by Al Gore
273 Flows of Asian immigrants to the U.S. overtook Hispanics
“Asians Overtake Hispanics as Largest US Immigration Group,” Telegraph, June 20, 2009.
274 “by around 2023 if current immigration trends continue”
William H. Frey, “A Demographic Tipping Point Among America’s Three-Year-Olds,” Brookings Institution, February 7, 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/02/07-population-frey.
275 democratic principle of majority rule
“Arab Majority in ‘Historic Palestine’ After 2014: Survey,” Agence France-Presse, December 30, 2010.
276 higher standards of living in developed countries
Report of the Secretary-General, “International Migration and Development.”
277 results in less support for public school budgets
Tavernise, “Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S.”
278 United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom
Report of the Secretary-General, “International Migration and Development.”
279 totaled $351 billion in 2011 and is projected to reach $441 billion
Dipil Ratha, World Bank, “Outlook for Migration and Remittances 2012–14,” February 9, 2012.
280 back home from the cities where they work
Overseas Development Institute, “Internal Migration, Poverty and Development in Asia, October 2006,” http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/29.pdf.
281 as much as 60 percent of their income
Ibid.
282 majority of money flowing into those three states
Ibid.
283 persecution to new communities within their own country
United Nations Refugee Agency, “UNHCR: Global Trends,” 2010.
284 “it’s becoming more and more difficult to find solutions for them”
“UN Report Predicts Increase in World’s Displaced,” Associated Press, June 1, 2012.
285 meaning they have no place to go home to
United Nations, Millennium Development Goals Report 2011.
286 more refugees moved to cities than to refugee camps
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “2009 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons,” June 15, 2010, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4caee6552.html.
287 80 percent of refugees live in poor regions of the world
Antoine Pécoud and Paul de Guchteneire, UNESCO, “International Migration, Border Controls and Human Rights: Assessing the Relevance of a Right to Mobility,” Journal of Borderlands Studies 21, no. 1 (Spring 2006).
288 Myanmar, Colombia, and Sudan
UNHCR, “2009 Global Trends.”
289 countries for refugees are Afghanistan and Iraq
Ibid.
290 mostly to Pakistan (1.9 million) and Iran (one million)
UNHCR, “Global Trends 2010,” http://www.unhcr.org/4dfa11499.pdf.
291 Iraq have also gone mostly to neighboring countries
Ibid.
292 are hosted in nations neighboring their country of origin
“The Impacts of Refugees on Neighboring Countries: A Development Challenge,” World Development Report 2011 Background Note, July 29, 2010, http://wdronline.worldbank.org/worldbank/a/nonwdrdetail/199.
293 the Middle East and North Africa (another 1.9 million)
UNHCR, “Global Trends 2010.”
294 Muslims already make up 5 percent of Europe’s population
Ibid.; Kurt M. Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences.”
295 nativist groups exploit the public’s uneasiness
Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor, “Far Right on Rise in Europe, Says Report,” Guardian, November 6, 2011.
296 “to the relentless advance of climate change”
“UN Report Predicts Increase in World’s Displaced,” Associated Press.
297 to protect against a predicted wave of climate refugees
Sharon Udasin, “Defending Israel’s Borders from ‘Climate Refugees,’ ” Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2012.
298 Israeli environmental protection minister Gilad Erdan
Ibid.
299 “where it is possible to escape this”
Ibid.
300 “they shoot, in Japan they shoot”
Ibid.
301 many climate refugees eastward into the Darfur region
Ibid.
302 Palestinian territories, Syria, and the Nile Delta in Egypt
Ibid.
303 “exactly as Europe is doing now”
Ibid.
304 “spur additional migration from Africa and South Asia”
Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences.”
305 the dangerous journey across to the Canaries
“Canaries Migrant Surge Tops 1,400,” BBC, September 4, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5310412.stm.
306 one meter or less higher than the current sea level
“Sea Levels May Rise by as Much as One Meter Before the End of the Century,” ScienceDaily, June 10, 2012.
307 abandon the places they call home
Hugo Ahlenius, “Population, Area and Economy Affected by 1m Sea Level Rise,” UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2007, http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/population-area-and-economy-affected-by-a-1-m-sea-level-rise-global-and-regional-estimates-based-on-todays-situation_d4fe.
308 rate of less than one half of one percent per year
WorldWatch Institute, “World Population, Agriculture, and Malnutrition,” 2011.
309 approximately 2.5 centimeters every 500 years
Pete Miller and Laura Westra, Just Ecological Integrity: The Ethics of Maintaining a Planetary Life (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), p. 124.
310 productivity on almost one third of the arable land on Earth
Jims Vincent Capuno, “Soil Erosion: The Country’s Unseen Enemy,” Edge Davao, July 11, 2011, http://www.edgedavao.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4801:soil-erosion-the-countrys-unseen-enemy&catid=51:on-the-cover&Itemid=83.
