Extreme floods, storms seen increasing in North America
Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:34pm EDT 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Floods, droughts and severe storms are likely to ravage North America more frequently as emissions of planet-warming gases rise, according to a U.S. government study.

Extreme weather events, “could seriously affect” human health, agricultural production, and the availability and quality of water in the future, according to the report, issued by the Climate Change Science Program on Thursday.

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Midwest sees more floods
Mon Jun 9, 2008 5:58pm EDT

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - A dam near the Wisconsin Dells resort area broke on Monday, sweeping away some homes, as torrential rains caused more flooding across parts of the U.S. Midwest, authorities said.

No deaths or injuries were reported, though residents living beside a few rain-swollen rivers in central Wisconsin were urged to evacuate, the Columbia County Sheriff’s office said.

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“Drought doesn’t usually get much attention in
concerns over melting icecaps, rising sea levels,
toxic UV rays and poisonous air. But … Fagan’s
The Great Warming examines what’s known as the
Medieval Warming Period (MWP), a sort of trial
run for the present.”
————————————————————-
Toronto Star
June 8, 2008

History, climate change destined to be repeated
The Medieval Warming Period provoked massive social and historical convulsions

Hans Werner
————————–
The Great Warming:
Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
by Brian Fagan
Bloomsbury,
282 pages, $29.95
————————-

Brian Fagan, the leading authority on the
interaction of climate and human society, has
noticed that there’s a little detail that tends
to get lost in all the dire predictions of global
warming. Fagan is professor emeritus of
anthropology at the University of California and
editor of The Oxford Companion to Archaeology,
and has something like 21 books to his credit,
including Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and
the Discovery of the New World. His latest, The
Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and
Fall of Civilizations, is about drought caused by
climate change.

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Powerful storms swamp U.S. Midwest, spawn tornadoes
Sat Jun 7, 2008 11:43pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Heavy rains caused flooding that forced hundreds of evacuations in Indiana, and a tornado raked Chicago’s suburbs on Saturday as violent thunderstorms pummeled the already soggy U.S. heartland, authorities said.

The U.S. Coast Guard was called out to help rescue stranded homeowners and motorists, and near-record flooding was forecast for rivers and creeks in western and central Indiana.

“We are getting a lot of rain and water. There are a lot of roads that are impassable. We are urging people to sit tight and stay off the roads,” said John Erickson of Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security.

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Rainwater-harvesting expert Brad Lancaster says community and conservation are keys to desert living

By MARI HERRERAS email the Weekly
Sustainably Yours-Brad Lancaster

Brad Lancaster is not wild about the word “green.”

“The term ‘green’ doesn’t cut it, especially the way it is being marketed,” Lancaster says as he drives back to Tucson after teaching several weeks of rainwater-harvesting workshops in New Mexico while also promoting the two volumes of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. “This idea that we can buy our way green is bogus. We need to be asking ourselves: What are we trying to do, and how are we trying to live?”

Lancaster answers these questions in his books; the most recent volume focuses on how to use earthworks to harvest rainwater. A third volume is due out next year. Overall, Lancaster’s books teach desert-dwellers new ways to look at conserving water, while at the same time growing food-producing gardens, using solar energy and taking advantage of gray water from the shower or washing machine.

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———————————
“The university’s model predicted natural beech
forests will decrease from the current level by
56 percent during 2031-50, and by 93 percent
during 2081-2100.”
——————————–

DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE
(May. 31, 2008)

Shirakami forests ‘could vanish by 2100′

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Vast beech forests in the Shirakami Mountains, a
UNESCO World Heritage-listed natural site that
straddles Akita and Aomori prefectures, could
vanish by the end of this century due to global
warming, according to researchers.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2008
4:10 PM

 CONTACT: World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Erika Viltz
erika.viltz@wwfus.org
202-778-9542
 
 
WWF Report Says Environmental Protection Is Vital to Reducing Impacts of Natural Disasters
 
BONN, GERMANY - May 20 - Environmental degradation is a key factor in turning extreme weather events into natural disasters, according to a new report from World Wildlife Fund.

Natural Security: Protected Areas and Hazard Mitigation, prepared with environmental research group Equilibrium, examines the impacts of floods in Bangladesh, Mozambique and Europe, heat waves and forest fires in Portugal, an earthquake in Pakistan, tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Hurricane Katrina in the United States to illustrate the potential of environmental conservation to prevent and mitigate natural disasters.

