pollutants you put in the air. You call it global warming and that's a nice phrase, and perhaps that will get you to put less pollutants in the air – a very good thing. But what you are seeing in the weather shift today was not caused by Humans putting things into the air. It would have happened anyway in about 300 years."

"We've called this process the water cycle, since it's all about water, not about air. The water is the predominant attribute of Gaia and of the weather cycle you're seeing. More predominant is the temperature of it. The cycle is ice to water and water to ice, and has been repeated on this planet over and over and over. It is not new. It is not exceptional. It is not frightening. But it's a cycle that modern humanity has not seen before, and it's a long cycle that is beyond the life span of a Human Being. Therefore, it tends to be overlooked or not seen at all !"

"In the days of the Lemurians, the water level of the Pacific Ocean was almost 400 feet lower, and that's only 50,000 years ago. [Kryon invites science to check this out – the water level at that time.] That was a water cycle working, and the reason it was lower was due to so much of the water being stored as ice. Today you're going through another water cycle that will eventually lead to cooling. The last one was in the 1400s."

"Science sees that at about 1650. As mentioned, they are so slow there is no remembrance that a Human has of them except in past writings and in the rings of the trees. The time span of the changes is so great that environmental record keeping does not exist in the form that it does today. But you can still look at the rings of the trees and at the striations of the rocks and can generally figure out that a few hundred years ago, you had a mini-ice age. Now you're going to have another one." 

Dutch MPs back three massive offshore wind farm developments

DutchNews.nl, March 26, 2015

MPs have given the green light to the building of three large offshore wind parks, broadcaster Nos reports.

Despite concerns about their impact on the horizon, MPs do not see any insuperable issues with economic affairs minister Henk Kamp’s plan, the broadcaster says. 

The wind farms will be built 18 to 22 kilometres off the coast of Zeeland, Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland. 

Many seaside resorts oppose the wind farms, saying they will spoil the view for holidaymakers and day trippers. Information evenings for councillors in Noordwijk, Katwijk and Zandvoort were cancelled at the beginning of this month because local officials said they would refuse to keep the information secret. 

Animated film

In particular they have been shocked by an animated film showing the turbines at almost 200 metres in height, Nos says. 

Work is expected to start on the first project off Zeeland later this year. 

The energy agreement signed between ministers, industry and green groups in 2013 included major offshore wind farms. By 2022, some 14% of the energy used in the Netherlands is due to come from sustainable sources. The current figure is around 5%.

Jakarta Deputy Governor Wants Solar Power Street Lights

JakartaGlobe, Lenny Tristia Tambun, Mar 26, 2015

The capital's deputy governor says the city wants to introduce street lighting
powered by photo voltaics. (AFP Photo)

Jakarta. The capital’s deputy governor has said he plans to begin rolling out solar-powered street lighting in order to save money over the longer term.

“For the first stage, we will use solar power for street and traffic lights,” Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat said.

“We will also use such solar power for the city lights including the city parks.”

Djarot added that the city would work with the National Energy Council to study the measures, presumably before launching a tender.

Beijing to Close Major Coal Power Plants by 2016

Jakarta Globe, Feifei Shen, Mar 24, 2015

A worker unloads coal at a storage site along a railway station in Shenyang,
Liaoning province, China in this file picture taken on April 13, 2010. (Reuters
Photo/Sheng Li)

Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.

China’s capital city will close China Huaneng’s 845 megawatt power plant next year, after last week closing plants owned by Guohua Electric Power and Beijing Energy Investment, according to a statement Monday on the website of the city’s economic planning agency.

A fourth major power plant, owned by China Datang, was shut last year.

The plants will be replaced by four gas-fired stations with capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity than the coal plants. Once complete, the city’s power and its central heating will be entirely generated by clean energy, said the Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.

Air pollution has attracted more public attention in the past few years as heavy smog envelops swathes of the nation including Beijing and Shanghai. About 90 percent of the 161 cities whose air quality was monitored in 2014 failed to meet official standards, according to a report by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

The level of PM2.5, the small particles that pose the greatest risk to human health, averaged 85.9 micrograms per cubic meter last year in the capital, compared with the national standard of 35.

Beijing plans to cut annual coal consumption by 13 million metric tons by 2017 from the 2012 level in a bid to slash the concentration of pollutants. The city also aims to take other measures such as closing polluted companies and cutting cement production capacity to clear the air.

