| JOHANNESBURG--Politics
and emotions have tended to dominate the debates
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD), with the official delegates and governments
taking charge of the political agenda, while
NGOs and civil society have carried the emotional
baggage.
At the Ubuntu Village Sunday it was the turn
of science and technology to take center stage,
at
a meeting organized by the Earth Institute of
Columbia University.
Outlining
the challenges facing humanity, including the fact
that 25,000 people die each day from hunger and diseases
that are easily preventable, Dr Jeffrey Sachs, Director
of the Earth Institute at New York's Columbia University,
said that scientific innovation was a critical factor
in meeting these challenges. "In recent times,
we have mobilized scientific knowledge to limit ozone
depletion, improve tropical crop productivity, and
fight killer tropical diseases such as African River
Blindness and African Guinea Worm. Yet, there is
much vital work to be done."
Dr
Roberto Lenton, Executive Director,
International Research Institute
at the
Earth Institute, said that at the discussions
during the last few days at the Waterdome,
some of the challenges had been crystallized
and the scientific responses outlined. "The
narrow challenge is to meet the needs
of most of the unserved poor by 2115,
while the broader challenge is for sound
water management for agriculture and
food, energy, health, and poverty reduction." Another
set of challenges that had not been sufficiently
articulated at WSSD related to what he
termed "the efficiency track and
the storage track," arising from
the fact that in the tropical countries,
80 to 90 percent of the precipitation
fell in a few months of the year and
was almost entirely used for growing
food. "In the efficiency track,
science needs to meet the challenge of
producing salt tolerant and drought resistant
crops, while for the storage track, we
need to be able to store water, so that
it is available when there is no rain." He
pointed out that a country like Ethiopia
had one percent the storage capacity
of the USA. "The most common way
of storing water has enormous social
and environmental costs. We need to jump
over this trap and find alternatives
to large dams, such as underwater storage
and the like."
Dr
John Mutter, Associate Vice Provost,
Earth Institute, pointed
out that climate
was not on the formal agenda at WSSD. "The
sick, the poor and the hungry constitute
a third of all humanity and for them
the climate is a key factor - climate
science can be a vital tool for poverty
eradication."
The
availability of water was fundamentally
a climate factor,
he said. "When
rain is unreliable, food is also unreliable,
and people suffer. We have learnt to
forecast weather fairly accurately over
those regions which are more prosperous,
but we need to improve our forecasts
in those areas where the poor are vulnerable
to weather change."
Dr
Pedro Sanchez, Visiting Professor of
Tropical Resources, University
of
California, Berkeley, informed the audience
that sub-Sahara Africa was the only remaining
region of the world where per capita
food production had remained static over
the past 40 years. "About 180 million
Africans - up 100 percent since 1970
- do not have access to sufficient food
to lead healthy and productive lives,
making them more susceptible to the ravages
of malaria, HIV-AIDS, and tuberculosis."
The other presenters at the Earth Institute
meeting were: Dr Klaus Lackner, Ewing
Worzel Professor of Geophysics, Earth
Institute and Don Melnick, Executive
Director, Center for Environmental Research
and Conservation, Earth Institute.
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