Russia – 350orbust

Climate Change-Related Food Shortages Becoming a Reality

August 18, 2010 by Christine

This summer has been devastating as China, Pakistan, and Russia reel under extreme weather events. Pakistan in particular is in need of humanitarian yet “donor fatigue” is cited as one of the reasons for the less generous aid responses so far. Food crops have been affected both in Russia and in Pakistan, with Russia responding by cancelling this year’s grain exports. In Pakistan, the floods have damaged wheat and rice crops as more than 17 million hectares of arable land lies under water. We already live in a world where one billion people go hungry every day. In a world experiencing climate change, food instability will only grow. According to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, more than 75% of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas, and most of these are small-scale farmers. These are the people most at risk of increased hunger from climate change.

Donor fatigue is not an option for those of us in the richest parts of the world who are directly responsible for the increased suffering around the globe. And let’s not stop with aid relief – take time to send a message to your government that it’s time to address climate change NOW, before it’s too late. And join 350.org’s 10-10-10 work party and make a difference in your community that will send ripples around the globe.

Climate Change Has Arrived: Drowning Today, Parched Tomorrow

August 16, 2010 by Christine

The Earth leads the news again. Fire & flood across continents. The nation-states are only supporting actors. What matters is people and our relationship with all of life. The nations and corporations and religions are losing their position. The Times says “Climate change has actually arrived.” No, at long last the Earth takes over completely.

The paragraph above from Reverend Billy Talen’s Facebook page today. Talen, founder of the Church of Life After Shopping, is a modern-day prophet, visionary, and performance artist who has been pointing out the dangers of the North American over-consumptive lifestyle in creative, attention-grabbing ways since 1996.

My scientist husband compared this summer’s weather to an experiment done in Chemistry class. Supersaturation occurs when a solid is added to a liquid and appears to be dissolving without visibly changing the liquid until the liquid becomes so saturated that, just by lightly tapping the side of the flask, the dissolved solid immediately crystallizes and sinks to the bottom. The earth is close to her “supersaturation point”, as the extreme weather events demonstrate. This analogy can also be extended to include the possibility that the number of weather catastrophes around the globe this summer, combined with the ecological and economic disaster of the BP oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico, could crystallize in people’s minds the reality of climate change and the limits of our finite planet. This shift in understanding needs to happen now, before we are any further down this planet-destructive, and ultimately self-destructive, path. Could this be the summer? Or, as someone commented on Rev Billy’s page, “I think we are being voted off the planet”.

doug grandt's billboard photo — credit: Doug Grandt

“Russia’s Problem Is Our Problem” As Drought and Fires Devastate Country

August 10, 2010 by Christine

Tyler Hamilton’s column in The Star yesterday made the point that Russia’s current struggles with fire and drought could well become our problem in the future, if moves are not made to address the rapid climate changes that are occurring from our warming of the atmosphere. He posits this scenario:

Dozens of cottages have been destroyed and smoke from the affected regions has engulfed Toronto. Premier Dalton McGuinty declared a state of emergency and warned residents to stay indoors.

Meanwhile, low water levels and unprecedented power demand from air conditioning have forced rolling electricity brownouts across the province, with Ontario’s coal fleet – scheduled for complete shutdown by 2014 – operating at full capacity and making the pollution much worse.

Ontario is in no way alone. Heat and drought have devastated this year’s prairie wheat harvest, causing market prices to double on fears there will be a global wheat shortage.

Go to The Star.com to read all of “Russia’s climate problem is our problem“.

In an follow-up to this article on Clean Break, Hamilton said that he received an email from a frustrated Environment Canada scientist with regard to the data that his department has available on the rising temperatures. The email mentioned the current muzzling of climate scientists and said:

“government scientists were very unhappy” that this science, funded by Canadian taxpayers, was not being made known and easily accessible to the general public.”And yes, I fear reprisals if my name is attached to anything,” he wrote.

