United Nations

This is my second Action Project for my last term, Food For Thought. In this course we are studying in this unit is to see what a global food system looks like, to understand human and environmental impacts of our world. For this Action Project we had to choose a global issue that is happening in the world. We had to research our issue. We also had to make a fake presentation for the UN. Finally we had to find a way to address and solve the issue we researched. One of the biggest things that I am proud of was coming up with a plan/solution to our water crisis. Something that I struggled with was researching. I had to record my “speech” and in the process I encountered many mistakes, but it all worked out at the end. Watch my video below, and enjoy my speech.


Water Crisis in Iraq
By PVU

Water is something we take for granted in the U.S., while in some countries, people walk many miles to get just half a day's worth of water. Seventy percent of Earth is water but only 2.5% of that water is drinkable (fresh). There are over 7 billion people on Earth and according to the United Nations, in 2013, 783 million people did not have access to clean water. Earth’s population is expected to reach to about 9 billion people by 2050 which means the number of people without clean water will continue to sharply increase.

In addition to humans needing water for drinking, water is essential to Earth’s food system and growing and producing food on Earth. According to Todd C. Frankel of the Washington Post, twenty seven of our thirty seven aquaifiers in the world are being depleted. We are slowly running out of water, we need to take immediate action. The food system is the connection of food production, processing, distribution and consumption and is essential to environmental, economic and social health. Every single organism needs water to survive. Without water, plants and animals die. So if water is gone then we will die too due to lack of food. The expected increase of population will require an increase of food production. Water is a major requirement for food production so without clean water we cannot meet food demands and this could lead to the collapse of modern day society.

In the early 2000’s, the United Nations came up with a list of world problems and eight related goals, called MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). MDG 1 states, “eradicate extreme hunger and poverty”. MDG 7 states “ensure environmental sustainability.” By improving access to water while also reducing water consumption, we can work toward two of the eight MDG goals.

In 3500 B.C. the Mesopotamian civilization developed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. You might better recognize Mesopotamia by its modern day name, Iraq. In Mesopotamia, water was a very important necessity of its success. They used a practice called irrigation, watering of land to make it ready for agriculture. By using irrigation, they were able to produce crops fast enough to feed their increasing population and trade with neighboring countries. But there was a problem with irrigation: it caused sodium levels in soil to rise and crops began to fail. At the same time, Mesopotamia had a drought. Unfortunately, Mesopotamia did not respond in a constructive and appropriate way to the loss of their crops. They ignored these problems and continued to use irrigation and farming methods that continued to damage their soil and crops. The end result of this drought and crop failure was that Mesopotamia could not support itself which led to the collapse of their society.

In the book E​mpires of Food (Fraser & Rimas 121), the authors write “Our food empire is founded on technological grounds far beyond the horizons of Uruk and Akkad, with their trowels and mud bricks. But our water supply today is also uncertain.” So despite the thousands of years that have passed since Mesopotamia collapsed due to drought and crop failure, Earth’s population still heavily relies on water for survival and our future access to water remains in danger.

We need to take control of water consumption and also increase access to fresh water. We need to better limit use of fresh-water and improve ways to filter and reuse the water we use for different activities. Then we need to start providing water to towns that don’t have access to clean water or water at all. We also need to develop technology to convert unusable water to fresh drinking water and then improve access to this technology. One example of advanced technology we have today is transforming sea-water into fresh-water.

This food system is a way that the world is a partner to each other. I think we can change the way we do things in the world and make a more sustainable environment, ecosystem, and home for us. We can change the world, but we need the help of everyone in the world to help and partner to make the planet we call home a better place and more sustainable place. We have only one chance at life, we need to make the best of it and help create a future for our kids. With the help of a small part of the world we can make a difference. We have to start with water our main component to survival.

By doing these actions we are able to help our goal with not just one goal but two of the MDG goals. We will be able to ensure save food that would have gone to waste, and we will limit the amount of food production and meet the needs of our rising population. We need to take these actions so we don’t have another Mesopotamia crisis. Big problems likes this cannot be simply thrown aside. We have put major crisis aside for way too long, it’s about time for us to take action!



Works Cited

Fraser, Evan D.G., and Andrew Rimas. “Empires of Food” Feast Famine, and the rise fall of civilizations: counterpoint, 2010. Print

Harris, Shane. "Water Wars." Foreign Policy.​ Foreign Policy. 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 May. 2016.

"World Water." Food and Water Watch.​ Food and water Watch. n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

"World Population Projected to Reach 9.7 Billion by 2050 | UN DESA | United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs." UN News Center. UN. Web. 10 May 2016.

"Scarcity, Decade, Water for Life, 2015, UN-Water, United Nations, MDG, Water, Sanitation, Financing, Gender, IWRM, Human Right, Trans boundary, Cities, Quality, Food Security." UN News Center. UN. Web. 10 May 2016.

"Amid Terror Attacks, Iraq Faces Water Crisis." National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Web. 10 May 2016.

"Gods and Goddesses." Gods and Goddesses. Gods. Web. 10 May 2016.

"Agriculture, Crops, Irrigation, In Mesopotamia." Irrigation In Mesopotamia. Fun Facts. Web. 10 May 2016.

"New NASA Data Show How the World Is Running out of Water." Washington Post. The Washington Post. Web. 15 May 2016.

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