Water is the biggest issue the world has to face in the next 50 years, according to CSIRO’s Dr Graham Harris, the opening speaker at Australia’s largest-ever environmental conference – Enviro 2002.
“Even if human populations were to level off in the next fifty years, we will require double the present supply of energy, materials and water,” Dr Harris said today (April 8). “The vast majority of the world’s people already have only limited access to clean water, basic shelter and adequate food, and the situation is not going to get any better.”
Dr Harris believes Australia is responding too slowly to the challenges of global and national sustainability.
“Our policies and actions fail to reflect the urgency of the situation,” he said. “We have ongoing debates about globalisation, population futures, immigration policy, water allocation, salinity and declining regional environments. We talk too much and act too slowly.
“If we continue with our present practice of treating the environment as a sink for waste products, the global consequences will be severe.”
Dr Harris cited river degradation and the totally altered flow patterns of our major rivers as an example of the problems that can arise from western-style economy’s demand for a constant and secure supply of water that is at odds with the natural variability of our rivers.
He urged business to better understand their dependence on the environment and the need to focus on longer term returns within a new economic framework.
“Without water, food, shelter and compassion we are all lost,” he said.
