Quotes from Lester Brown. President of the Earth Policy Institute
“By the end of the next decade almost half the world’s population will live in countries that are water stressed, meaning they will not have enough water to meet the demands of their populations.”
Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, isn’t sure if the world is paying enough attention to this looming problem.
“Unlike disappearing rainforests, which you can see being burned or cut down, falling water tables are happening but we often discover them only when the well goes dry,” he explained.
The western and southwestern United States face water scarcities that will only worsen over the next decade. Lester Brown says the problem is even more critical in much of the developing world, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and northern China.
“We’re beginning to see now for the first time in many countries water refugees – we see them in Iran, in Afghanistan, in parts of Pakistan, in northwest China, for example, whole villages, hundreds of them sometimes, being abandoned because the water is gone,” he said.