BBC reports that a NASA mission has found India's water usage to be 'unsustainable'.
Again, this is yet more damning evidence that relying upon the agrarian model will not work. The fact is that under the idyllic agrarian traditions, India's population has steadily multiplied out of control, to the point where the traditional way of life is no longer sustainable.
More people every year means more water usage every year, and less water for each inhabitant.
Having 6 kids to till your soil means you will eventually overrun the landscape, and the land simply cannot support this indefinitely.
The future is looming up really fast, and we'd better not close our eyes to it.
10 comments:
San this should rank as the most illogical conclusion ever. I did not expect this from you, or maybe I am wrong. Manufacturing based on 'assembly line technique' of anything, food or items, consumes more water and resources. maybe this space is too small to go into details. can u tell me how many places give birth to more kids for the purpose of tilling the soil. maybe you left India around 1940 :)
San,
If anything, we should stop Steel and Aluminium exports - producing just enough for our own consumption instead.
We need to charge cola makers and other largescale users of groundwater.
With proper water harvesting, more population doesn't really translate to depleting ground water table. Polluting it with fertilizers and pesticides is another matter - as can be seen in Punjab today.
San,
The water table in India is decreasing alarmingly. How ever it is not beccause of agriculture. The fault lies with the gov for promoting bore wells which are depleting the gound water table. And to add to the trouble centuries old tanks used for storing water and replenishing ground water are in dis repair and becoming useless.
We do not harvest fraction of rainwater. I think Isreal is a pioneer in making the negev(I think) bloom. With our tropical climate I think it is early to claim that agarian traditions won't work.
Malavika
the water table is falling alarmingly in america as well. the ogalalla aquifer, a vast underground freshwater lake, has shrunk by a huge amount. so industrialization is no panacea for poor water use.
another example from that very highly industrialized country: the soviet union. it caused the aral sea -- the largest freshwater body in the world -- to dry up by some 60%. (although admittedly it was with a hare-brained idea of growing more cotton.)
i think around the world we have been highly profligate in our use of water. i have written a few columns on water in the past, i refer you to them. water is an area of great interest to me, and while i agree that agriculturists have misused water (eg. growing rice in semi-desert california), a large part of the problem arises from san's preferred objective: the growth of large cities (where you can have industry). the story of los angeles' water theft is edifying: it turned the owens valley into a desert. (see the film "chinatown").
San, dude, how can you say what you've just said? From my understanding, it is the disruption of the "idyllic Hindu agrarian traditions" by Islamic rulers first, and then the British, that has caused India's population to spiral out of control. Haven't you heard of "moodams" decreed by Hindu pandits - periods of time lasting upto 6 months, during which no marriages are conducted? Isn't that a form of population control? There must many more such tools in Hindu scripture that helped keep human population in check, under the guidance of the Brahmins. I thought everyone here was aware of Dharampal, and his work. Aren't you? You wouldn't be saying what you've just said when you figure out per capita availability of foodgrains in Chingleput district of Tamil Nadu was about 1000 kgs per person per year in the 1770s (when Indian society functioned to a large extent according to Hindu principles), while that number is about 160 kgs today, and dropping (under a modern, secular administration).
India's "overpopulation" is a myth that otherwise knowledgable people here seem to have swallowed wholesale.
Neither India nor China are "overpopulated", all that nonsense was a western invention partly to limit the number of non white kids being born through family planning propaganda & promotion of murder aka abortion.
Till about 5 or so years ago, Japan had a higher population density than India, did you hear about Japan being overpopulated?
Its stupid to look at just the number of people without taking into account the size of the area they live in.
Singapore & HK respectively have densities 10 times higher than India does, ooh how "overpopulated"!
If there was no political union under secularist tyranny & different Hindu states existed, you wouldn't be crowing about "overpopulation", lets say Gujarat was an independent Hindu state, their population density would be 211 per sq. km, you know what the population density in UK is, 246 people per sq. km, you see anyone crying about how UK is "overpopulated" in the media?
The reason for India's poverty has NOTHING to do with population, it has everything to do with socialism. India is probably the only third world country that runs a welfare state through various schemes.
And keep in mind India has far more arable land than China.
Do your own reading & stop believing every myth that the media keeps feeding you.
Singapore has the technlogy to recycle used water. It is called Newater here. Send your water scientists to Singapore for study trips.
Indeed India is overpopulated because there are millions of people who have neither food nor water nor house. And until we take our resources to that level it will remain overpopulated. For example if a rikshaw puller has 10 kids , his home is overpopulated, but not the home of Suadi prince with 100 children. You can curse gandhi, nehru, socialism or secularism , but India is still poor and will probably forever remain poor, and that is why it is overpopulated.
I think commentators here are missing the point.
San: you're right. India does have a water problem. Sorry crisis. Or maybe a catastrophe.
But for different reasons: we do not recognise water as a scarce commodity that can deplete and incurs costs in sourcing.
We want to give it away for free.
So, like everything free, we give it away. Though free, it is finite.
2009 may well be the year when the cows come home on that one. Then we may reform.
All well for those who sit in countries where the stuff -- clean stuff -- still flows out of taps. As a mumbai resident,i am looking at a real possibility that that may stop happening in the next 6 months.
"You can curse gandhi, nehru, socialism or secularism , but India is still poor and will probably forever remain poor, and that is why it is overpopulated."
That has no logic. Its overpopulated because its poor?
So is Philippines overpopulated because its poor?
What about Somalia?
In fact population growth can be a boon for a developing country because it provides the labour force needed & drives growth, as the country develops economically people start having less kids because more of them tend to survive etc. That is what happened in virtually every developed country.
The fact that you think bringing up socialism is some blame game shows that you don't seem to think economic policies matter much.
Countries get rich when markets are allowed to work, taxes are low or nonexistent, private property is protected, that was how the so called Asian Tigers all developed.
Maybe if more Indians study economics they would understand these things, and would stop voting based on who promised them free tv's or free rice or free current.
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