Margins for Life

Marginal Indicators: Examples of natural resource depletion restricting human population expansion

2014: São Paulo, Brazil. State is experiencing a Water Shortage. Represa Billings Reservoir capacity now less than 4% of designed volume. Deep aquifer water is being abstracted, but the chemical quality has not been assessed. Local residents state their tap water smells offensive.

State Government company Sabesp accused of overstating the water supply quantity available. Infrastructue is built around a water supply from rainfall Average: 40cu.m/s , In 1953 the worst drought recorded reduced water supply to 23cu.m/s. This is used as the standard value for reservoir design. In 2014, average water supply fell to 13cu.m/s.

Water supply restrictions are partially based on demands by human population increase in the State, and increased demand for sugar cane irrigation. State population is more than 21 million people, with 13 million people are facing water restrictions. Quito: population of 160,000, people need to use local streams to collect water. Local riots resulted when water-supply trucks had insufficient supplies. Commercial consumers still have their water supplies maintained, eg: Golf Courses.

[sources: 1) Rubem La Laina Porto, Advisor to SP Government. 2) Brad Plumer, October 2014, www.vox.com]

2014: Beijing, China. Levels of air pollution are so high there are significant impacts upon human life expectancy and health.

World Health Organization (WHO) considers fine particles (PM2.5) safe below 25 micrograms, Beijing monitoring stations have recently recorded levels between 350-500 micrograms and as high as 671 micrograms. In Harbin, the tenth most populous city, in far northeast China, PM2.5 levels soared as high as 1,000 micrograms. [source: January 2014 www.naturalnews.com/043682_air_pollution_china_toxic_environment]

There is the policy of providing free coal for heating in north China which has been associated with persistently high winter particulate air pollution levels in northern cities. A recent analysis evaluated the effect of this policy. Outdoor ambient concentrations of particulate air pollution (Total Suspended Particulates) were found to be 55% higher and life expectancies 5½ years shorter in the north. Deaths due to cardiorespiratory causes were specifically increased. [source: Douglas Dockery, Professor of Environmental Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health. Quoting: Chen, Y., et al., Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's Huai River policy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2013. 110(32): p. 12936-41]

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