“It is deforestation and floodplain development that most often link high rainfall to devastating floods and mudslides,” said Liza Higgins-Zogib of the WWF’s Protected Areas Initiative. “Extreme coastal events cause much more loss of life and damage when reefs are damaged, mangroves are removed, dune systems are developed and coastal forests are cleared.”

The World Bank estimates that more than 3.4 billion people, or more than half of the world’s population, are exposed to at least one natural hazard and according to the report, over the past 50 years the severity of impacts from natural disasters has increased, due in part to the loss of healthy ecosystems in the regions affected.

The report shows that wave energy in the Seychelles has doubled as a result of reef destruction and sea level rise, and a continued increase is predicted over the next decade. The loss of 70 percent of floodplains in the Danube River and its tributaries is contributing to an increase in the frequency and severity of floods. Changes in vegetation and land use are shown to alter natural fire regimes and increase devastation from wildfires.

“While large-scale disasters cannot be entirely avoided, the report identifies specific ways we can mitigate the devastating impact of disasters through better ecosystem management, including the establishment of protected areas”, said Jonathan Randall, senior program officer for WWF’s Humanitarian Partnerships program and co-author of Natural Security.

In one success story outlined in the report, the investment of $1.1 million in mangrove replanting saved some Vietnamese communities an estimated $7.3 million a year in sea dyke maintenance.  During typhoon Wukong in 2000, the area remained relatively unharmed, while neighboring provinces suffered significant loss of life and property.

Similarly, the report shows how managing Swiss forests can provide protective services valued at up to $3.5 billion per year, mainly for their protective functions in reducing avalanches, landslides and flooding.

WWF is working with governments to create suitable protected areas and to maintain natural ecosystems, such as coastal mangroves, coral reefs, floodplains and forests, which may help buffer against natural hazards.  Traditional cultural ecosystems, like agroforestry systems, terraced crop-growing and fruit tree forests in arid lands have an important role in mitigating extreme weather events as well.

 “We recognize that there have been many international agreements and declarations linking the preservation of ecosystem services with the mitigation of disasters, but note that in many cases it is only the permanent and well-managed setting aside of land and sea as protected areas which can provide the stability and protection so often called for,” said Randall.

###
 
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Animated map brings global climate crisis to life

Mon May 19, 2008 11:01am EDT  

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A new animated map of the earth from space illustrates the potential impact of climate change over the next century and can be viewed on your computer.

The project, Climate Change in Our World, is the result of cooperation between web search engine Google, Britain’s environment ministry and the country’s Met Office.

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Rain deepens Myanmar misery; casualty tolls jump
Fri May 16, 2008 12:34pm EDT

YANGON (Reuters) - Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar’s cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta on Friday as thousands of destitute victims took to roadsides to beg for help to supplement the meager trickle of aid flowing in.

The official death toll has jumped sharply, to 77,738 from a previous figure of 43,328 according to a Myanmar state television report late on Friday.

Independent experts have said the actual number is probably far higher, with British officials saying the total dead and missing could be more than 200,000.

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Some interesting observations here…i have been giving alot of thought
over the years to the impacts of global warming on the characteristics of
severe thunderstorms & severe thunderstorm outbreaks, & thus far have
drawn only 1 fairly certain conclusion:

GET USED TO IT!

The nature of building construction is going to have to change ASAP…for
EVERYONE-not just those privileged enough to “afford” it. Along w/ energy
efficiency, storm-proofing will be as critical in places like the eastern
2/3 of the country (hell-EVERYWHERE) as earthquake-proofing building
standards are on the West Coast. It is rapidly becoming an issue of
disaster preparedness & public health-w/ all its racist & classist
implications…

A. Storm Tracker

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Sun May 11, 2008 11:51am EDT

Deadly tornadoes hit U.S.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - At least 19 people were killed in Missouri and Oklahoma when tornadoes and violent storms ripped through the central and southeastern United States, devastating neighborhoods and injuring hundreds, officials said on Sunday.

The National Weather Service reported six deaths in Oklahoma and 13 in Missouri but those tolls may rise.

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Do you eat shrimp imported from Asia? Do you vacation there?
Lance
——————————————–
“… large-scale conversion of mangroves into
shrimp and fish farms were among the main
destructive drivers.

