tagged w/ Agriculture
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Radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant probably reached as far as Hokkaido, Shikoku and the Chugoku region in the west, according to a recent simulation by an international research team based on data after March 20, a week after the hydrogen explosions.
Large areas of eastern and northeastern Japan were probably contaminated, with concentrations of cesium-137 exceeding 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil in some places, says the study, which was posted Monday on the website of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers for the U.S.-based organization said the study, based on the partial data readings, is the first to estimate potential cesium contamination across the country. But the scientists also played down the impact of the fallout on the three distant regions.Radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant probably reached as... more
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The super-rich 1% have plunged us into a debt crisis by refusing to pay their fair share of taxes even as they strain the budget with wars, corporate welfare and bailouts. Now, the crisis they created is their excuse to force us to accept austerity measures.
Led by the Koch brothers and using the Tea Party as a front group, they succeeded in passing a bill that set up a Super Committee charged with drafting legislation by November 23 to slash $1.5 trillion from the federal budget.
If the Super Committee fails to produce a budget reduction plan or if the plan does not become law, spending will be lowered by $1.2 trillion, with $109.3 billion in cuts per year, half of which, $54.7 billion, comes from military spending and the other half from the rest of the budget. These cuts affect both mandatory and discretionary spending with proportionate cuts to both, but Social Security and Medicaid are protected while Medicare providers would see, at most, a two percent reduction in payments.
Why the Supercommittee Should Disband
Defense Contractors Pay Little To No Corporate Income Tax While Earning Billions
Fraudulent defense contractors paid $1 trillion
The dozen Super Committee members are the targets of countless corporate lobbyists and campaign donors working to protect defense contracts and industry subsidies while encouraging spending cuts and privatization for Food Stamps/SNAP, School Meals, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In the last three months, the Farm Bureau and Biotech have spent $700,000 to influence the Super Committee and stave off cuts to direct payments for commodity producers (most are huge corporations growing Monsanto's genetically engineered crops) by gutting nutrition programs for hungry people.
If Congress had to put each of these deficit reduction measures to a vote, they would lose. Maintaining corporate welfare and tax breaks for the richest 1% by looting programs that serve the working poor and unemployed in a time of economic crisis isn't a good reelection strategy.
The Senate recently voted 84-15 to cut farm subsidies to anyone with an average income over $1 million. They voted 58 to 41 to defeat cuts to Food Stamps/SNAP.
The Super Committee process is designed to avoid votes like that. Congress will have to vote up or down on the debt reduction package without amendments or filibuster.
The Super Committee shuts down democracy. We need to shut down the Super Committee!
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation to do just that (H.R.3201). Here's her argument:
More at the linkThe super-rich 1% have plunged us into a debt crisis by refusing to pay their fair... more
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International Energy Agency: “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.”
“… we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F]…. Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”
The International Energy Agency has issued yet another clarion call for urgent action on climate. Their 2011 World Energy Outlook [WEO] release should end once and for all any notion that delay is the rational course for the nation and the world.
The UK Guardian‘s headline captures the urgency:
World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change
We must start aggressively deploying clean energy now through myriad policies, including a price on carbon. That has been the conclusion of most authoritative studies, of course, including the recent one by California’s independent state science and technology advisory panel (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).
The IEA report deserves the label “bombshell,” though, because for most of the past two decades, the IEA was the source of bland, conservative, business-as-usual analysis. When I was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, no one at DOE paid much attention to IEA reports. And that perspective continued through most of the 2000s.
But in just the last few years they have woken up to the risks posed to peak oil — see IEA top economist warns (8/09): “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us” — and especially climate change. In releasing its 2009 WEO, the IEA warned, “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.”
Now the IEA has done the calculation a different way, concluding, “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.” Those who counsel waiting for breakthrough technologies are urging us on a path that is unsustainable, irreversible, potentially catastrophic, and economically indefensible, according to the IEA.
The IEA is one of the few organizations in the world with a sophisticated enough global energy model to do credible (i.e non-hand-waving) projections of the cost of different emissions pathways and the costs of delaying efforts to achieve them. Their 2008 analysis of the 2°C warming pathway demonstrated that the total shift in investment needed to stabilize at 450 ppm is only about 1.1% of GDP per year — and that is not a “cost” or hit to GDP, because much of that investment goes towards saving expensive fuel (see “IEA report: Climate Progress has the 450-ppm solution about right“).
