tagged w/ Drought
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Charity Water has been doing wonderful things to bring potable water to those who need it most. Over four thousand projects this year alone. In the coming years with climate change and pollution having a greater effect in a world with a growing population, potable water and sanitation will be even more essential to life.
There is no better gift to give than water. To see the smile on the face of a child as they put clean water from a tap to their lips for the first time to drink is unlike any other.
2011 was a year in which we saw more water sources compromised by scarcity, pollution and the effects of climate change (such as drought, evaporation, floods.) This coming year will be no less of a challenge. However, when we work together for a common cause we can do wonders.
Let us make 2012 the year we begin to heal this planet and bring this living liquid to all in our world who need it.
Water Is Life.
As 2012 starts I will be featuring other water organizations also working to provide potable water to those who need it most.Charity Water has been doing wonderful things to bring potable water to those who need... more
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Instead of having an oil pipeline running down the middle of our country, why not make it a rain water pipeline, catching excess rain water from the north or states that have lots of rain and flood problems, delivering the water to drought states like Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, ect. The water would travel through the pipe and get filtered somewhere down the line. It would help American farmers in drought states to water crops without using the states only water source. It may also help relive floods that occur in Northern States. What do you think?Instead of having an oil pipeline running down the middle of our country, why not make... more
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Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting assault of extreme weather in 2011.
Severe weather across much of the nation has raised the question of whether global warming has already begun to influence shorter-term weather patterns, and the specter of even more extreme years to come as global temperatures continue to rise.
STATES OF DISASTER: TOP 10 STATES
#1- Texas
#2- Alabama
#3- Missouri
#4- North Carolina
#5- Oklahoma
#6- Tennessee
#7- Kansas
#8- Connecticut
#9- Vermont
#10- New Jersey
According to climate studies, the short answer is- yes: the new climate environment created by global warming is more conducive to some extreme events, particularly heat waves and heavy precipitation events: these are now more likely to occur and be more intense when they do take place. Climate models have more difficulty predicting how climate change may be influencing other types of extremes, such as severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, but a warming climate provides more fuel to these events in the form of increased water vapor and heat in the atmosphere.
And those extreme events -- searing heat waves, parching drought, deadly tornadoes, blizzards and floods -- cost billions of dollars in damage, affected millions of lives and tragically, killed more than a thousand people across the U.S.
By some measures, 2011 was the most extreme year for the U.S. since reliable record-keeping began in the 19thcentury -- and the costs have been enormous: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2011 set a record for the most billion dollar disasters in a single year. There were 12, breaking the old record of nine set in 2009. The aggregate damage from these 12 events totals at least $52 billion, NOAA found.
More at the link-click on the picture here to see more.Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting... more
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Stymied in global climate negotiations, three tiny Pacific nations plead for action through songs and dances
By Jennifer Weeks
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The applause was raucous, growing louder and faster as the beat accelerated.
A dozen dancers, arms stretched, torsos bare, pounded the stage in an increasing frenzy. They turned, swooped, slapped their thighs, swooped and turned again– birds hovering in the air, looking for something below – and shouting, "koburake!” or “rise up!" The audience exploded after each verse, thinking the performance over.
But the dance started up again, faster still.
The dancers had traveled more than 7,000 miles to perform for the crowd at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. They were singing of the frigate bird – an agile flier with a seven-foot wingspan that forages across the open ocean, returning to land only to roost or breed.
The performers on stage were part of a troupe of three dozen islanders from Kiribati and two other Pacific atolls, Tokelau and Tuvalu, touring the East and West coasts this fall.
Cloaked within the music was a message: Life on these islands centers on fishing and family ties. But climate change, driven by industrialized activities thousands of miles away, is intruding. Coastlines are eroding and sea level rise is pushing salt water into wells. Families that have lived in the same places for hundreds of years wonder how future generations will subsist.
No polished message
I didn't want a polished message. If you live on these islands, you are the spokespersons. - Judy Mitoma, tour organizer
The performers – fishermen, farmers, homemakers and students – tapped their culture and art to tell of their home and plight. The tour's title was also its message: Water is Rising. The goal was to share island culture with Americans and offer a deeply personal plea for action.
"Climate change is a survival issue for these people," said tour organizer Judy Mitoma, director of the University of California, Los Angeles' Center for Intercultural Performance and emeritus professor of dance. Mitoma has curated many cross-cultural performing-arts events in Asia and the Pacific. This project attracted her because it combined scientific and artistic themes, yet relied upon performers unversed in the science or politics of climate change.
"I didn't want ... a polished message," she said. "The point was that if you live on these islands, you are the spokespersons."
Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu, with a combined population of about 113,000, have pushed themselves to the forefront of the global climate debate. Two years ago, at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, Tuvalu's delegates brought the proceedings to a halt by arguing the Kyoto Protocol was fundamentally too weak to be used as a basis for negotiations.
Tokelau and Tuvalu both are gripped by drought; saltwater infusion has rendered many wells undrinkable, prompting New Zealand and the United States to airlift water to residents. In September, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon used a visit to Kiribati to spotlight risks climate change poses to island states, saying the nation was at "the front of the frontlines."
"Some indigenous cultures could literally disappear because of climate change," said Suzanne Benally, executive director of Cultural Survival, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. "Their lives are very entwined with their ecosystems, and they are feeling direct, immediate consequences."
More at the linkStymied in global climate negotiations, three tiny Pacific nations plead for action... more
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Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres), biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres), all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).
The fires were a function of drought. As of summer’s end, 2011 was the driest year in 117 years of record keeping for New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, and the second driest for Oklahoma. Those fires also resulted from record heat. It was the hottest summer ever recorded for New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as the hottest August ever for those states, plus Arizona and Colorado.
Virtually every city in the region experienced unprecedented temperatures, with Phoenix, as usual, leading the march toward unlivability. This past summer, the so-called Valley of the Sun set a new record of 33 days when the mercury reached a shoe-melting 110º F or higher. (The previous record of 32 days was set in 2007.)
And here’s the bad news in a nutshell: if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.
If that gets you down, here’s a little cheer-up note: the end is not yet nigh.
In fact, this year the weather elsewhere rode to the rescue, and the news for the Southwest was good where it really mattered. Since January, the biggest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead, backed up by the Hoover Dam and just 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, has risen almost 40 feet. That lake is crucial when it comes to watering lawns or taking showers from Arizona to California. And the near 40-foot surge of extra water offered a significant upward nudge to the Southwest’s water reserves.
The Colorado River, which the reservoir impounds, supplies all or part of the water on which nearly 30 million people depend, most of them living downstream of Lake Mead in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Tijuana, and scores of smaller communities in the United States and Mexico.
Back in 1999, the lake was full. Patricia Mulroy, who heads the water utility serving Las Vegas, rues the optimism of those bygone days. “We had a fifty-year, reliable water supply,” she says. “By 2002, we had no water supply. We were out. We were done. I swore to myself we’d never do that again.”
In 2000, the lake began to fall -- like a boulder off a cliff, bouncing a couple of times on the way down. Its water level dropped a staggering 130 feet, stopping less than seven feet above the stage that would have triggered reductions in downstream deliveries. Then -- and here’s the good news, just in case you were wondering -- last winter, it snowed prodigiously up north in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
The spring and summer run-off from those snowpacks brought enormous relief. It renewed what we in the Southwest like to call the Hydro-Illogic cycle: when drought comes, everybody wrings their hands and promises to institute needed reform, if only it would rain a little. Then the drought breaks or eases and we all return to business as usual, until the cycle comes around to drought again.
So don’t be fooled. One day, perhaps soon, Lake Mead will renew its downward plunge. That’s a certainty, the experts tell us. And here’s the thing: the next time, a sudden rescue by heavy snows in the northern Rockies might not come. If the snowpacks of the future are merely ordinary, let alone puny, then you’ll know that we really are entering a new age.
And climate change will be a major reason, but we’ll have done a good job of aiding and abetting it. The states of the so-called Lower Basin of the Colorado River -- California, Arizona, and Nevada -- have been living beyond their water means for years. Any departure from recent decades of hydrological abundance, even a return to long-term average flows in the Colorado River, would produce a painful reckoning for the Lower Basin states. And even worse is surely on the way.
Just think of the coming Age of Thirst in the American Southwest and West as a three-act tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions.
snip
We have already experienced close to 1º C of that increase, which accounts, at least in part, for last summer’s colossal fires and record-setting temperatures -- and it’s now clear that we’re just getting started.
The simple rule of thumb for climate change is that wet places will get wetter and dry places drier. One reason the dry places will dry is that higher temperatures mean more evaporation. In other words, there will be ever less water in the rivers that keep the region’s cities (and much else) alive. Modeling already suggests that by mid-century surface stream-flow will decline by 10% to 30%.
Independent studies at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in California and the University of Colorado evaluated the viability of Lake Mead and eventually arrived at similar conclusions: after about 2026, the risk of “failure” at Lake Mead, according to a member of the Colorado group, “just skyrockets.” Failure in this context would mean water levels lower than the dam’s lowest intake, no water heading downstream, and the lake becoming a “dead pool.”
more at the linkConsider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have... more
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Thousands of demonstrators have marched through the South African city of Durban demanding faster action on climate change.
The annual UN climate summit is being held at the city's convention centre.
Protesters were particularly angered by the stance of rich countries such as the US and Canada.
In London. former UK Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott said the approach of these nations was "appalling".
Halfway through this summit, some progress has been made, but a few countries including the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia are holding out on important issues such as the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
Fourteen years ago, Lord Prescott played a leading role in the UN summit in Kyoto that brought the protocol into existence.
Speaking to the BBC, he was scathing about nations trying to delay progress now.
"Let's have a reassessment of it by 2015." he said. "But if you don't finish in time for the ending of Kyoto Two, which is next year, 2012, then, you know, it will actually wither on the vine and that's what Canada and America wants - and one or two other rich countries.
"It's a conspiracy against the poor. It's appalling. I'm ashamed of such countries not recognising their responsibilities."
The European Union wants talks on a new global agreement covering all nations to start as soon as possible.
It is backed by most of the world's poorest countries and small island states vulnerable to rising sea levels.
But even if resistance from the US and others can be overcome, it is hard to envisage anything being agreed that can start to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions before 2020.
And that is the timeframe science suggests is necessary if the most dangerous climate impacts are to be avoided.Thousands of demonstrators have marched through the South African city of Durban... more
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Mexico is being battered its worst drought in seven decades, which has devastated farm life and is expected to continue into next year.
The lack of rainfall has affected almost 70 percent of the country and northern states like Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas have suffered the most acute water shortage.
Due to the drought and a cold snap at the start of the year, the government has cut its forecast for corn production two times in 2011. It now expects a harvest of 20 million tonnes compared to a previous estimate of 23 million.
Crops that cover tens of thousands of acres have been lost this year and roughly 450,000 cattle have died in arid pastures. Crucial dams, typically full at this time of year, are at 30 to 40 percent of capacity.
"This is very serious," Ignacio Rivera, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Reuters. "Statistics on precipitation in the country show us that this year has been the driest in the last 70 years."
The country has total arable land of 22 million hectares (54.4 million acres) that can be tilled over two planting seasons while the national cattle herd last year was just over 32.6 million.
Mexico is one of the world's five top corn producers and the government expects output to recover to 25 million tonnes in 2012, aided by reorganization of the cultivated areas.
Rivera said that of the 8.1 million hectares of farmland insured by the government against natural disaster, some 600,000 claims have been lodged to recover losses on 3.8 million hectares. The Mexican government has so far set aside some 1.6 billion pesos ($113 million) to cover the losses.
TROUBLING PICTURE
Forecasts do not signal any near-term relief, but rather more losses ahead as the winter season brings damaging frost.
"It's a troubling situation, and is more worrisome because the rainy season is over... the hope is that by June it starts to rain," said Felipe Arreguin, deputy director of the National Water Commission (Conagua).
In the northern state of Durango, where a third of the population lives in the countryside, authorities expect significant losses in grain and seed production as well as bean and corn, which are a staple in the Mexican diet.
"It's a tragedy because there is virtually no harvest. It's a critical situation that we don't even have beans for home consumption," the state governor Jorge Herrera told Reuters.
Official figures show an expected 28 percent loss in production of beans this year, while the recovery to historical levels of 1.2 million tonnes will depend on the weather.
If the drought does not lift soon, analysts say authorities will be forced to raise its food imports to cover lower domestic production.Mexico is being battered its worst drought in seven decades, which has devastated farm... more
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http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam Osman’s mother uses to flick away flies says her youngest son suffers from acute malnutrition and the measles. A chest X-ray will soon reveal he also has tuberculosis.
When he arrived at Mogadishu's Benadir Hospital, 3-year-old Abdisalam weighed only 14 pounds. Each laborious breath made his tiny rib cage stick out even farther.
He lies beside his mother, unable to cry; all his energy reserved for his weak gasps.
“A 50-50 chance,” says Dr. Shafie Mohamed Jimale, gently touching the little boy’s emaciated arm. The 30-year-old Somali pediatrician, trained in Sudan, became a father two months earlier; his son was born at the height of the famine that is mainly killing children.
Many of his patients have died. About 50-50.
When Somalia’s famine was declared in July there were emergency calls for help and shocking statistics: 29,000 children had died in the worst drought in 60 years.
A global relief effort has helped save some. Last Friday, the United Nations Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit downgraded famine declarations for three southern regions, thanks to the rains that have finally come and emergency food aid.
But the UN warns that 250,000 are at risk as cholera, malaria and other diseases spread through crowded hospitals and camps. Tens of thousands of others still face starvation.
This famine should not have come as a shock. And if its roots are not understood and the world looks away again, Somalia’s cycle of despair — corruption, starvation, war, death — will continue, dragging children like Abdisalam into its abyss.
So what caused the famine?
Back-to-back droughts killed the livestock and destroyed the farms throughout the Horn of Africa, like the one Abdisalam’s family tended.
The southern region of the country is also warring with Al Shabab, the militant Islamic group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and starved its own people by blocking outside foreign aid.
These are the easy answers.
These are the hard ones: Somalia’s rampant and criminal government-corruption; a war on terror at the expense of aid; and a lucrative crisis industry that spends millions that Somalis will never see.
This is why this country has topped Foreign Policy’s index of failed states for the last three years and why a drought that affected the entire Horn of Africa became a famine only in Somalia.
The scope of the tragedy is overwhelming. Last Friday’s UN announcement on easing famine conditions did not include Mogadishu. The city remains a famine zone.
Tents made of sticks and cloth, pitched between dilapidated buildings, house the starving and desperate. The sea of people in the camps ripples endlessly. It is difficult to get an accurate estimate, but it is believed that more than 100,000 have arrived since July.
Water is still scarce and largely contaminated. Mounds of human feces dot walkways between the shelters. Security is a problem. Rapes and abuses have been reported. Few foreign aid groups have come, with the exception of the Turks, who have taken over a large region of the city now called “Little Istanbul.”
Across the street from Tarabunka, a sprawling camp of more than 16,000, the graveyard is already near capacity. Ali Kafi, one of the farmers-turned-gravediggers, says he hunts untouched patches of red earth to find burial plots. Before 10 on one October morning, three babies and a young woman, nine-months pregnant, were buried. It was a typical day.
The good news for Mogadishu is that there are few visible remnants of the Shabab, which has waged war against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for nearly three years.
Weakened themselves by the famine and claiming to withdraw for “tactical” purposes, hundreds of Shabab fighters abruptly left the capital this summer.
This is why Abdisalam’s family trekked here from the south, believing there would be help in Mogadishu from the TFG, the UN-backed parliament of 550, propped up by a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force of Burundian and Ugandan soldiers.
The TFG had an opportunity to repair its badly damaged reputation and make the famine a priority. That didn’t happen.
As people began to starve earlier this year, the country’s president and its parliamentary speaker — President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Speaker Hassan Sharif, who are known as the “Two Sharifs” — were locked in a dispute, trying to shore up political support as they debated at conferences in Djibouti, Kenya or Uganda.
“They say the fish starts rotting from the head,” says Abdi Rashid, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. “At the height of the famine, there was a president who was busy holding meetings with clan elders, not talking about the famine, but about the struggle with the speaker of parliament.”
But the “Two Sharifs” are not the only members of the TFG accused of political gamesmanship or corruption.
One senior TFG official says he is disgusted with his government’s continued focus on politics and power.
“What are we doing?” he asks. “People are dying and we’re focusing on passing a road map?”
snip
Still, there is confusion, says Joe Belliveau, operations manager in Somalia for Médecins Sans Frontières. “The bottom line is that it certainly does not encourage humanitarian action,” Belliveau says. “It’s fine to say that these conditions are lifted and maybe that will help in the short term, but the fact that those laws are on the books remains a major deterrent.”
Abdisalam is defying the odds that have conspired against him — the war against the Shabab, corruption, ineffective aid groups and a famine that the world failed to stop but is now trying to ease.
The nutrition supplements provided by the hospital have made him stronger and TB medication has calmed his breathing.
“He’s a fighter,” said Jimale, the doctor who has volunteered at the city-run Benadir Hospital for the last two years.
Abdisalam was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago and Jimale said the little boy’s odds of survival had increased to more than 80 per cent.
But Abdisalam and his family haven’t returned home. The rains may have come and eased the drought, but a Kenyan-led offensive to fight the Shabab has left the region war torn again.
Abdisalam now lives in one of the camps, just one of thousands getting by, waiting for help.http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam... more
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Diplomats from some developing countries may "occupy" the UN climate negotiations that begin on Monday in Durban by staging sit-ins and boycotts over the lack of urgency in the talks.
The move follows a call by the former president of Costa Rica for vulnerable countries to refuse to leave the talks until "substantial" progress has been made.
"I have called on all vulnerable countries to 'occupy' Durban. We need an expression of solidarity by the delegations of those countries that are most affected by climate change, who go from one meeting to the next without getting responses on the issues that need to be dealt with," said José María Figueres.
"We went to Copenhagen [in 2009] with the illusion we could reach an equitable agreement. We went to Cancún [in 2009] where we saw slight but not sufficient progress. Frustration is now deep and building. Now we hear that we will need more conferences. Sometime we have to get serious. We should be going to Durban with the firm conviction that we do not come back until we have made substantial advances."
Spokespeople for developing country negotiating blocs declined to comment on the call for a revolt, but one ambassador said from Durban: "The Occupy Wall Street movement and the Occupy the Climate Change negotiations movement confront the same problem. We need this if we want to have any positive result. Otherwise it will be worse than Cancún."
But he warned: "In the corridors [here] there is talk of occupying the meeting rooms, but there could be sanctions. So it needs to be big inside in order to have impact and nobody is punished. We are at the beginning."
Seyni Nafo, spokesman for the important 53-country Africa group said: "We understand the [financial] situation in Europe and Japan but it seems climate change is now not on the global agenda. Action that might make it visible must be considered. We are exploring a lot of avenues and options. You have to take that seriously."
Frustrations mounted last month when, after months of tense negotiations, developing countries appeared to have succeeded in their demand for access to a multi-billion dollar Green Fund to help them adapt to climate change. But at the last minute the US and Saudi Arabia withdrew their support.
Resentment was further stoked this week when the Guardian revealed that rich countries had decided to shelve plans for a global agreement on climate change within the next few years, instead pushing for an agreement by the end of 2015 or 2016, and not coming into effect until 2020 despite scientists saying that this risked catastrophic climate change.
A possible postponement of a deal was condemned on Tuesday by the UN environment chief, Achim Steiner, who said it would be a "political choice" rather than one based on science.
Jorge Argüello, chair of the powerful G77 and China coalition of 131 countries, said: "[We] trust to see in Durban a fair and equal treatment of all issues that are important to all parties. A serious imbalance in the progress of issues can clearly not be conducive to a successful, comprehensive and balanced outcome."
"The climate change process is too crucial to the survival of humanity and the dignity of each of us, it is sad to see some parties using it just as a toy in a promotional agenda. The African leaders have expressed in different fora that Durban can not become the grave of the Kyoto Protocol, and we are completely supportive of that ambition."
Sheik Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, said: "Climate change caused over 300,000 additional deaths last year. We the vulnerable countries suffer the most for our limited coping capacities. Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries cannot wait for international response to climate causes ... we are implementing 134 climate change adaptation and mitigation action plans."
More at the linkDiplomats from some developing countries may "occupy" the UN climate... more
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http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16112805
The record suicide rate among farmers in India continues to rise and is threatening the country's stability and future development, according to campaigners.
They are blaming the government's policies for the agrarian crisis and are demanding it takes urgent action.
More than a quarter of a million farmers have killed themselves in the last 16 years in what is the largest recorded wave of suicides in history.
Kishore Tiwari, a campaigner with the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti in Maharashtra state in central India, says cotton farmers have been particularly badly affected.
Many of them have only just moved to growing cash crops - like cotton - in the last few years.
He says the farmers have taken on large debts to buy hybrid seeds, which are often unsuited to the harsh and temperamental Indian climate.
"They are sold these modern seeds and modern chemicals and have to take on large debts to buy them.
"The problem is they need a lot of water which is in short supply and then when the crop is poor and they have to repay the money lenders, they despair and commit suicide."
Mr Tiwari says the suicides are a symptom of a wider crisis in the countryside.
India's has one of the fastest growing economies in the world but its roots are in the countryside and much of it is being left behind.
In a country with aspirations, moving away from a life of subsistence is attractive but it can also be deadly.
Vandana Moohorle is now bringing up her children alone after her husband killed himself by drinking pesticide.
Like many farmers, he had been persuaded to use genetically modified seeds by the possibility of a better harvest. What he wasn't told was that they needed more rain than the region provided.
His wife blames the government and the large agricultural companies for exploiting the rural poor who dream of a better life.
