"Amid an ongoing debate in the U.S. on immigration from Mexico, Gallup estimates 6.2 million Mexican adults say they would like to move permanently to the United States if given the chance. That's close to half of the 14 million Mexicans -- or 19% of the adult population -- who say they would like to resettle somewhere else; would-be migrants in Mexico choose Canada and Spain as their other top desired destinations," the Gallup polling organization said earlier this summer.
"While Gallup's migration findings reflect people's aspirations rather than their intentions, they reveal the desires of potential migrants around the world -- an important consideration for leaders seeking to proactively manage migration and migrant policy in their countries."
"Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases," said Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone. "Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole -- a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs -- like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress -- may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming." Professor Stone is publishing a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions. Read the full article on the Science Daily Web site here.
While history teaches us that international conflicts over water shortages have been few and far in between, this interesting article from Christian Science Monitor tells us that a more likely scenario is potential intra-national (within country) water conflicts. The Southeastern states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have longstanding disagreements over water — they are in federal court over water rights — and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has emphasized the state’s rights to use water that falls within its borders, despite claims by neighboring Florida and Alabama. While nowhere near what happened in China recently, we should start seriously looking for viable solutions to our shortage issues. Read the whole article here.
"The drought that gripped the Southeast from 2005 to 2007 was not unprecedented and resulted from random weather events, not global warming, Columbia University researchers have concluded. They say its severe water shortages resulted from population growth more than rainfall patterns," the New York Times reported October 1, 2009.