The new analysis shows that because of soaring emissions, we are running out of time for the “450 Scenario.” We are at risk of irreversibly “locking in” dangerous warming — a point I agree with mostly, but not entirely:
More at the linkInternational Energy Agency: “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use... more
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70% percent or more of our food contains genetically engineered food brought by the bio-tech giant: Monsanto.
GMO is endangering people’s health and our environment at an alarming rate.
Cross-contamination is irreversible and good, organic crops are being jeopardized.
These seeds are incredibly expensive compared to the traditional ones and have been genetically modified to produce their own pesticide, to survive the spraying of the: “Roundup”, a potent herbicide and to self terminate.
This has lead our farmers to buy new GMO seeds each year and depend on Monsanto. As a result of this ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops, 125,000 farmers took their own lives.
These people were driven to debt, to economic distress, homeless and landless.
GMO has and is failing catastrophically.
This company is persecuting, bullying and bringing farms to bankruptcy.
GMO was never adequately tested for safety, actually more and more research shows its dangers to the human/animal health, polluting our crops and our water.
Monsanto did use false advertising; Monsanto poisons the third world and privatizes water. Its employees have passed through the so-called revolving door many times, they rotated between this industry and the public agencies: Clarence Thomas, Gwendolyn S. King, Linda Fisher, Jim Travis, Linda Avery Strachanand, Toby Moffet , Marcia Hale, Donald Bandle, George H. Poste, Michael Kantor and Michael Taylor all bending rules, finding loopholes to assure this company profits.
This technology is only exacerbating hunger, poverty, irreversible contamination and climate change in our world.
Bring down Monsanto’s monopoly on our food and a centralized agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds.
Bring down the use of harmful pesticides, herbicides and chemicals alike.
Hold this company accountable for its damages to the world.
Organic agriculture, permaculture and biodiversity are the only answer to sustainability, to the preservation of our environment and our health.
We want you, as our government, as a body of representation of the people of the United States to invest billions subsidizing organic, environmental agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto’s poisoning, companies alike and the agrochemical industry once and for all as it is one of the greatest threats to the whole human race.
Thank you.
Please sign and share this petition on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.
Repost this message:
Tell our Government: Bring Down Monsanto’s poisoning. Hold this company accountable for its damages to the world! http://bit.ly/bko2mZ
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-down-monsanto-monopoly/
More at the link70% percent or more of our food contains genetically engineered food brought by the... more
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The state of water in our world currently is endangered. Pollution, privatization, waste, climate change effects and lack of attention to this most crucial life crisis is bringing us to the brink as a species. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. In trying to assess in my own mind why something so basic and necessary to our lives is given such little attention it is frustrating to say the least. Especially in this age of technology when we see through our modems and other devices so much more information than ever before being shared on this and so many other global crises.
When you look at the world as a whole and realize that 3/4 of it live in poverty and that the majority of those areas also do not have access to potable water/sanitation, the corrolation is obvious. Yet, we as a species even in the 21st century are failing at even providing the basic necessities of life to ourselves and others. Why? Why is water so unimportant to so many even though they know they cannot live without it? Is it ignorance? Arrogance? Or is it because there are those who have been made to believe that we will always have what we need because money can buy you anything even at the expense of taking it from others.
Just look at the levels of pollution in our global waterways. Industry and nitrogen fertilizer rich agriculture alone have managed to kill some of the major river systems of the world and made dead zones devoid of the oxygen marinelife needs to survive. The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other destructive land uses (fracking, tarsands extraction, strip mining, mountain top removal) are culminating to push our atmosphere and water to the tipping point. We are now seeing more extreme events (storms, floods, droughts) around the world which are the results of human forcings on the natural cycles of the planet to the point where we have actually affected the hydrologic cycle. And this is now being touted as the "new normal."