“Other pressures included new development to
accommodate the growth in the tourism sector and
rising populations.”
———————————————-

BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7385315.stm

Published: 2008/05/06 17:30:25 GMT

Mangrove loss ‘left Burma exposed’
By Mark Kinver
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

Destruction of mangrove forests in Burma left
coastal areas exposed to the devastating force of
the weekend’s cyclone, a top politician suggests.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said
coastal developments had resulted in mangroves,
which act as a natural defence against storms,
being lost.

At least 22,000 people have died in the disaster, say state officials.

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Published on Monday, May 5, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Sinking Without Trace: Australia’s Climate Change Victims

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked.

Ron and Maria Passi, who operate Murray Island’s only taxi, were out driving the night the king tide struck. Neighbours flagged them down, asking for help, and so it was not until some time later that they saw their own grandchildren standing in the road. “They were shouting ‘Granddad, stop the car, the water is coming in the house’,” says Ron. “I just slammed on the brakes.”

The couple’s son, Sonny, was outside his fibro shack with his five children, watching the monster surf, lashed by north-west winds, rise ever higher. In the commotion, everyone had forgotten that Sedoi, the baby, was still inside. They heard her crying and found her in her cot, covered in sand. Water had surged in after a wave picked up a big wooden pallet and flung it through the front wall.

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-Over 350 dead as cyclone pounds Myanmar
Sun May 4, 2008 4:00pm EDT 
Cyclone devastates Myanmar

Myanmar damage will take days to assess: U.N.
3:48am EDT By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - A cyclone killed more than 350 people in military-ruled Myanmar, ripping through Yangon and the Irrawaddy delta where it flattened at least two towns, officials and state media said on Sunday.

The death toll is likely to climb as the authorities manage to contact outlying islands and villages that felt the full force of Cyclone Nagris, a Category 3 storm packing winds of 120 miles per hour when it hit early on Saturday.

State television, which was still off air in Yangon more than 36 hours after Nagris slammed into the city of 5 million, reported 20,000 homes destroyed on one island alone, a government official in the remote capital, Naypyidaw, said.

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Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Climate Change Could Force 1 Billion From Their Homes by 2050
by Nigel Morris

As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today.

They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.

Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London will be told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.

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More 08 Caribbean hurricanes than avg: AccuWeather
Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:01am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AccuWeather.com on Friday predicted the 2008 hurricane season in the Caribbean would be slightly above average, with an increased chance that storms would make landfall in North America.

A waning La Nina condition in the Pacific Ocean and a warm water cycle in the Atlantic ocean are the two main factors cited by the private weather forecasting service.

“The warming is not uniform across the entire Atlantic. In some areas where hurricanes normally form … ocean water temperatures are near or below normal,” Joe Bastardi, AccuWeather’s chief long-range forecaster, said in a news release.

Bastardi told Reuters in an interview in early April that the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season would see 12 to 13 named storms.

Up to four of the predicted storms would become hurricanes, with one of those becoming a major hurricane, Bastardi said.

Average hurricane seasons have 10 named storms.

(Reporting by Robert Campbell, editing by Matthew Lewis)

————————————————————————————

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2008
12:12 PM

 CONTACT: Environmental Defense Fund
Jennifer Dickson, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 572-3401 or (202) 520-1221
Becky Wexler, National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), (301) 652-1558
Tara Laskowski, George Mason University, (703) 993-8815
 
 
First Nationwide Climate Change Survey of Public Health Departments
Shows Lack of Resources for Dealing with Health Challenge
 
WASHINGTON, DC - April 24 - Climate change is a concern to most local public health directors but few have resources to tackle the problem, according to a national survey conducted by National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and George Mason University.
The survey, included in the report Are We Ready? Preparing for the Public Health Challenges of Climate Change, is the first national one of its kind that assesses the perceptions and activities of local public health directors regarding climate change and public health.

Continue Reading »

Published on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 by The Telegraph/UK

Climate Change ‘May Put World at War’
By Charles Clover

Climate change could cause global conflicts as large as the two world wars but lasting for centuries unless the problem is controlled, a leading defence think tank has warned.

The Royal United Services Institute said a tenfold increase in research spending, comparable to the amount spent on the Apollo space programme, will be needed if the world is to avoid the worst effects of changing temperatures.

