tagged w/ Climate Migration
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“It would be immoral to leave these young people with a climate system spiraling out of control.”
by Dan Miller
NASA climate scientist James Hansen gave a talk at the TED conference in Long Beach, CA on February 29th where he laid out the case for taking urgent action to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Dr. Hansen’s talk began by describing his personal journey, originally studying Venus under Prof. James Van Allen and then working at NASA on an instrument to study Venus’ atmosphere. But after being asked to do some calculations of Earth’s greenhouse effect, Dr. Hansen resigned from the Venus mission to work full time studying Earth’s atmosphere “because a planet changing before our eyes is more interesting and important – its changes will affect all humanity.”
Dr. Hansen and some colleagues published a 1981 paper in Science Magazine that concluded that “observed warming of 0.4C in the prior century was consistent with the greenhouse effect of increasing CO2, — that Earth would likely warm in the 1980s, — and warming would exceed the noise level of random weather by the end of the century. We also said that the 21st century would see shifting climate zones, creation of drought prone regions in North America and Asia, erosion of ice sheets, rising sea levels, and opening of the fabled Northwest passage. All of these impacts have since either happened or are now well underway.”
Dr. Hansen went on to explain that, after speaking out for the need for an energy policy that would address climate change, the White House contacted NASA and Dr. Hansen was ordered to not speak to the media without permission. After informing the New York Times about the situation, the censorship was lifted and Dr. Hansen continued to speak out, justifying his actions with the first line of NASA’s Mission Statement’: “To understand and protect the home planet”. But there were consequences… the reference to the home planet was soon struck from NASA’s Mission Statement, never to return.
Dr. Hansen then went on to describe some of the recent science, including a detailed look at the Earth’s energy imbalance that was made possible by data from 3000 “Argo” floats that measure ocean temperature at different depths. Dr. Hansen said that the current imbalance of 0.6 watts/square meter (which does not include the energy already used to cause the current warming of 0.8°C) was equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs every day, 365 days per year.
Favorite denier myths such as “it’s the Sun” and “CO2 lags temperature” were addressed by Dr. Hansen and shown to be wrong or irrelevant. He also discussed how amplifying feedbacks in the past took small changes in temperature due to slight changes in the Earth’s orbit and either initiated or ended ice ages. He then said these same amplifying feedbacks will occur today if we do not stop the warming. ”The physics does not change.”
Besides the impacts that are already occurring, Dr. Hansen said that if we do not stop the warming, we should expect sea levels to rise this century by 1 to 5 meters (3 to 18 feet), extinction of 20 to 50% of species, and massive droughts later this century. He said that the recent Texas heat wave, Moscow’s heat wave the year before, and the 2003 heat wave in Europe we “exceptional” events that now occur 25 to 50 times more often than just 50 years ago. Therefore, he concluded, we can say with high confidence that these heat waves were “caused” by global warming.
More at the link“It would be immoral to leave these young people with a climate system spiraling... 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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One by one, the men in Gaurpodomando's family walked out of this mud-caked village and never returned.
First, his uncles went. Both fishermen, they suffered as their catch declined year after year, before they crossed illegally into India to find work in construction. His brothers earned so little fishing that they braved tiger attacks in the nearby Sundarbans forest to forage for honey and timber. Finally, they left, too, and brought their father with them.
Now, Gaurpodomando, who said he is about 35 years old and who goes only by his first name, is the last man in his family still living in the waterlogged village along Bangladesh's Indian border.
His brothers still don't know about the angry tidal flood that burst through a dam and swallowed the family home and dozens of others in September. Those who live here say that between the disappearing fish, brackish floodwaters destroying the rice fields and the ever-fiercer cyclones that seem to inhale entire villages, life is becoming almost unbearable.
But Gaurpodomando, who earns the equivalent of $1.50 a day standing hip-deep in the salty river casting a net to collect shrimp fry, said he is doing everything he can to hang onto his way of life.
"I do feel a little lonely and sad, but I don't really want to go to India," he said, squatting on the outdoor stoop of what was once the family kitchen but is now the only structure left to shelter him, his wife and their two children. His arms and bare feet are streaked with the slate-gray mud that covers the ground and seems never to dry.
"I don't want to leave this place," Gaurpodomando said. "I don't want to leave this country. I love this place."
One day soon, Gaurpodomando and an untold number of others in Bangladesh and around the world may no longer have a choice.
A growing body of evidence, including analyses from military experts in the United States and Europe, supports the estimate that by midcentury, climate change will make vast parts of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Analysts say it could trigger a migration the size of which the world has never before seen.
Some of the big questions remain unanswered: How many people will really move? Where will they go? How will they go? Will they return?One by one, the men in Gaurpodomando's family walked out of this mud-caked... more
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