This has already resulted in billions of dollars of lost agriculture to the world, most recently in Thailand where much of their rice crop has been destroyed from unprecedented floods that are also happening globally simultaneously, as well as extreme droughts on both sides of the world. This then has a domino effect regarding food prices and the ability to live. And with predictions of these events (extreme floods and droughts) becoming more severe with rainfall patterns changing, the entire way the world grows food is being challenged. And in the process more fall into poverty, illness, war and hopelessness as those with more green paper think it buys them rights to the resources of Earth that belong to all mankind.
So for me there can only be one main reason why this has happened. We have strayed from our humanity. We have allowed materialistic manmade forces to infiltrate our consciousness and perceptions of life on this Earth and those skewed perceptions are now killing us and in the process destroying this Earth for future generations.
And it is the hope of changing those perceptions and bringing a paradigm shift in thinking that is now bringing people out into the streets worldwide calling for justice and equality. Calling for accountability for those who have stripped this Earth of all that was once good in exchange for a world of their making that can sustain no one, not even themselves. The false illusion of money's worth in comparison to the limitless value of this Earth coupled with delusions of grandeur built on sand in failing to understand the true meaning of humanity and its true purpose must now be challenged. And that right now is the hope we have as a species... awareness, awakening, gnosis.
The inate instinct that tells us as humans that we are one with this planet and that to destroy her destroys us. This is the lesson we must learn. This is the perception we must impart to others. We are at the brink, but we don't have to go over. There are ways to heal her and ourselves. We can join globally with likeminded individuals who know the stakes and make this shift happen with our thoughts and our actions. We can reclaim our humanity and in the process save ourselves. It won't be easy. However, the alternative is simply not an option.
Water is life, it is our life, it is the blood of Earth.
And it is worth fighting for.The state of water in our world currently is endangered. Pollution, privatization,... more
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We need more than sound bytes in an election year. Now, I am really not too hopeful considering that BP will once again be allowed to drill in the Gulf and Shell is going to be allowed to drill the Arctic. So while this action alone even if it isn't approved won't actually stop the tarsands, or stop BP, or stop Shell, or stop Chevron, it will stop a catastrophe waiting to happen to our water, agriculture, climate balance and health. And President Obama, I don't really think you have any other choice. You need to make the right one, and not because it is close to an election year, but because you meant what you said in 2007 when you were running the first time. Actions speak louder than words.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/04/361628/keystone-xl-pipeline-ad/We need more than sound bytes in an election year. Now, I am really not too hopeful... more
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The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.
The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.
It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.
Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.
"It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over."
Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.
India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.
"The good news is that these economies are growing rapidly so everyone ought to be for that, right?" Reilly said Thursday. "Broader economic improvements in poor countries has been bringing living improvements to people. Doing it with increasing reliance on coal is imperiling the world."
In 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.
Even though global warming skeptics have attacked the climate change panel as being too alarmist, scientists have generally found their predictions too conservative, Reilly said. He said his university worked on emissions scenarios, their likelihood, and what would happen. The IPCC's worst case scenario was only about in the middle of what MIT calculated are likely scenarios.
Chris Field of Stanford University, head of one of the IPCC's working groups, said the panel's emissions scenarios are intended to be more accurate in the long term and are less so in earlier years. He said the question now among scientists is whether the future is the panel's worst case scenario "or something more extreme."
"Really dismaying," Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University, said of the new figures. "We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."
More at the linkThe global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on... more
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Governments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge -- generated over thousands of years -- that could protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to climate change, says a briefing published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development. [paper attached here]
It urges negotiators at the UN climate change conference in Durban later this month to give stronger support to traditional knowledge and address the threats posed by commercial agriculture and intellectual property rights.
The paper includes case studies from Bolivia, China and Kenya that show traditional knowledge and local farming systems have proved vital in adapting to the climatic changes that farmers there face.
This includes using local plants to control pests, choosing traditional crop varieties that tolerate extreme conditions such as droughts and floods, planting a diversity of crops to hedge bets against uncertain futures, breeding new varieties based on quality traits, and having systems in place to protect biological diversity and share seeds within and between communities.
But the paper warns that government policies tend to overlook such knowledge and fail to protect farmers' rights to grow traditional crops, benefit from their use and access markets.