"He was always tense" she said. "He had borrowed a lot of money for pesticides and fertilizers and now I will have to pay back his debts. Debt is the reason for all the suicides around here and it's the people in charge who are responsible for it."
Across rural India there is now widespread despair. The fields are also filling up with widows.
Activists say it is the other side of India's economic success story.
Beyond the headlines of fast growth, most of the country is still poor and is being left behind by a corrupt political class who are preoccupied with their own greed.
They point to the alarming suicide numbers to prove their point.
More than 60% of India's population still depends on the countryside for survival but with unfettered globalisation and little support from the government, the rural classes are badly exposed.
In the face of rising inflation and with no safety net, the ultimate act of desperation is often their only answer to the new world they live in.
It is a sobering fact but on average one farmer now commits suicide in India every 30 minutes.
And campaigners say the problem will only get worse without direct intervention from the government in the form of subsidies and agricultural educational programmes.http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16112805
The record suicide rate among... more
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Fortunately, the public already understands that global warming makes extreme weather more severe, as new polling reveals:
September polling by ecoAmerica found that 57% of Americans already understand “If we don’t do something about climate change now, we can end up having our farmland turned to desert.” Duh:
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming out Friday with its umpteenth watered down report on climate science, in this case on extreme weather. The thing to remember about IPCC reports is that pretty much everyone involved has to sign off on every word, so it is inevitably a least common denominator document.
The actual scientific literature from 2011 is far more useful than this report — see “Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming” and “NOAA Study Finds Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts.” I will provide the links to as many recent studies as possible in this post.
Indeed we already know from a major 2011 study that “human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.” As predicted, the warming has put more water vapor in the air, making deluges more intense. Climatologist Kevin Trenberth explains:
There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms,
Obviously, since it’s getting hotter, we’re worsening extreme heat waves — both in intensity and duration and scale (the area the heat wave covers). For the same reason, we know humans are making droughts worse — in intensity, duration, and scale. The earlier snow melts also makes summer droughts worse.
Actual observations reveal that since 1950, the global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% of global land area per decade (see here). Heck, our best scientists are already using global warming to help them predict dangerous extreme weather (see “USGS Expert Explains How Global Warming Likely Contributes to East Africa’s Brutal Drought“).
The reinsurance industry understands all this (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”).
Again, much if not most of the public appear to have a better sense of what’s happening right now than you’ll find in the summaries of a typical IPCC report, to go by Yale’s 2011 polling and the September poll from ecoAmerica quoted at the top, which also found:
69% of Americans Know “Weather Conditions (Such as Heat Waves and Droughts) Are Made Worse by Climate Change”
The American public can’t miss the extreme weather because it is everywhere now and increasingly off the charts (see “A New Record: 14 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in 2011“) and links below.
Of course, what’s to come is the real issue, since we still have control over that. We’re facing 5 to 10 times the warming this century that we’ve seen in the past half century.
Unfortunately, the IPCC continues to conflate uncertainty in future emissions of greenhouse gases with uncertainty in the climate’s sensitivity to those emissions. This means they present a very large range of possible overall impacts — and that allows the deniers to trumpet the low range with their powerful fossil-fuel-funded megaphone and induces the media to provide “balance” in their stories between the mid-range and the low range.
The reality is we are on the highest emissions trends (see “Biggest Jump Ever in Global Warming Pollution in 2010 means “levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago”). And the latest science and observation points towards the high end of the climate’s sensitivity (see Journal of Climate: New cloud feedback results “provide support for the high end of current estimates of global climate sensitivity”).
Most climate scientists know what is coming if we don’t act quickly– and more and more are shedding their reticence to speak out, even if that is not yet reflected in bland, least-common-denominator IPCC reports (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).
And as long as the deniers, inactivists and climate ignorati rule the debate, inaction is assured, which means that we are risking extreme weather beyond imagination, extreme events on top of an average warming this century that could hit 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 25°F in the Arctic:
More at the linkFortunately, the public already understands that global warming makes extreme weather... more
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Severe drought conditions are making the process of getting clean water for oil and gas exploration longer and more expensive for Oklahoma's booming energy industry.
Several of the state's largest oil and gas companies are looking at ways to conserve and reuse water.
Devon Energy Corp. is building a plant near Geary and Calumet in Canadian County to store and reuse produced water from its natural gas wells in the Cana Woodford shale.
The company began planning the water reuse plant before the onset of the severe drought in western Oklahoma, said Jim Heinze, Devon's manager of operations for the Anadarko Basin. Once operational, it will help alleviate some of the company's demands for water in the area, he said.