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Security risk from climate said underestimated
Tue Apr 22, 2008 7:29pm EDT  Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single

Related News
Climate change rises on World Bank agenda
10 Apr 2008

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Countries around the world have hugely underestimated
the potential conflicts stemming from climate change and must invest
heavily to correct that mistake, a report said on Wednesday.

The report for Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) by
environment expert Nick Mabey said the response had been “slow and
inadequate” and to rectify it spending needed to surge to levels
comparable to sums spent on counter-terrorism.

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US Forecaster Expects Busy Storm Season

US: April 4, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla., - The noted Colorado State University forecast team expects an above-average Atlantic hurricane season and may raise its prediction of 13 tropical storms and seven hurricanes when it updates its outlook next week, the team’s founder, Bill Gray, said on Wednesday.

La Nina cool-water conditions in the Pacific and higher sea surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic are contributing to enhanced conditions for hurricane activity, Gray told Reuters at the US National Hurricane Conference.

Continue Reading »

———————————————————-
“Fagan says we’re now entering another era of extreme aridity, and that the
challenges of adapting to water shortages and crop failures won’t be easy.”

“The bad news is that elites try to super-manage their way out of droughts,
with disastrous results for ordinary people.”

” …for ordinary readers, Fagan’s book serves as another warning about a true
marvel: It only takes a temperature change of a
Celsius degree or two to rapidly
unsettle the order of things.”
————————————

The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
March 22, 2008

ENVIRONMENT

We’ve been here before, and it wasn’t pretty the first time
ANDREW NIKIFORUK

THE GREAT WARMING

Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

By Brian Fagan

Bloomsbury, 282 pages, $29.95

While the Arctic melts and our glaciers
disappear, one by one, like guests at a
late-night party, Canada’s political elites
remain the only guys too drunk to recognize that
the climate is changing. Let’s face it: Global
warming probably will never sober up Conservative
or Liberal leaders as long as tar-sands taxes
fill the federal treasury, lower the GST and give
the loonie a petro swagger. And they are not the
first group of rulers to ignore the weather.

During the medieval ages, a great warming similar
to our fossil-fuelled meltdown profoundly changed
civilizations from the Norse to the Khmer.
Archeologists call it the Medieval Warm Period,
and it served up a “silent and oft-ignored
killer”: drought. The dry-out even parched much
of present-day Alberta.

Continue Reading »

Published on Thursday, March 20, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis
by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his primary focus was not
on the impending global economic recession but on the world’s growing water
crisis.0320 08

“A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future,”
he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and leaders from
governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations.

“Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the
global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over
the horizon,” he warned.

Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water
Institute, says the lack of safe drinking water for over 1.0 billion people
worldwide, and the lack of safe sanitation for over 2.5 billion, “is an acute
and devastating humanitarian crisis.”

“But this is a crisis of management, not a water crisis per se, because it is
caused by a chronic lack of funding and inadequate understanding of the need
for sanitation and good hygiene at the local level,” Berntell told IPS.

He said: “This can and must be fixed through improved governance and management,
and increased funding, and sustained efforts to achieve the U.N.’s Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs),” which include the eradication of extreme poverty and
hunger and adequate water and sanitation.

A U.N. study released on the eve of World Water Day Mar. 22 says the lack of safe
drinking water is not confined to the world’s poorer nations; it also threatens
over 100 million Europeans.

The result: nearly 40 children in Europe, mostly in Eastern Europe, die every day
due to a water-related disease: diarrhoea.

In Eastern Europe, about 16 percent of the population still does not have access
to drinking water in their homes, while in rural areas, over half of all people
suffer from the lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.

“The world water crisis is definitely very bad, particularly because it deals with
mismanagement of water and how governments have failed to secure the involvement
of local communities in the management of water,” says Sunita Narain, director of
the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, and the 2005 winner of the
prestigious annual Stockholm Water Prize.

“We, as societies, have failed to use small amounts of water for bringing large
productivity gains,” she said.

However, today the world water crisis faces yet another challenge — one of climate
change, Narain told IPS.

“And it is this challenge which the world is completely failing to do anything
about, and which will jeopardise the water security of large numbers of people,
who already live on the margins of survival,” she declared.

Responding to a question, Berntell admitted there is a “world water crisis”
judging by the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

And this, he said, “in a world which has the financial wealth and technical
wherewithal to solve these twin scandals”.