Bloomberg

Hainan Airlines marks China's first passenger flight with biofuel

Want ChinaTimes, Xinhua 2015-03-22

The Boeing 737 is loaded with biofuel before the flight from Shanghai Hongqiao
International Airport, March 21. (Photo/Xinhua)

Hainan Airlines announced on Saturday it has completed China's first passenger flight with sustainable biofuel, a milestone for the country's commercial aviation industry.

The flight, which carried more than 100 passengers from Shanghai to Beijing in a Boeing 737, used biofuel made by Sinopec from waste cooking oil collected from restaurants in China.

The airplane's two engines were powered by the fuel blended of approximately half biofuel and half traditional jet fuel, the company said.

"We are honored to see our flight with safe and effective biofuel," said Pu Ming, vice president of Hainan Airlines, also the flight's pilot.

Boeing has been collaborating with Chinese airlines to develop aviation biofuel industry. In 2011, Air China conducted China's first test flight with aviation biofuel in a Boeing 747.

US lawyer argues chimps are people too

Yahoo – AFP, Glenn Chapman, 21 March 2015

Attorney Steven Wise argues that apes, chimpanzees, elephants and orcas

 are as entitled to the rights of "persons" under law as are people or corporations 

(AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)

Vancouver (AFP) - Attorney Steven Wise is on a crusade to prove that, as a matter of law, chimps are people too.

For that matter, so are dolphins, elephants, gorillas and orcas.

Wise made his argument at the TED Conference that wrapped up in Vancouver, Canada on Friday.

"I had to invent the field of animal juris prudence," Wise told AFP at TED.

Nonhuman Rights Project president and

 attorney Steven Wise pictured in 

Vancouver, Canada on March 20, 2015,

 where he spoke at a TED conference

(AFP Photo/Glenn Chapman)

"Coming here is implicit affirmation that people are interested in what we have to say."

Wise argued that apes, chimps, elephants and orcas are as entitled to the rights of "persons" under law as are people or corporations.

Legal systems around the world have granted rights of personhood to holy scripts, mosques, companies, and even a river.

"Personhood is not a biological concept, it is a public policy concept," Wise said.

"The legal system decides it; human being is not synonymous with person."

He has devoted decades to the cause, which is now making its way through courts in the US state of New York.

Seeing animals as slaves

Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, is hoping a legal tactic successful in getting a slave legally transformed from property to person in a historic case in Britain will do the same for chimpanzees and other animals.

He will use the writ of habeas corpus, in which judges order prisoners or detainees brought before the court. Such writs, by definition, assign rights of personhood to those targeted.

Members of the project found chimpanzees in abysmal conditions in several parts of the state of New York, then filed for writs of habeas corpus in respective courts to get the animals moved to a refuge.

Reactions from judges have been mixed, with even sympathetic members of the bench averse to breaching the legal wall separating people from animals, according to Wise.

"Even in America, no judge wants to be the first to make this leap of faith," the animal rights champion said.

Wise, author of "Rattling the Cage" and other works defending animal rights, has been waging this legal battle since the early 1980s.

"They truly are slaves," Wise said of chimps, bonobos and other animals proven to have feelings, memories, language, foresight and other traits considered human.

"I realized there was no one looking out for their interests and they were just being exploited."

He recalled being met with hostility and ridicule early in the battle. Rival lawyers would bark when he walked into courtrooms.

After decades of laying groundwork and gathering allies, Wise and his team filed an opening salvo of lawsuits in New York about two years ago.

"We are going state by state, animal by animal and we are going to lose a lot before we start to win," he said.

"I expect to win, and not all that far into the future."

An orca swims with its baby at the Marineland animal exhibition park in

 the French Riviera city of Antibes, southeastern France on December 10, 2013

(AFP Photo/Valery Hache)

Tide of history

Victory would come in the form of a non-human animal being legally recognized as a person for some purpose, no matter how limited.

"Once that wall is pierced, judges will realize that they have to make more nuanced, rational decisions," Wise said of establishing that some animals have a right to be treated better than mere property.

Wise is working with lawyers in Europe, Argentina and other parts of the world.

"I think there is a tide of history and judges need to swim with it and not against it," Wise said.

"Orcas, apes, chimps and elephants should at least have the right to bodily liberty. I am not talking the entire animal kingdom, but lines have to be drawn."

The Nonhuman Rights Project is looking to hit US courts with its next case, on behalf of circus elephants, late this year.

"I think it may change the way people view entities that aren't human," Wise said of his quest.

"They may not have the knee-jerk reaction that we can exploit them."