"We haven't delayed any work (because of the drought)," Heinze said. "What it has caused us to do is go longer distances to transfer the water to where we need it."
The plant will include a lined reservoir that can hold up to 500,000 gallons of the flow-back water that comes out of natural gas wells during the drilling process. The water will then be filtered and trucked back to well sites in the area to be reused in hydraulic fracturing. Eventually, a system of pipelines will link the water re-usage plant and the well sites, reducing the need for trucks.
The company anticipates the first phase to become operational during the first quarter of 2012, but getting the pipeline system in place will take longer.
Oil and gas exploration companies obtain the water for drilling and hydraulic fracturing through a variety of sources, including purchasing it from farm ponds on private land. A small but growing amount of groundwater is also being used for oil and gas production in the state.
So far in 2011, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board has granted 1,548 short-term permits to use about 13,000 acre feet of water for the oil and gas industry.
Although the amount is growing, the oil and gas industry still only uses a small percentage of the state's groundwater, said Brian Vance, director of information for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.
The amount of groundwater the industry uses in the state is very small percentage of the 12,842 long-term permits for about 6.3 million acre-feet of water for all uses the water resources board tracks, he said. About 86 percent of the state's water usage is accounted for by cities, industrial and irrigation purposes, and thermoelectric power.
The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association estimates the oil and gas industry will still only account for about 5 percent of the state's water usage by 2060.
One of the things Continental Resources Inc. has done to conserve water during the drought is to simply use less of it in the hydraulic fracturing process in western Oklahoma, said Rick Muncrief, senior vice president of operations for Continental Resources.
"We're reducing the amount of water we use, just as a matter of necessity," Muncrief said.
Continental Resources' operations in drought-stricken western Oklahoma are still in the exploratory phase. Most of the company's wells are far apart, making water re-usage and recycling efforts in the area uneconomical for the company, he said.
"It's still a work in progress," Muncrief said.
The company typically buys its water from farmers and ranchers, but the drought has made water more expensive and harder to obtain, he said.
The drought in Oklahoma has not had a significant effect on Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s operations in the state, but it has caused some of the company's surface water sources to be scarce in the region, delaying some well completions, said Craig Manaugh, Chesapeake's vice president of operations for the company's northern division.
The company is in the process of recycling and reusing water in its operations in Oklahoma, and has even experimented with using 100-percent recycled water in some of its hydraulic fracturing jobs.
While oil and gas companies typically need relatively clean and fresh water for completing wells, Chesapeake is also experimenting with using brackish water that contains high levels of chlorides. The brackish water can be culled from natural sources, typically below the freshwater base.
"While this water is not safe to drink, it can be used effectively in our operations, for the completion process," Manaugh said.
More at the linkSevere drought conditions are making the process of getting clean water for oil and... more
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Men claiming to be al-Qaida operatives are moving into the humanitarian vacuum in Somalia, distributing aid and cash to drought victims in an attempt to win hearts and minds, a Guardian investigation can reveal.
On a visit to the sprawling Ala-Yasir camp in the south of the country, the Guardian saw an al-Qaida unit handing out rice, flour, oil, dates and milk as well as Islamic books and clothes to some of the more than 4,000 people made destitute by this year's drought.
This was the first time the group has spoken publicly in Somalia, and the first time it has distributed aid. The unit's leader was introduced to the Guardian as al-Qaida's official envoy to Somalia.
Representatives of al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist group trying to seize power in the country, called him Abu Abdullah Muhajir, and said he was a white American. It was impossible to verify his identity or nationality.
Al-Shabaab is closely affiliated to al-Qaida and, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group vowed to avenge his death. A number of US citizens are known to have joined al-Shabaab in Somalia, including a suicide bomber from Minneapolis who attacked African Union troops in Mogadishu on Sunday.
Reading from a prepared statement, in American-accented English, Abu Abdullah Muhajir told the crowd: "To our beloved brothers and sisters in Somalia: we are following your situation on a daily basis. And, though we are separated by thousands of kilometres, you are consistently in our thoughts and prayers."
He then handed out the contents of bags full of Somali shillings to the equivalent of $17,000 (£10,600). The al-Qaida unit also brought along a fully staffed ambulance. Al-Qaida regards the young boys stuck in the camp after being driven from their villages by the drought as potential recruits. The boys gave Abu Abdullah Muhajir a rapturous welcome: "God is great! God is great!"
