Energy resources

Global energy demand is increasing all the time, but to generate this energy we are using up many of the earth's resources as well as causing pollution and severe environmental damage.
How can we resolve this dilemma? Are we capable of replacing traditional sources of energy such as coal and oil with renewable energy such as wind, solar and wave power? Can we reach global agreements to limit the environmental impact of energy production? Are we prepared to pay a higher price for our energy? These are some of the questions we are going to have to answer in the near the future. BBC Bitesize has an introductory unit on Energy. Greenfield Geography has an excellent list of case studies on this and other topics. S-cool also has some information on resource use in general.

The Aral Sea - environmental catastrophe

The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth biggest inland sea, but misuse of its water has caused it to shrink by two-thirds and scientists predict that it will dry up altogether in little more than 10 years wreaking havoc on the climate, environment and people who live in the area. Watch a video about it here.

Located in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea disaster began when the government ordered the water from the rivers that supplied the sea to be diverted so that vast areas of cotton fields could be irrigated. The use of the water meant the sea could no longer be replenished and began to dry up leaving beds of salt polluted by high concentrations of pesticides that were used by the farmers when growing the cotton.

The fishing industry that once thrived on the sea has been destroyed and the climate has changed with drier summers and colder winters. Old fishing boats are now stranded in a desert landscape some 80 kilometres from the shoreline.

The chemicals have caused a dramatic increase in illness with extremely high infant mortality rates. Death from chronic gastritis and kidney disease has increased by 15%, heart disease has doubled and cancer has increased by 1000% (cancer of the oesophagus is the highest in the world, while the death from tuberculosis is 21 times higher than it was in the 1960s. There is also evidence that local people are suffering genetic damage.

But despite warnings of the catastrophe, Uzbekistan continues to rely on the production of cotton.

See some images of the way the sea has almost disappeared can be seen here.