One of the links provided by the scientist shows that the Canadian national average temperature for the spring of 2010 was 4.1°C above normal, based on preliminary data, which makes this the WARMEST SPRING ON RECORD since nationwide records began in 1948. The previous record was in 1998 which was 3.2°C above normal. THIS IS THE SECOND SEASON IN A ROW TO SET A RECORD FOR ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES.

I’m posting the graph full size here, because in the past links to Environment Canada information on our changing climate have been changed or deleted when I revisit the site.

The second link shows graphically how temperatures are expected to rise between now and 2100 in Canada and throughout the rest of North America.

As Hamilton states,

This data, against the backdrop of the Russia heat wave and Pakistan flooding, should be front-page news.

Why isn’t it?

From the NASA Earth Observatory, satellite pictures of the fires and smoke in Russia from August 4:

This could very well be in our future, if our leaders don’t start to lead on this issue.

Go to 350.org for ideas and inspiration on what you can do to encourage them, or check out my action not apathy page. We’re all in this together – remember that you will have to look your children and grandchildren in the eyes in 20 years when they ask you what YOU did about the climate crisis while there was still time.

The World’s Experiment With Catastrophic Climate Change Continues

August 9, 2010 by Christine

Russia, August 5:

Forest and peat bog fires have burned hundreds of homes, leaving thousands homeless in the hottest summer since records began 130 years ago, prompting leaders to declare a state of emergency in seven of the worst-hit regions.(Reuters)

As of July 30, the wildfires had scorched more than 25 million acres of grain – what Time Magazine reported as an area equivalent in size to the state of Kentucky. The fires, extreme heat and widespread drought have affected food prices throughout Russia, prompting the government to ban grain exports and declare a state of emergency in many parts of the country. Smoke from the fires has blanketed Moscow and other cities with a thick, toxic soup, causing some foreign diplomats to leave the country. The soil moisture in some portions of the country has dropped to levels one would expect only once every 500 years.

Recently Russian President Medvedev clearly drew the line between the extreme conditions Russia is experiencing this summer and climate change:

“What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate.”

This is the same leader who, two months after Copenhagen, called the global-warming debate “some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.” Vladimir Chuprov of Greenpeace Russia commented on Medvedev’s dramatic change of heart:

“You don’t just throw comments like that around when you are the leader of the nation, and if you look at what is happening with this heat wave, it’s horrible. It’s clearly enough to shake people out of their delusions about global warming.”

Go to this link to view a dramatic video of people fleeing a Russian village over a road that’s on fire.

Pakistan, August 8:

Officials estimate that as many as 13 million people have been affected by the worst flooding in the country’s 63-year history. About 1,500 people have died, most of them in the north-west, the hardest-hit region.

These two unfolding disasters, involving excessive fire and water, are related to the extreme climate conditions that scientists project will become more frequent in a heating world. Are we ready yet to start addressing our part in the warming of the atmosphere? What will it take for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to change his mind on global warming? In the past, he called the Kyoto Protocol “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations“. This summer, more than 100 communities in Saskatchewan declared a state of emergency after severe weather events. Provincial Fire Commissioner and Director of Public Safety recently said:

…while there have been forest fires and flooding in other years, 2010 is seeing an unprecedented number of events.

“When you start adding up all the events and the compressed time … this is remarkable,” he said.

2009 was a record summer for British Columbia fires. The British Columbia government spent over $400 million dollars fighting these forest fires and more than 2,105 square kilometers (210,579) of forests were burned.

It’s clear that the dangers of global warming that scientists have been warning us about are here now. We do not need to wait until the end of this century to experience climate driven catastrophes. Don’t wait for our leaders to take action – 350.org is calling for a people-powered movement to start pressing for change that can’t be ignored. What will you tell your children and grandchildren 20 years from now when they ask you what you did to help avert this disaster? Check out Bill McKibbon’s recent blog: We’re Hot As Hell and We’re Not Going to Take it Anymore: Three Steps to Establish A Politics of Global Warming.