311 ten times faster than it can be replenished
Tom Paulson, “The Lowdown on Topsoil: It’s Disappearing,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 21, 2008.
312 erodible soils down the steep slopes of its terrain
Lester Brown, “Civilization’s Founding Eroding,” September 28, 2010, http://www.earth-policy.org/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch02_ss2.
313 have many experts beginning to get very worried
“Groundwater Depletion Rate Accelerating Worldwide,” ScienceDaily, September 23, 2010, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100923142503.htm.
314 many aquifers are now falling several meters per year
“No Easy Fix: Simply Using More of Everything to Produce More Food Will Not Work,” Economist, February 24, 2011.
315 “costs and the benefits in separate accounts for comparison”
Jorgen Randers, 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2012), p. 75.
316 “practical confusion between income and capital”
R. H. Parker and G. C. Harcourt, Readings in the Concept and Measurement of Income (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 81.
317 holds true for nations and for the world as a whole
Kevin Holmes, The Concept of Income: A Multi-disciplinary Analysis (Amsterdam: IBFD, 2001), p. 109.
318 “system of environmental-economic accounts”
Janez Potočnik, “Our Natural Capital Is Endangered,” European Union press release, June 20, 2012.
319 argument is often contingent on oversimplification
Simon Kuznets, National Inc
ome 1929–1932, Report to the U.S. Senate, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), www.nber.org/chapters/c2258.pdf.
320 “the center of conflict of opposing social groups”
Ibid.
321 “farmers did not get enough scientific guidance”
Li Jiao, “Water Shortages Loom as Northern China’s Aquifers Are Sucked Dry,” Science, June 2010.
322 U.S. depends far less on irrigation
Brown, Plan B 4.0.
323 all twenty-one of the world’s longest rivers
“Dams Control Most of the World’s Large Rivers,” Environmental News Service, April 2005, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-15-04.asp.
324 when it was built seventy years ago
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, “What Is the Biggest Dam in the World?,” June 2012, http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/History/essays/biggest.html.
325 global freshwater was used for agriculture
“No Easy Fix,” Economist.
326 780 million people in the world still lack access to safe drinking water
Ibid.; UNICEF, “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Introduction,” March 2012; World Health Organization, “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update,” 2012, http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2012/9789280646320_eng_full_text.pdf.
327 has water found to be one million years old
Jack Eggleston, U.S. Geological Survey, “Million Year Old Groundwater in Maryland Water Supply,” June 2012, http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3246#.UGS3kRh9lbo.
328 all have water more than one million years old
Ibid.
329 classic case of “out of sight, out of mind”
Jiao, “Water Shortages Loom as Northern China’s Aquifers Are Sucked Dry.”
330 will dramatically increase sea level rise later in this century
“Groundwater Depletion Rate Accelerating Worldwide,” ScienceDaily.
331 Central Valley of California, and northeastern China
Ibid.
332 unsustainably to irrigate crops in dryland areas
Jiao, “Water Shortages Loom as Northern China’s Aquifers Are Sucked Dry.”
333 intended to remedy water shortages in northern China
Edward Wong, “Plan for China’s Water Crisis Spurs Concern,” New York Times, June 1, 2011.
334 “where the world’s major irrigated lands are located”
UNEP, “Water Withdrawal and Consumption: The Big Gap,” 2008, http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article42.html.
335 water withdrawal in the coming decades
Ibid.; Matthew Power, “Peak Water: Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry. How Three Regions Are Coping,” Wired, April 21, 2008.
336 Europe is consuming only a slightly larger percentage
Ibid.
337 are already experiencing severe shortages
Paul Quinlan, “US-Mexico Pact Hailed as Key Step Towards Solving Southwest Water Supply Woes,” New York Times, December 22, 2010.
338 herded north from Texas to wetter, cooler pastures
Drover’s Cattle, “More Than 150,000 Breeding Cattle Leave Texas in 2011 Drought,” February 2012, http://www.cattlenetwork.com/e-newsletters/drovers-daily/More-than-150000-breeding-cattle-leave-Texas-in-2011-drought-138513934.html.
339 will run completely dry before the end of this decade
“Dry Lake Mead? 50-50 Chance by 2021 Seen,” MSNBC, February 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23130256/ns/us_news-environment/t/dry-lake-mead—-chance-seen/#.UGSvsBh9lbo.
340 has dropped more than 100 feet
Brown, Plan B 4.0.
341 two minutes on average, twenty-four hours a day
Charles Duhigg, “Saving US Water Systems Could Be Costly,” New York Times, March 14, 2010.
342 like groundwater resources—“out of sight, out of mind”
Ibid.
343 vast new quantities of needed freshwater
Power, “Peak Water.”