“We must find better ways to manage water resources, in so far as water pollution
is concerned, and to meet the food requirements of a human population which will
expand by over 3.0 billion people in 2050.”

“We also must meet the water-climate challenge. Everything could become much more
desperate and severe in the future if the proper steps are not taken,” he added.

So, it is important, Berntell argued, to make a distinction between the water
resource crisis — which is primarily caused by an overexploitation of water
resources for agricultural and industrial use, as well as pollution — and the water
service and sanitation crisis.

In a statement released Wednesday, the International Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) said many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are
now polluted to the brink of their collapse.

“The Yangtze, China’s longest river, is cancerous with pollution due to untreated
agriculture and industrial waste,” IUCN warned

Meanwhile, arguing that water shortages will drive future conflicts, the U.N.
secretary-general says the slaughter in Darfur — described as “genocide” by the
United States — was triggered by global climate change.

“It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought,” Ban
said. When Darfur’s land was rich, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared
their water.

With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.
“For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all.
Fighting broke out,” he said.

“Water is a classic common property resource. No one really owns the problem.
Therefore, no one really owns the solution,” he declared.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community are doing enough to
help resolve the problem or even draw attention to it, Narain told IPS:
“Definitely there has been an attempt over the last few years to understand both
the nature of the crisis as well as to draw attention to it.”

“However, I believe that the international community’s understanding of what needs
to be done to resolve the water crisis has been both weak as well as misplaced.”

The reason, she pointed out, “is that the international community does not
understand water and how it affects local communities and, therefore, the United
Nations and the international community is looking for quick fix technological
solutions to what is primarily a governance issue.”

Berntell took a different perspective. “Unquestionably,” he said, “water, and in
particular sanitation, remain far too low on the international agenda.”

Access to clean water and sanitation underpin all human development efforts, and
water issues are central to climate change adaptation and sustainable development.
“But much more needs to be done to address the spectrum of challenges,” he told IPS.

The U.N. system, and the “UN-Water” collaborative effort in particular, works
extremely hard and well and is consistently improving its efforts to better
coordinate and make more effective its work, he said.

The U.N.’s declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation has catalysed
increased action and attention to critical health and hygiene issues this year,
Berntell added.

“Still, the U.N. must strengthen its efforts to coordinate its monitoring and
reporting. They cannot afford to continue delivering too many reports on overlapping
issues at the same time.”

A good starting point, he said, would be the “five ones” identified by Britain: one
annual global monitoring report; one high-level global ministerial meeting on water;
at country level, one national plan for water and sanitation; one coordinating body;
and activities of U.N. agencies on water and sanitation to be coordinated by one lead
body under the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and its country plan.

© 2008 Inter Press Service

—————————————————————————————

———————————————————
“Reporters who have tried to interview the
report’s lead author, Federal Highway
Administration official Michael Savonis, have
been explicitly told by DOT officials that the
author and the press cannot communicate with each
other.”

“Federal scientists must be allowed direct
communication with the press, unimpeded by
politically-driven gatekeepers with an interest
in blocking the truth and playing down the
significance of climate research and assessment
findings.”
—————————————————-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2008
1:25 PM

Government Accountability Project

Climate Change Report Buried by DOT; Author Blocked From Reporters

WASHINGTON, DC - March 14 - This past Wednesday,
March 12, the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
quietly released a major assessment report on the
likely impacts of global climate disruption on a
wide range of transportation infrastructure in
the Gulf Coast region. This report release was
buried by the DOT, and officials have been
blocking journalists from speaking with the
report’s lead author.

Continue Reading »

Weather chaos could trigger civil unrest

Oxford study calls on Western governments to overhaul security and disaster planning
Jan 28, 2008 04:30 AM

Mitch Potter
EUROPE BUREAU
Toronto Star

LONDON–The world’s wealthiest countries could face the beginnings of societal
breakdown by mid-century in the form of boiling domestic unrest over climate
change, a new British report warns.

A tide of protest against polluting companies and perceived government inaction
and, in extreme cases, the emergence of new forms of ecoterrorism are among
scenarios outlined by security think tank the Oxford Research Group.

The report, An Uncertain Future: Law Enforcement, National Security and Climate
Change, sounds a warning quite different from the conventional assumption that
carbon-induced global warming could trigger waves of environmental refugees from
abroad driven by the quest for food, water and shelter.

Continue Reading »