Our current most demanding national issues — the environment, excessive population growth, government reform, immigration — require our leaders to be able to look to and plan for the future in ways they no longer possess. Their failure increases the pressures of money and power that have eroded our democracy and our principles. Herewith, a possible world crisis in the making that escapes the attention of our leadership.
In the study of life forms and systems we are advised that “biology is destiny”. In the matter of land forms and systems it should be equally clear that “geography is destiny”. And yet, geography has disappeared from our schools’ curricula and our awareness. Where can we study it at the elementary or high school levels? Or obtain a college degree?
We do not refer to “label” geography such as naming the five Great Lakes. It is a global topic of unquestionable importance which demands a mandatory college course that explores geography’s origins in many of our economic, social, health, educational, nutritional and other problems. It is an increasingly relevant topic that deserves to be taught and understood.
The snow-covered mountains of the Himalayan range include the world’s highest. They were formed by tectonic pressure against the sub-continent of India, forcing it against the Asian land mass and causing the latter to buckle into ridges and push upwards. The Himalayan Range has been called “the roof of the world” and is the engine that drives the weather and the destinies of the lands to its south and east.
The four great rivers of the Orient — the Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow –- that move south and east into the China Seas are all formed by the run-off from the Himalayas; as also is the Indus which moves south and west through Pakistan into the Arabian Sea. The Irrawaddy flows through Burma; the Mekong through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; and the Yangtze and Yellow through China. These rivers are the water, food and life lines of well over a billion people that populate southern Asia. They form a giant “rice bowl” capable of feeding its expanding population with a low cost, staple food. This is a basic economic fact of life for Asia and the world. It has not changed for centuries, but what lies ahead?
Today, our world and circumstances require a new and closer look at what, because of China’s dominant, regional presence, we tend to see as a Chinese problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here is what faces the Orient, and the West, today. The population of China and its neighbors is increasing rapidly and now probably exceeds 2 billion.10 Rice, in addition to feeding local populations, is an important export crop. However, its cultivation is both highly water and labor intensive, and successful rice agriculture requires extensive growing areas to be maintained with standing water.
It is this crucial water supply that is now a matter of concern, as climate change in high mountain areas has caused snow pack to melt, reduced glaciation and laid bare many formerly white peaks around the world. Today the Himalayan glacier’s edge retreats visibly from year to year.
Water flow from mountains has always been more accessible to upstream populations and purposes. It is in downstream areas where pain is felt first and most seriously, as agriculture and river traffic favor these areas. China has already had to suspend river traffic for its larger vessels because of reduced river flow and resulting lower levels.
But it is this region’s market levels of rice production and price that could cause massive political and economic destabilization. Consider the prospect of the “rice bowl” going dry, not being able to feed even its own population. We should not expect one cataclysmic event that would suddenly disrupt production and supply; more likely we will witness a continuation of the present process of deglaciation with resulting crop shrinkages and rising prices.
Drought and desertification are growing problems in western China. It’s quite possible that they could quicken their expansion and move eastward where even one serious crop failure could wreak real damage. The people who live and farm in the “rice bowl” are poor. They work long days in the fields and there is little economic or physical leeway in their lives or labor. What will be the effect on this essential labor force of either a gradual or a sudden disruption of water availability?
And beyond the “rice bowl”, in other areas where rice is a key element in diet, what would be the impact? If China has to go into the world market for rice in a major way, whether quickly or slowly, world prices of rice and other foods will quickly rise. Here in America, we used to keep on hand surplus from our grain production for use in market or relief emergencies, but in recent years our population has grown faster than our production and we no longer have in storage the excess resources that we used to. We are living in a new kind of world in which the supplies of basics such as clean air, water and food are no longer limitless.
World food prices have always been influenced by natural, economic and political events, and we have no reason to expect that this will change, but, as inhabitants of the same planet, all growing in number and appetite, we now face and will continue to have to face new restrictions of price and availability without our former elasticity.
Suppose that temperatures continue to rise and that at some future time “rice bowl” paddies will hold little or no water. Populations facing the loss of food supplies have historically moved to new ones, but that was successful when roving herds and open land were available. In our 21st century, nuclear armed, multi-national world, mass population transfers, for whatever reason, are not only more urgent, but more difficult. Any such movement in China to escape drought caused crop losses would have to be northward and would result in pressure on its borders and relations with Russia.
This passage is excerpted from pp 13 & 14 of the 4/14 issue of MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE, Mr. Ault’s quarterly letter of comment.