Killer whales have been thrilling whale watchers this week in Puget Sound. But

they were especially exciting Tuesday when nearly three dozen orcas surrounded

 the ferry from Seattle as it approached the terminal on Bainbridge Island. NOAA

Fisheries Service photo by Candice Emmons

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Feline Fun for All at Cutie Cats

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Question: Dear Kryon: I was wondering about the way I feel about whales and dolphins. I've had a feeling that I have to go to them sometime, but I don't know how or what I'm to do when I get there. Please help.

Question: Dear Kryon: I'm a Turkish/Islam woman of 57. I live in Ankara and work for the European Commission's project in Turkey. I've read almost all of the Kryon books twice, and I'm planning to read them once more. My question is about the whales. Why do they commit mass suicide? What is the reason for this very sad event? Is it a kind of protest against Human Beings?

Answer: Dear ones, we've channelled many times about the whales of this planet. In review, they're the living portions of an actual grid-system! They contain the "history of Earth" within their beings, and they're sacred for that reason. They coordinate and cooperate with the crystalline grid of your planet, which is currently being rewritten (see Kryon channelling on the Website: "What's Next?" December 8, 2002). Doesn't it strike you odd that these mammals are the only ones protected against hunting by more than 90 percent of the countries of Earth... even the places without oceans? Do you think that this is an accident or a coincidence? No. It's cellular information for all humanity to protect the whales and keep them safe. Dolphins are their cousins and support group, and they play a role in the whales' development. This is why you're so attracted to them.

Whales do not commit mass suicide. They have no consciousness to allow for this, and it has never happened. Instead, you see whales often beaching themselves and then being saved by Humans, only to re-beach themselves and die. This takes place mostly on the coastlines of your continents, and often on those areas of topography that "stick out," such as a peninsula or isthmus. Your Cape Cod is a good example in America, and is also a place where this has recently happened (up to 47 whales on a beach).

The reason is that whales, dolphins, amphibians, birds, and even insects all navigate to their breeding ground or migration areas each year via the magnetic grid of the planet! Each group follows the ley lines of magnetic influence, almost as if they had a built-in compass. In fact, they actually do!

The magnetic grid of this planet has changed so much, so quickly, as we told you it would in 1989, that there hasn't been time for the pods of whales to adjust with time to these changes. Instead, many simply follow the old magnetic lines of migration, only to find themselves on a beach instead of the open ocean, as the old magnetic direction used to take them. They're confused, and they simply line up and try again, just as they have for years. These things are temporary, and as tragic as you might see them, it's all part of "pruning" the system, and the calves will go around in the future, establishing new instinctive information for the new whales regarding the grid changes. This information has even now been validated this year (2003) by your scientists.

Time now to act on looming water crisis, UN warns

Yahoo – AFP, Richard Ingham, 20 March 2015

Residents in Bangalore wait to collect drinking water in plastic pots

for their households on March 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/Manjunath Kiran)

Paris (AFP) - Without reforms, the world will be plunged into a water crisis that could be crippling for hot, dry countries, the United Nations warned Friday.

In an annual report, the UN said abuse of water was now so great that on current trends, the world will face a 40-percent "global water deficit" by 2030 -- the gap between demand for water and replenishment of it.

"The fact is there is enough water to meet the world's needs, but not without dramatically changing the way water is used, managed and shared," it said in its annual World Water Development Report.

"Measurability, monitoring and implementation" are urgently needed to make water use sustainable, said Michel Jarraud, head of the agency UN-Water and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

A boy washes himself from a roadside

 water tanker in Faridabad, a suburb of 

New Delhi, on March 18, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Money Sharma)

Surging population growth is one of the biggest drivers behind the coming crisis, the report said.

Earth's current tally of around 7.3 billion humans is growing by about 80 million per year, reaching a likely 9.1 billion by 2050.

To feed these extra mouths, agriculture, which already accounts for around 70 percent of all water withdrawals, will have to increase output by some 60 percent.

Climate change -- which will alter when, where and how much rainfall comes our way -- and urbanisation will add to the coming crunch.

The report pointed to a long list of present abuses, from contamination of water by pesticides, industrial pollution and runoff from untreated sewage, to over-exploitation, especially for irrigation.

More than half of the world's population takes its drinking supplies from groundwater, which also provides 43 percent of all water used for irrigation.

Around 20 percent of these aquifers are suffering from perilous over-extraction, the report said.

So much freshwater has been sucked from the spongy rock that subsidence, or saline intrusion into freshwater in coastal areas, are often the result.

