Imagine India’s population growing to 1.6 BILLION by 2050? Remember we’re currently at 7.5 billion worldwide, and if we reach 10 billion, we’re not going to have enough food and water for our civilization. Indians need to take drastic measures to reduce their population [HINT: Consider Pascal Costa’s Preventing OverPopulation project!] But if India isn’t ready to endorse a 2-child policy, the Thomson Reuters Foundation suggests that “they could save water and reduce planet-warming emissions if people added more vegetables and fruits like melon, oranges, and papaya to their diet while reducing wheat and poultry.”
Indians must cut their water usage by 33% to ensure that they’ll have enough water for their growing population. By 2050, irrigation of crops will take more than 70% of the water in India unless they significantly reduce their population or change their diets to more veggies and fruit and less meat.
This is a wake-up call for all of us. Just because we had a wet winter in Northern California doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet…