Read 'n' Seed 1: "Global Change: Impacts on Water and Food Security"

The book I chose to use for Read 'n' Seed is called Global Change: Impacts on Water and Food Security. It is written by Claudia Ringler and was published in 2010. This book takes and in depth look at the cause of many types of global changes, what their outcomes and impacts will be, and what possible solutions to these problems could be. This book is in the research category and the reading level might be a little high but I think that the topics covered are very interesting and overall, will be very educational.


This book has 260 pages, so I plan on breaking it down into 60-65 page segments for each Read 'n' Seed post. 


More information about this book and the author can be found at the following websites:

• Springer
• IFPRI
• IFPRI (Author)

Read 'n' Seed 5: Fourth Quarter of "Global Change: Impacts on Water and Food Security"

For the fourth and final quarter of my book, I read pages 196-248.

Read 'n' Seed 4: Third Quarter of "Global Change: Impacts on Water and Food Security"

For the third quarter of my book I read from pages 130-195.


The main focus on this section of the book includes:

• Impacts on the globalization and commercialization of fisheries
• Potential impacts on globalization on water financing
• Financing water for the poor

The authors finish up with their concerns about globalization of fisheries and point out that with globalization comes a negative impact on food security because it gets harder and harder to track and regulate.   

A new section is started looking at water financing. In the next couple of years, the largest increase in funds required will be for the treatment of wastewater from both households and industry which currently is under-provided.      

Read 'n' Seed 3: Second Quarter of "Global Change: Impact on Water and Food Security"

Read 'n' Seed 2: First Quarter of "Global Change: Impact on Water and Food Security"

For the first quarter of my book I read just about the whole first section which consisted of pages 1-65.

The main focus of the first section of the book is how the global changes that are taking place could have huge consequences for our water and food security. It also places an emphasis on how these changes could especially have an adverse effect on developing countries. This is due to the fact that poverty levels are typically pretty high in developing countries and this causes them to have a difficult time adjusting to the rapid global changes that are happening.  Some of the other major topics covered in the first section include:

• ·       How our world’s water resources are under stress
• ·       How food security is out of reach for so many due to the high increase of the price of food
• ·       What is causing such dramatic global change
• ·       How global climate change will affect our water and food security

 There was sooooooooo much that I learned in this first section. Some of the most interesting things I learned were:

• ·       Between 1960 and 2000, global freshwater use increased at a rate of about 20% but because of uneven distribution, today only 15% of the world’s population lives with relative water abundance. ONLY 15%!!
• ·       Annually there are 2.2 million deaths due to unsafe drinking water, and of those deaths, the majority are children.
• ·       Average daily calorie availability in North America and Europe remains 50% higher than sub-Saharan Africa, and a person in North America and Europe consumes on average eight times more meat than a person living in sub-Saharan Africa.
• ·       The US is the second largest groundwater user

There was a 2 page abbreviations and acronyms index at the beginning of the book so I had to do a lot of looking back to see what the author was referring to, but other than that there wasn’t a ton of things I had to look up. Some of the things I did look up include:

• ·       Eutrophication eutrophia healthy, adequate nutrition, development (Greek) eutrophe (German) is a scientific term describing the overfertilization of lakes with nutrients and the changes that occur as a result, i.e. the primary productivity of the waterbody.
• ·       Evapotranspiration (ET) is a term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land surface to atmosphere.
• ·       Mariculture is a specialized branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other products in the open ocean, an enclosed section of the ocean, or in tanks, ponds or raceways which are filled with seawater.

I couldn’t believe HOW many things this book is making me think about. When I think about global warming, I don’t think about how many things adversely affect one another. The smallest increase in temperature year after year affects the amount of rainfall annually, which in turn affects the moisture of the soil and also how much water is available, which in turn affects the crops, and the list goes on and on. Another thing to think about is the fact that there has been huge issues regarding biotechnology and bioengineering but the book brings up great points about how that might be the only way to keep up with our growing population. It is also very scary to think about how wasteful we really are with our water and how we take it for granted because we have such easy access. I think that this is one of the biggest issues that need to be addressed. The book talks about how perhaps policies need to be put in place to help with this and I think that that is a great idea. So what if some people can’t water their lawns or their golf courses every single day? Would it really be that bad?

Welcome to Barefoot in the Backyard with Brenda!

Hi! My name is Brenda and I am currently a senior at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I am majoring in Community Health Education with a minor in Psychology. I love being active and being outdoors as much as possible, but my absolute favorite activity is volleyball! I started this blog for a class I am taking called Environmental Health. Throughout the semester I will be writing about our impact on the environment. I will be looking at different ways of how to be environmentally friendly, and also how by keeping our environment healthy, we are helping to keep ourselves healthy too!

There are six possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

1. Advocacy Project

2. Eye Openers

3. Reflections

4. Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change

5. Read 'n' Seed

6. Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.


The members of my web group are:

1. Dane@DanesTrailofHealth 

2. JD@EarthandMeWithJD 

3. Samantha J@SustainabilityWithSam

4. Alicia@OutandAboutWithAlicia

5. Matt

6. Molly 

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile."


I am hoping to have a lot of fun blogging this semester and hope that you enjoy following along!