344 agricultural irrigation practices are still extremely wasteful
T. Marc Schober, “Irrigation: Yield Enhancer or Farmland Destroyer?,” Seeking Alpha, July 11, 2011, http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/362794-t-marc-schober/194359-irrigation-yield-enhancer-or-farmland-destroyer; “No Easy Fix,” Economist; World Health Organization, “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update.”
345 farmers have been slow to make the change
Sandra Postel, “Drip Irrigation Expanding Worldwide,” National Geographic, June 25, 2012.
346 amounts of salt that build up with continued use
World Wildlife Fund, “Farming: Wasteful Water Use,” 2005, http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/impacts/water_use/.
347 safe for watering plants
Nancy Farghalli, “Recycling ‘Grey Water’ Cheaply,” NPR News, June 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105089381.
348 purify it, and put it into drinking water systems
Kate Galbraith, “Taking the Ick Factor out of Recycled Water,” New York Times, July 25, 2012.
349 communities have successfully implemented the approach
Ibid.
350 more of the rainfall and store it for drinking water
Peter Gleick and Matthew Herberger, “Devastating Drought Seems Inevitable in American West,” Scientific American, January 2012.
351 roughly 10 percent of the Earth’s surface
Susan Lang, “ ‘Slow Insidious’ Soil Erosion Threatens Human Health and Welfare as Well as the Environment, Cornell Study Asserts,” Cornell Chronicle, March 2006.
352 accelerate the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Personal conversation with Rattan Lal.
353 increasing the fertility of the topsoil
David R. Huggins and John P. Reganold, “No-Till: The Quiet Revolution,” Scientific American, July 2008, pp. 70–77.
354 replenish soil carbon and nitrogen
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 42.
355 expensive liability instead of a valued asset
Ibid., p. 78.
356 nontoxic manure as fertilizer and a three-year crop rotation
Mark Bittman, “A Simple Fix for Farming,” New York Times, October 19, 2012.
357 virtually all of the nitrogen is derived
U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Domestic Nitrogen Fertilizer Depends On Natural Gas Availability and Prices,” 2003, p. 1, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-1148.
358 use per acre has been increasing dramatically
Jeremy Grantham, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever,” GMO Quarterly Letter, April 2011.
359 devoid of life, which are growing in several ocean regions
Robert Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems,” Science, April 15, 2008.
360 recent spectacular algae blooms in Chinese
“No Easy Fix,” Economist.
361 U.S., China, Southeast Asia, and parts of Latin America
“Nitrogen Pollution an Increasing Problem Globally,” PRI’s The World, January 27, 2009, http://www.pri.org/stories/science/environment/nitrogen-pollution-an-increasing-problem-globally-8166.html.
362 tripled the depletion of phosphorus from cropland
David Vaccari, “Phosphorus: A Looming Crisis,” Scientific American, June 2009.
363 where 65 percent of U.S. production now takes place
Ibid.; James Elser and Stuart White
, “Peak Phosphorus,” Foreign Policy, April 20, 2010.
364 search for new reserves is beginning again
Ibid.
365 the “Saudi Arabia of phosphorus”
Ibid.
366 exports during the 2008 food price crisis
Elser and White, “Peak Phosphorus.”
367 order to extend the supplies of phosphorus for fertilizers
Mara Grunbaum, “Gee Whiz: Human Urine Is Shown to Be an Effective Agricultural Fertilizer,” Scientific American, July 23, 2010.
368 soil fertility and enhance the sequestration of soil carbon
Rifat Hayat et al., “Soil Beneficial Bacteria and Their Role in Plant Growth Promotion: A Review,” Annals of Microbiology 60, no. 4 (December 2010): 579–98; Tim J. LaSalle, Regenerative Organic Farming: A Solution to Global Warming, Rodale Institute, July 30, 2008, pp. 2–3, http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/Rodale_Research_Paper_07_30_08.pdf.
369 soil and further protect against erosion
J. Paul Mueller, Denise Finney, and Paul Hepperly, “The Field System,” in The Sciences and Art of Adaptive Management: Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management, edited by Keith M. Moore (Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation Society, 2009).
370 fertility of the soil while diminishing erosion
Huggins and Reganold, “No-Till: The Quiet Revolution.”
371 carefully managed way can also improve yields and soil quality
David Laird and Jeffrey Novak, “Biochar and Soil Quality,” Encyclopedia of Soil Science, 2nd ed. (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2011), pp. 1–4.
372 when Victory Gardens were planted during World War II
National WWII Museum, “Victory Gardens at a Glance,” 2009, http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/victory-gardens.html.
373 keep up with the extra food production needed
David Pimentel et al., “Impact of a Growing Population on Natural Resources: The Challenge for Environmental Management,” Frontiers 3 (1997).
374 (approximately 25 million acres) every year
Lang, “ ‘Slow Insidious’ Soil Erosion.”
375 mostly in Kazakhstan (1954)—and created their own Dust Bowl
Lester Brown, World on the Edge (New York: Norton, 2011), http://www.earthpolicy.org/books/wote/wotech3.