“Policies, subsidies, research and intellectual property rights promote a few modern commercial varieties and intensive agriculture at the expense of traditional crops and practices,” says the paper's lead author Krystyna Swiderska, a senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development.
“This is perverse as it forces countries and communities to depend on an ever decreasing variety of crops and threatens with extinction the knowledge and biological diversity that form the foundations of resilience.”
The paper says that while modern agriculture and varieties may increase productivity, environmental stress and climatic variability mean the survival of poor farmers depends on more resilient and readily available traditional varieties.
“It is because of famers' intimate knowledge of nature that traditional farming practices have persisted for thousands of years and overcome climatic threats,” adds Swiderska.
“To sweep away all of that knowledge and the biological diversity it relates to in favour of a limited set of modern seed varieties means putting the private interests of commercial seed corporations ahead of the public interest of sustaining food and agriculture.”
More at the linkGovernments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge -- generated over thousands of... more
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Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.
“The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone,” said Martin Hoerling, Ph.D. of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., lead author of a paper published online in the Journal of Climate this month. “This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.”
The above is from a news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “NOAA study: Human-caused climate change a major factor in more frequent Mediterranean droughts.”
It’s a bombshell for three reasons. First, this NOAA team has not always found a human cause for extreme weather events, as Climate Progress discussed here. Second, the study found that global warming is already driving drought in a key region of the world: Climate change is harming a great many people now. Third, the analysis provides important confirmation of climate predictions that human-caused emissions would lead to drying: “The team also found agreement between the observed increase in winter droughts and in the projections of climate models that include known increases in greenhouse gases.”
This comes on the heel of the USGS study, that, despite its flaws still found, “The decrease of floods in the southwestern region is consistent with other research findings that this region has been getting drier and experienced less precipitation as a likely result of climate change.”
And these studies amplify the piece I had in the journal Nature this week that argued drying and Dust-Bowlification driven by climate change — and the impact on food insecurity — are probably the gravest threats the human race faces in the coming decades.
The fact that the NOAA analysis confirmed the climate models predictions of drying is especially worrisome because the climate models project a very dry future for large parts of the planet’s currently habited and arable land in the coming decades:
More at the linkWintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and... more
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Floodwater swamped a new area of Thailand's capital on Wednesday as some shops started rationing food and the prime minister warned that parts of Bangkok could be flooded for up to a month.
Residents of Bang Phlad, a riverside district some way from Bangkok's three swamped northern districts, were told to urgently evacuate as floods hit the capital on a second front, deepening anxiety in the city of at least 12 million people, many of whom were expected to flee ahead of a special five-day holiday.
"After assessing the situation, we expect floodwater to remain in Bangkok for around two weeks to one month before going into the sea," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters.
"However ... we shouldn't face water as high as two or three meters staying for two or three months as we've seen in other provinces."
Thailand's worst flooding in half a century has killed at least 366 people since mid-July and disrupted the lives of nearly 2.5 million, with more than 113,000 in shelters and 720,000 people seeking medical attention.
Bangkok residents scrambled to stock up on food, but bottled water was nowhere to be seen and some shops restricted customers to small quantities of food to prevent hoarding.
With high tide approaching in the Gulf of Thailand, Seri Supharatid, director of Rangsit University's Center on Climate Change and Disaster, said the city's fate rested with river dykes holding.
"In the worst-case scenario, if all the dykes break, all parts of Bangkok would be more or less flooded," Seri said.
The economic damage is difficult to quantify, but the central bank has revised its growth forecast for Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy to 3.1 percent this year from 4.1 percent. The finance minister's projection was a gloomier 2 percent.
Flooding has forced the closure of seven industrial estates in Ayutthaya, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani provinces bordering Bangkok, causing billions of dollars of damage and disrupting international supply chains for industry and putting about 650,000 people temporarily out of work.
The cabinet on Tuesday agreed on a 325 billion baht ($10.6 billion) budget to rebuild the country, while city authorities and the Commerce Ministry were meeting with industrial estate operators, hotels and food producers to try to minimize the damage and kick-start a recovery.
SWELLING RIVER
Authorities have called a holiday from Thursday until Monday to allow people to get out Bangkok, although financial markets will remain open.