Osman Hassan, 16, clutched dates, milk and the Qur'an, gifts from al-Qaida. He said: "I pray for them to win over their enemies."
Muhammad Barre, nine, said: "I ask God to make al-Qaida victorious over their enemies."
After a decade-long war that has hobbled al-Qaida in eastern Afghanistan, the west's main concern is that the movement may be able to regroup in Somalia, which has had no functioning central government for more than two decades. The Ala-Yasir camp was set up in response to the worst regional drought in 60 years, which has affected (according to the latest UN report on Somalia) 4 million Somalis. It is located in the southern part of country, an area controlled by al-Shabaab.
Al-Shabaab members run the camp, having banned some of the international agencies from distributing aid.
The UN World Food Programme says it pulled out of the area because of threats to staff, and demands of informal taxes by the group. Al-Shabaab denies the claims.
Among the dozens of men accompanying the American visitor were several other foreigners, including some with English accents.
Also with them was a member of al-Shabaab calling himself Abu Omar, who was directing the food distribution.
He said he was British, but it was impossible to confirm this independently.
"It's a religious obligation. It's a duty upon us," he said. "I mean, we left our countries. I left, we left our jobs [and] ... all these places just to come here and help our people. I'm an aid worker, basically … typical aid worker, as you say in the west."Men claiming to be al-Qaida operatives are moving into the humanitarian vacuum in... more
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Freakish weather disasters – from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand – are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press.
The final draft of the report from a panel of the world’s top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars. The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become “increasingly marginal as places to live.”
The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda. It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.
This marks a change in climate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people. The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the pre-Halloween snowstorm in the U.S., is typical of the damage climate scientists warn will occur – but it’s not typical of the events they tie to global warming.
“The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change,” said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change.”
The snow-bearing Nor’easter cannot be blamed on climate change and probably isn’t the type of storm that will increase with global warming, four meteorologists and climate scientists said. They agree more study is needed. But experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing numbers of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.
The opposite kind of disaster – the drought in Texas and the Southwest U.S. – is also the type of event scientists are saying will happen more often as the world warms, said Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report. No studies have specifically tied global warming to the drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Mr. Meehl said.
Studies also have predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and puts more energy into weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit.
Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains that illustrate how climate is also interconnected with other manmade issues such as population and urban development, river management and sinking lands, Schmidt said. In fact, the report says that “for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic in nature” rather than greenhouse gases.
There’s an 80 per cent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 wouldn’t have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So while in the past the climate change panel, formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report, this time the scientists are putting them all together. The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past.
Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors won’t comment because the report still is subject to change. The summary chapter of the report didn’t detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them marginally habitable.
The report does say scientists are “virtually certain” – 99 per cent – that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.
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More intense rains due to increased moisture and temperature in the atmosphere exacerbated by human forcings cause sea level rise as well as thermal expansion of the oceans. Water evaporation then brings water back up from the oceans and dumps it back down on the land washing away topsoil and sediment. Sea level rise is causing salt water intrusion and erosion and combines with subsidence to cause the land to crumble and shift. The question that never really gets the proper attention in all of this is, where will the people go when their land is either gone or unliveable? We have no global plan to deal with the huge amounts of climate refugees that we will (and already) have as a result of these conditions. Matter of fact, infrastructure, land management, deforestation, etc. are only exacerbating this. Oh well, I guess we as humans really are not up to this task.Freakish weather disasters – from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast... 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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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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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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On Friday, a Somali government official confirmed that the US drone had killed at least 21 fighters and injured many more late Thursday night, forcing many to flee the Qooqani and Taabto districts.
This is as recent reports said that a US spy drone crashed near the port city of Kismayo.
The US has recently stepped up its drone operations in the famine-stricken country.
Somalia is the sixth country where US military has engaged in unauthorized aerial bombing campaigns through the use of its remote-controlled aircraft.
The United States has also deployed its so-called drones for aerial attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
Washington claims the airstrikes target militants, though most of such attacks have mostly resulted in civilian casualties.
More at the linkOn Friday, a Somali government official confirmed that the US drone had killed at... more
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Photographer Peter McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in the Rocky Mountains to its historic mouth at the Sea of Cortez. In this Yale Environment 360 video, he follows the natural course of the Colorado by raft, on foot, and overhead in a small plane, telling the story of a river whose water is siphoned off at every turn, leaving it high and dry 80 miles from the sea.
In the video, McBride, a Colorado native, documents how increasing water demands have transformed the river that is the lifeblood for an arid Southwest.Photographer Peter McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in... more
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