Context: Water warning: Economic stability threatened by vanishing rainfall

Human activities – from destroying forests to burning gas, oil and coal for energy – are disrupting the rainfall the world depends on, fuelling huge economic, health and social stability threats, scientists and economists warned on Friday.

“We’ve built our economies on the assumption we can rely on precipitation,” said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, established last May.