The rising tide could complicate efforts to drive water from the swelling Chao Phraya river out to the sea, putting more pressure on a city that accounts for 41 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.
Heavy rain could also deepen the crisis and thunderstorms were forecast for Wednesday.
The floods are expected to take a toll on Thailand's tourism industry, which employs more than 2 million people and makes up 6 percent of GDP. Tourism Minister Chumphol Silpa-archa said arrivals could be 500,000 to 1 million below the government's target of 19 million this year.
Three northern districts of Bangkok have been under water since Saturday, with army vehicles driving at a snail's pace through 1.5 meters of water, ferrying evacuees away.
Some people were being evacuated for a second time, with 4,000 sheltering in Don Muang moving to the province of Chon Buri. Evacuees at a university in Pathum Thani province also had to move on as floodwater engulfed the campus.
To tackle the flooding, the authorities have pumped an estimated 8 billion cubic meters of water daily through canals and a river around Bangkok's east and west toward the sea.
But the large volume of water flowing through the city remains a concern, with the vast Chao Phraya river at record levels and running past high-end hotels, embassies and the Sathorn and Silom areas of the city's business district.
Water has engulfed two areas, with levels climbing higher than half a meter in the densely populated Bang Phlad district near to the Chao Phraya and closer to the commercial heart.
More at the linkFloodwater swamped a new area of Thailand's capital on Wednesday as some shops... more
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Scientists at an annual meeting of U.S. agronomists last week in San Antonio said the focus was climate change.
"Its impact on agriculture systems, impacts on crops, mitigation strategies with soil management -- a whole range of questions was being asked about climate change," said Jerry Hatfield, Laboratory Director at the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
"The biggest thing is high night-time temperatures have a negative impact on yield," Hatfield added, noting that the heat affects evaporation and the life process of the crops.
"One of the consequences of rising temperatures ... is to compress the life cycle of that plant. The other key consequence is that when the atmosphere gets warmer the atmospheric demand for water increases," Hatfield said.
"These are simple things that can occur and have tremendous consequences on our ability to produce a stable supply of food or feed or fiber," he said.
Boote at the University of Florida found that rice and sorghum plants failed to produce grain, something he calls "pollen viability," when the average 24-hour temperature is 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius). That equates to highs of 104 F during the day and 86 F at night, he said.
The global seed industry has set a high bar to boost crop yields by 2050 to feed a hungry world. Scientists said that the impact of heat on plant growth needs more focus and study.
"If you look at a lot of crop insurance claims, farmers say it is the lack of water that caused the plant to die," said Wolfram Schlenker, assistant professor at Columbia University.
"But I think it's basically different sides of the same coin because the water requirement of the plant increases tremendously if it's hot," he said.
More at the linkScientists at an annual meeting of U.S. agronomists last week in San Antonio said the... more
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More than half of the groundwater monitored in the country's major cities failed to meet standards for drinking, a report by the country's land watchdog said.
Groundwater at 57.2 percent of the 4,110 monitoring stations in 182 cities was classified as bad, meaning people's health could be harmed, according to a Ministry of Land and Resources report released on Wednesday.
The quality of groundwater in most northern and eastern parts of China was worse last year than in 2009, the report said, without stating locations. The level of groundwater had also dropped as a result of overexploitation.
Household sewage, industrial pollution and overuse of fertilizers and pesticides had led to further deterioration of groundwater, Ma Chaode, former director of the World Wide Fund For Nature's freshwater program in China, told China Daily.
Pollution of groundwater and water in rivers and lakes had reached a serious level, he said.
more at the linkMore than half of the groundwater monitored in the country's major cities failed... more
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The challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as millions of people will either move into or be trapped in areas of risk by 2060, rather than migrating away, a British government report showed on Thursday.
The report, by the government-backed Foresight Program, examined the likely movement of people both within and between countries to 2060. It found the greatest risks will be borne by people who are unable or unwilling to relocate.
Those risks may also be made worse by policies which seek to prevent migration.
"We have assumed mass migration away from affected areas, but millions of people will also migrate into vulnerable areas and there will also be those who cannot migrate out," John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the British government, told reporters.