By 2050, global demand for water is likely to rise by 55 percent, mainly in response to urban growth.

"Cities will have to go further or dig deeper to access water, or will have to depend on innovative solutions or advanced technologies to meet their water demands," the report said.

The overview, scheduled for release in New Delhi, draws together data from 31 agencies in the United Nations system and 37 partners in UN-Water.

It placed the spotlight on hot, dry and thirsty regions which are already struggling with relentless demand.

In the North China Plain, intensive irrigation has caused the water table to drop by over 40 metres (130 feet) in some places, it said.

In India, the number of so-called tube wells, pulling out groundwater, rose from less than a million in 1960 to nearly 19 million 40 years later.

"This technological revolution has played an important role in the country’s efforts to combat poverty, but the ensuing development of irrigation has, in turn, resulted in significant water stress in some regions of the country, such as Maharashtra and Rajasthan," the report said.

Empty taps and dry reservoirs

Water expert Richard Connor, the report's lead author, said the outlook was bleak indeed for some areas.

"Parts of China, India and the United States, as well as in the Middle East, have been relying on the unsustainable extraction of groundwater to meet existing water demands," he told AFP.

"In my personal opinion this is, at best, a short-sighted Plan B. As these groundwater resources become depleted, there will no Plan C, and some of these areas may indeed become uninhabitable."

A migrant labourer carries a bottle of water he filled from a water tanker 

in a camp in New Delhi on March 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/Roberto Schmidt)

Last year, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that around 80 percent of the world's population "already suffers serious threats to its water security, as measured by indicators including water availability, water demand and pollution."

"Climate change can alter the availability of water and therefore threaten water security," the IPCC said.

Fixing the problems -- and addressing the needs of the 748 million people without "improved" drinking water and the 2.5 billion without mains sewerage -- requires smart and responsive governance, the new UN report said.

In real terms, this means putting together rules and incentives to curb waste, punish pollution, encourage innovation and nurture habitats that provide havens for biodiversity and water for humans.

It also means learning to defuse potential conflicts as various groups jockey for a precious and dwindling resource.

Tough decisions will have to be made on pricing, and on rallying people together.

"Present water tariffs are commonly far too low to actually limit excessive water use by wealthy households or industry," the report observed.

But it added, "responsible use may at times be more effectively fostered through awareness-raising and appealing to the common good."

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  4 - Energy (again)

The natural resources of the planet are finite and will not support the continuation of what you've been doing. We've been saying this for a decade. Watch for increased science and increased funding for alternate ways of creating electricity (finally). Watch for the very companies who have the most to lose being the ones who fund it. It is the beginning of a full realization that a change of thinking is at hand. You can take things from Gaia that are energy, instead of physical resources. We speak yet again about geothermal, about tidal, about wind. Again, we plead with you not to over-engineer this. For one of the things that Human Beings do in a technological age is to over-engineer simple things. Look at nuclear - the most over-engineered and expensive steam engine in existence!

Your current ideas of capturing energy from tidal and wave motion don't have to be technical marvels. Think paddle wheel on a pier with waves, which will create energy in both directions [waves coming and going] tied to a generator that can power dozens of neighborhoods, not full cities. Think simple and decentralize the idea of utilities. The same goes for wind and geothermal. Think of utilities for groups of homes in a cluster. You won't have a grid failure if there is no grid. This is the way of the future, and you'll be more inclined to have it sooner than later if you do this, and it won't cost as much.

Water

We've told you that one of the greatest natural resources of the planet, which is going to shift and change and be mysterious to you, is fresh water. It's going to be the next gold, dear ones. So, we have also given you some hints and examples and again we plead: Even before the potentials of running out of it, learn how to desalinate water in real time without heat. It's there, it's doable, and some already have it in the lab. This will create inexpensive fresh water for the planet. 

There is a change of attitude that is starting to occur. Slowly you're starting to see it and the only thing getting in the way of it are those companies with the big money who currently have the old system. That's starting to change as well. For the big money always wants to invest in what it knows is coming next, but it wants to create what is coming next within the framework of what it has "on the shelf." What is on the shelf is oil, coal, dams, and non-renewable resource usage. It hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, has it? Now you will see a change of free choice. You're going to see decisions made in the boardrooms that would have curled the toes of those two generations ago. Now "the worst thing they could do" might become "the best thing they could do." That, dear ones, is a change of free choice concept. When the thinkers of tomorrow see options that were never options before, that is a shift. That was number four. ….”

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”