| Publication | Page(s) | Quote | Keywords |
|---|
| Vital Signs 2000 |
44 |
As [world harvested grain] area per person falls [by more than a third since 1972], countries turn increasingly to foreign markets for their grain. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, for example, now have less than a quarter of the world average grain area per person, and each imports more than 70 percent of its grain. Population growth in many other Asian nations will reduce area per person to levels that have never supported food self-sufficiency anywhere. Indeed, by 2020 an estimated 70 percent of the people in Asia could depend on foreign markets for one fifth or more of their grain. |
famine world trade hunger |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
122 |
... in the Great Plains, farmers began [in the last half of the 20th century] to tap on a large scale one of the planet's greatest aquifers -- the Ogallala. Spanning portions of eight states, the Ogallala covers some 453,000 square kilometers, and, prior to exploitation, held 3,700 cubic kilometers of water -- a volume equal to the annual flow of more than 200 Colorado Rivers. Today, the Ogallala alone waters one fifth of U.S. irrigated land. |
groundwater agriculture United States |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
123 |
Estimated annual water deficits [groundwater extraction rate exceeds replenishment rate]
in key countries and regions, mid 1990s
(tab-delimited table)
Country/Region Billion m^3/year
India 104.0
China 30.0
United States 13.6
North Africa 10.0
Saudi Arabia 6.0
Minimum Global Total 163.6 |
agriculture |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
123 |
In the United States, several decades of heavy pumping have depleted the Ogallala aquifer by 325 bcm [billion cubic meters], a volume equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado Rivers. More than two thirds of this depletion has occurred in the Texas High Plains. Annual net depletion of the Ogallala averages about 12 bcm a year. |
agriculture groundwater |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
150-151 |
China's rate of imprisonment appears to be on the low side, at 113 people per 100,000. But official figures may represent only 13 percent of those deprived of freedom. Dissident Harry Wu, a former prisoner who has studied the Chinese system, estimates that 4-6 million people are sentenced to "reform through labor," 3-5 million are in "re-education" labor camps, and 8-10 million are forced to work in prison factories or farms. Millions more are held in pre-trial detention. |
justice |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
150-151 |
In the United States, the prison population has risen rapidly since the 1970s, when state and federal governments began to require mandatory and increasingly lengthy prison sentences for drug possession. The populatin in state and federal prisons grew from fewer than 200,000 inmates in 1970 to 1.2 million in 1998, with another 600,000 in local jails. Some 36 percent of prisoners entering state prisons and 71 percent of those in federal prisons were convicted of drug offenses. The drug-driven rapid increase in prison populations has led to widespread overcrowding; California's system, for example, is running at twice its intended capacity -- despite the construction of 21 new prisons in the past 20 years. |
justice drug war |
| Vital Signs 2000 |
150-151 |
In many countries, drug offenses are handled through treatment programs rather than through imprisonment. Arizona recently adopted such an approach. Because imprisonment costs the state $50 per day, while treatment, counseling, and probation run just $16 per day, Arizona saved more than $2.5 million the first year of the change in policy. More than three quarters of the people on probation stayed free of drugs thus far. |
justice drug war |