"They pose different challenges to the international community," he added.
The United Nations estimates there were 210 million international migrants in 2010. A further 740 million were internal migrants in 2009.
An average 25 million people a year have been displaced due to weather-related events since 2008, which will likely rise as such events become more extreme and frequent, Beddington said.
The report estimates there will be between 154 and 179 million people living in rural coastal floodplains by 2060 who will be unable to move away due to poverty.
These trapped communities will need to be made more resilient to environmental events.
Up to 192 million people will also move into urban coastal floodplains in Africa and Asia by 2060 in search of work and a better economic situation.
This kind of migration could be beneficial by opening up new sources of income which help people become stronger and more resilient, enabling households to stay in a place for longer, the report said.
Migration should be considered when funds are being allocated at U.N. climate talks in November in Durban, South Africa, the report said.
The cost of doing nothing will be higher than the cost of measures to tackle migration, especially if they reduce the likelihood of displacement, it added.
"I would hope to see initiatives on migration, forestry and agriculture to follow the Durban meeting," said Beddington, adding that he does not expect a universally binding emissions reduction agreement to emerge this year.
More at the linkThe challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as... more
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Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to confront a pretty dire problem: they were running out of water. Due to a severe and lasting drought, water reserves in this country of 11,000 people had dwindled to just a few days' worth. Climate change plays a role here: as sea levels rose, Tuvalu's groundwater became increasingly saline and undrinkable, leaving the island dependent on rainwater. But now a La Niña–influenced drought has severely curtailed rainfall, leaving Tuvalu dry as a bone. "This situation is bad," Pusinelli Laafai, Tuvalu's permanent secretary of home affairs, told the Associated Press earlier this month. "It's really bad."
So far Tuvalu has been bailed out by its neighbors Australia and New Zealand, which have donated rehydration packets and desalination equipment. But the archipelago's water woes are just beginning — and it's far from the only part of the world facing a big dry. Other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will see their groundwater spoil as sea levels rise. Texas, along with much of the American Southwest, is in the grip of a truly record-breaking drought — even after days of storms in the past month, Houston's total 2011 rainfall is still short of its yearly average by a whopping 2 ft., or 60 cm. Australia has experienced severely dry weather for so long, it's not even clear whether the country is in a state of drought, or more worryingly, a new and permanent dry climate that could forever alter life Down Under. "Climate-change impacts on water resources continue to appear in the form of growing influence on the severity and intensity of extreme events," says Peter Gleick, one of the foremost water experts in the U.S. and head of the Pacific Institute, an NGO based in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on global water issues. "Australia's recent extraordinary extreme drought should be an eye-opener for the rest of us."
(See photos of the world's water crisis.)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2097159,00.html#ixzz1bAUCHxtB
More at the link.Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to... more
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Toxic algae is sucking the oxygen out of Lake Erie.
The lake is currently undergoing one of the worst algae blooms in decades, turning the water a scummy bright green. According to NASA, blooms like this did occur in the 1950's and 60's, but now phosphorus from farms, sewage, and industry have fertilized the waters.
After the 60's, increased regulations and improvements in agriculture and sewage treatment limited the phosphorus and helped to control the blooms. However, the shallower Western basin near Detroit has been more susceptible to the algae than other deeper areas.
The exact reason behind the bloom is a bit unclear, but scientists believe it could be linked to increased rainfall and, believe it or not, mussels. It seems the types of mussel, zebra and quagga that have invaded the lake feed on phytoplankton instead of algae, making it even easier for the blooms to occur, according to NASA.
While the algae doesn't directly kill fish, it's still not good. As the algae dies, it's broken down by bacteria which uses oxygen from the water. This oxygen removal creates areas where fish can't survive. In addition, if consumed, it can also create flu-like symptoms in people or even kill pets.
Former Vice President Al Gore spoke Thursday in Detroit on the matter, associating climate change with the algae problem. "We're still acting as if it's perfectly OK to use this thin-shelled atmosphere as an open sewer. It's not OK," he said. "We need to listen to the scientists. We need to use the tried and true method of using the best evidence, debating and discussing it, but not pretending that facts are not facts."
While in the past, some have criticized Gore, claiming that he's made exaggerated statements about the environment, yesterday's speech drew upon some pretty hard scientific evidence, leading many leaders at the International Joint Commission to listen a bit more intently.
More at the linkToxic algae is sucking the oxygen out of Lake Erie.
The lake is currently... more
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I went to the Occupy Wall Street march last week, as part of the NYC food justice delegation. We carried baskets of farmers’ market vegetables and signs reading “Stop Gambling on Hunger” and “Food Not Bonds.” Food justice advocates came out from around the city—urban farmers, gardeners, youth, professors, union members, and community organizers. The vegetables attracted a lot of attention. Food so often attracts a lot of attention—the New York Times is just one of the outlets to focus in recent days on the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park. What was more surprising were all of the puzzled looks we got from the bloggers, photographers, and other marchers who wanted to talk to us. “What’s the connection here with food?” we were asked many times.
The connection of the protests with food, of course, runs from the local to the global, the specific to the ephemeral. Food justice advocates are connecting with Occupy sites all around the country to donate fresh, healthy, local food or to help find kitchen space. On a broader philosophical level, as Mark Bittman writes in the Times, “Whether we’re talking about food, politics, healthcare, housing, the environment, or banking, the big question remains the same: How do we bring about fundamental change?” But there are also clear and specific reasons that all of us working for a just and fair food system, as the food movement should make the connection between our work and Occupy Wall Street explicit and strong.
In the U.S. today, the richest one percent hold 40 percent of the wealth, while almost one in five Americans is on food stamps. Rampant Wall Street speculation on commodities is driving up food costs, small farmers are being driven off their land, and agribusiness holds monopoly control of our seeds and stores. In this climate, the struggle against massive wealth disparities, unregulated financial institutions, and excessive corporate power is our struggle as well. Two points in the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City address the food system. While barely scratching the surface of the potential connections, the protesters have provided an important opening for the food movement. Will we seize it?
Speculation Drives up Food Costs
At the most obvious level, as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy recently wrote, “Wall Street deregulation has not only made the stock market extremely volatile, it has increased prices and price volatility in agricultural markets.” That is, the relationship between government and Wall Street firms has turned food into commodity like any other, subject to the whims of the market. For decades, only people directly involved in agriculture (e.g., farmers) could freely participate in trade of futures of agricultural commodities (e.g., corn, soy, wheat). Outside speculators were allowed into these markets but with strictly enforced limits to how much they could buy. Futures trading served a practical purpose, giving farmers a guaranteed price for future harvests, and prices stayed relatively stable and reasonable for both buyers and sellers.
But in 2000, a wave of industry-backed deregulation raised and then removed these limits on speculation, which opened commodity markets to a flood of new players—these later included funds controlled by some of the biggest Wall Street firms looking for new investment opportunities after the housing bubble burst. Flooded with new investments unconnected to any direct stake in crop prices, in 2008, the commodity markets exploded, driving up grain prices worldwide. The grain price spikes were catastrophic for millions of people worldwide. Farmers, who sometimes benefit from high grain prices, mostly were no better off, because similarly skyrocketing energy prices also drove up prices of agricultural inputs.
In 2008 and 2009, the UN estimated that an additional 130 million people were driven into hunger by the food price bubble. Spontaneous food riots broke out in dozens of countries where chronic hunger is a reality. Today’s Wall Street protests are not unconnected to those; the effects of food and energy speculation continue in 2011. A study in June by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Robert Pollin estimates that U.S. gasoline prices are $0.83 higher per gallon due to Wall Street speculation. The CEO of ExxonMobil said he estimates prices are $1.20 to $1.40 higher per gallon. And food commodity prices are as high, or higher, than they were in 2008—while 46 million Americans are now living below the poverty line, struggling with basic expenses like food.
A New Colonialism
Wall Street firms aren’t just gambling on food prices, they have begun speculating on land as well. Alerted to the potential market in agriculture, investors are buying up huge parcels of farmland all over the world, displacing the occupants, and converting subsistence production to cash crops—or, worse, simply leaving the land fallow and waiting for its value to increase. According to international NGO GRAIN, which first reported on this trend in 2008, more than 50 million hectares of land has been transferred from farmers to corporations since 2009. “Land grabs” have affected tens of thousands of people around the world who have been driven off their land–often violently–with little or no compensation, given no say in the process, and left with no recourse. For most of them, land is their livelihood; without it, the future is bleak.
More at the linkI went to the Occupy Wall Street march last week, as part of the NYC food justice... more
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Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters reports on the staggering floods that have hit Thailand:
Heavy rains in Thailand during September and October have led to extreme flooding that has killed 283 people and caused that nation’s most expensive natural disaster in history. On Tuesday, Thailand’s finance minister put the damage from the floods at $3.9 billion. This makes the floods of 2011 the most expensive disaster in Thai history, surpassing the $1.3 billion price tag of the November 27, 1993 flood, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).
And this is but the latest example of how extreme weather harms global food security (see “Global Food Prices Expected to Climb, Get More Volatile.” As BusinessWeek reported, “Floodwaters have swept across 60 of Thailand’s 77 provinces over the past two months … destroying more than 10 percent of the nation’s rice farms.” Masters notes “Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice, so the disaster may put further upward pressure on world food prices, which are already at the highest levels since the late 1970s.”
Eastern Thailand was deluged with 5 feet of rain in September. And there’s more to come:
Some of the highest tides of the month occur this weekend in the capital of Bangkok, and the additional pressure that incoming salt water puts on the flood walls protecting the city is a major concern. A moderate monsoon flow continues over Southeast Asia, and the latest GFS model precipitation forecast foresees an additional 2 – 5 inches of rain over most of Thailand during the next three days.
More at the linkMeteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters reports on the staggering floods that have hit... more
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Massive floods have left 500 people dead across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, officials said Monday, as authorities stepped up efforts to reach victims of the unusually heavy monsoon rains.
In Thailand, where the death toll from the country's worst floods in decades rose to 269, thousands of soldiers fanned out across affected areas as part of a huge aid operation.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who has described the situation as a "serious crisis," said the kingdom had two days before the arrival of the next tropical depression, but insisted the situation was under control.
"It is not necessary to announce disaster zones because we still can handle it," she told reporters, a day after postponing official visits to Singapore and Malaysia to stay and monitor the authorities' response.
She said new flood defences would be built in several locations in the north and east of the capital.
In neighbouring Cambodia, the toll from the country's worst floods in over a decade reached 207, including 83 children, a disaster official there said. Vietnam has reported 24 deaths from flooding in the Mekong Delta.
Vast swathes of rice paddy have been damaged or destroyed in Southeast Asia as a result of the floods.
In Thailand the floods have damaged the homes or livelihoods of millions of people, particularly farmers, across about three quarters of the country's provinces.
Huge efforts are now under way to stop the waters from reaching low-lying Bangkok, home to 12 million people, with prevention measures including sandbags along the Chao Phraya river.
More at the linkMassive floods have left 500 people dead across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam,... more
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Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a mind-boggling 225,700 terawatt-hours (770 quadrillion BTUs ) as water- and carbon-intensive fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s economies, despite the global recession and the strong growth in the renewable sector, according to a new annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
About half of the projected increase in energy use will occur in China and India, the world’s first- and third-largest energy consumers, respectively. The two developing economies will account for more than 30 percent of the global energy use during the next two decades.
“China alone — which only recently became the world’s top energy consumer — is projected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States by 2035,” said Howard Gruenspecht, the administrator for the EIA, in a press release.
In general, however, the overall projections made in the EIA report only reflect laws and policies as they stood at the beginning of 2011. In other words, the report does not incorporate prospective legislation — in China, for example — that, together with oil-price volatility and the pace of global economic recovery, could significantly affect energy markets.
Coal Production and Consumption
China relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy generation, consuming 3.15 billion metric tons (3.5 billion tons) of coal last year. Meanwhile, India has been steadily increasing domestic coal production, its major source of energy, reaching over 500 million metric tons (551 million tons) in 2010.
Though future generation from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power will largely displace coal-fired production, coal will remain the largest source of world electricity through 2035, particularly in developing nations, according to the EIA projections. China alone will account for 76 percent of the projected increase in world coal use.
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WE ARE GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a... more
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