Showing posts with label water table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water table. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Monday, June 30, 2014
Las Vegas Is "Screwed"; The Water Situation "Is As Bad As You Can Imagine"
Las Vegas Is "Screwed"; The Water Situation "Is As Bad As You Can Imagine"
Tyler Durden, 06/30/2014 zerohedge.com
"It's just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly," warns Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, telling The Telegraph, the situation in Las Vegas is "as bad as you can imagine". After a devastating, 14-year drought drained the reservoir that supplies 90% of the city’s water, the apparently endless supply of water is an illusion as Las Vegas population has soared. As Barnett ominously concludes, "unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid."
As The Telegraph reports, as with many things in Sin City, the apparently endless supply of water is an illusion.
America’s most decadent destination has been engaged in a potentially catastrophic gamble with nature and now, 14 years into a devastating drought, it is on the verge of losing it all.
“The situation is as bad as you can imagine,” said Tim Barnett, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “It’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly. Unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.”
Things are not good...
Las Vegas gets just four inches of rain in a good year, and in the first four months of 2014 there was just 0.31 of an inch.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has the task of keeping the city from running dry, has described the effects of the drought as “every bit as serious as a Hurricane Katrina or a Superstorm Sandy”.
However, Las Vegas still uses 219 gallons of water per person per day, one of the highest figures in the US. In San Francisco the figure is just 49 gallons.
But they have a plan...
Lake Mead’s water level is currently at 1,087ft above sea level. There are two pipes, known as “straws”, that take water from it to Las Vegas.
The first extracts water at an elevation of 1,050ft and is likely to be sucking at air, rather than water, soon. The second straw is at 1,000ft.
Lake Mead is expected to fall another 20ft towards that critical point by the end of this year.
Beneath the ground a mammoth effort is already under way to complete a new, lower straw which will be able to draw the last of the water from the lake.
But it is a painfully slow process as a giant drill the size of two football pitches advances at a rate of one inch per day.
That rescue project is costing $817 million and is currently expected to be complete by late 2015, but it is not viewed as a long-term solution.
Las Vegas also wants to build a separate $15.5 billion pipeline that would pump 27 billion gallons of groundwater a year from an aquifer 260 miles away in rural Nevada.
But a judge has refused permission after environmentalists sued on the basis that it would adversely affect 5,500 acres of meadows, 33 miles of trout streams, and 130,000 acres of habitat used by sage grouse, mule deer, elk and pronghorn, an antelope-like creature that is endangered in the region. The court heard that 25 species of Great Basin springsnails would be pushed toward extinction.
But in the end, it's a false promise...
“It’s a really dumb-headed proposition. It would provide a false sense of security that there’s plenty of water and it would delay the inevitable decisions that have to be taken about water conservation and restricting growth.
“The drought is like a slow spreading cancer across the desert. It’s not like a tornado or a tsunami, bang. The effects are playing out over decades. And as the water situation becomes more dire we are going to start having to talk about the removal of people (from Las Vegas).”
Mr Mrowka cited Lake Las Vegas, a mega-resort where stars including Celine Dion live, as one of the “most egregious examples” of wasting water.
And then there's this...
One proposal is for landlocked Nevada to pay billions of dollars to build solar-powered desalination plants in the Pacific off Mexico, taking Mexico’s share of Colorado River water in exchange.
But Mr Mrowka said: “The Colorado is essentially a dying river. Ultimately, Las Vegas and our civilisation in the American South West is going to disappear, like the Indians did before us.”
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Water Climate and Society: Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World
Science of Climate Change - Water Climate and Society: Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World
University of California Television (UCTV)
Published on Jan 2, 2014
Explore an assessment of scientific knowledge on climate change with Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (2009-2013); Bill Collins, Head, Climate Sciences Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Professor in Earth and Planetary Science, UC Berkeley; and Chris Field, Director, Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and Professor of Biology and Environmental Earth System Science,Stanford University. Series: "Water, Climate and Society" [1/2014] [Science] [Show ID: 26062]
Friday, April 18, 2014
California Suffers Astonishingly Fast Snowpack Melt as Drought Intensifies
The dry bed of the Stevens Creek Reservoir is seen on Thursday, March 13, 2014, in Cupertino, Calif.IMAGE: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
California Suffers Astonishingly Fast Snowpack Melt as Drought Intensifies
ANDREW FREEDMAN, April 18, 2014 mashable.com
The severe drought that threatens water supplies and a potentially devastating wildfire season is deepening and locking into place across much of the far West, Southwest and Southern Plains, according to new climate data released Thursday.
In California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, where runoff from the spring snowpack provides much-needed water supplies during the dry season, half of the snowpack's liquid water equivalentmelted in just the past week in some areas, due to temperatures that soared as high as 12 degrees Fahrenheit above average of early April, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
To make matters worse, the sudden snow melt in California barely boosted reservoir supplies, which remain well below average across the state.
Officials already knew that the snowpack was unusually thin and would provide below average amounts of water when it melted, considering that the state had its third-driest winter on record, following its driest calendar year in 2013. However, they did not anticipate it would melt so quickly.
The California state snow survey on April 1 found that the snowpack contained just 32% of the average water content at that time of year, when snowpack typically reaches its annual peak. This placed 2014 as among the lowest water-content years on record since such data began in 1930.
The California drought is part of a broader regional drought that encompasses parts of Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, among other areas. In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the California drought is likely to persist throughout the summer, after average precipitation fell during March. This precipitation failed to make up for the deep precipitation deficits the state had been running.
Southern Plains Drought
According to NOAA, drought has expanded and intensified in the Southern Plains as well, where parts of Oklahoma and Texas have been stuck in devastatingly arid conditions since 2010. The geographic extent of extreme and exceptional drought has increased nearly four-fold in Texas, more than five-fold in Oklahoma, and nearly six-fold in New Mexico since the beginning of winter, according to David Brown, a NOAA climate specialist.
New Mexico has had its third-driest start to the year, and Oklahoma and Texas have each had their sixth-driest starts to the year, Brown says.
Nearly two million Southern Plains residents are currently living in areas with "extreme" or "exceptional" drought conditions, which are the two worst categories on the Drought Monitor's scale. The number of affected residents more than doubled since the start of winter, according to Brown. Most of these people are in west Texas and the Texas panhandle, including the cities of Lubbock, Amarillo and Wichita Falls.
Drought Monitor image showing the extent and severity of drought conditions across Texas on April 17, 2014. The dark red areas are where the drought is most intense. IMAGE: U.S. DROUGHT MONITOR
In Wichita Falls, city officials are preparing to raise their water restrictions to an unprecedented "Stage 5" emergency, which would trigger dramatic restrictions on water use. The city also plans to spend $300,000 on cloud seeding this spring, to try to increase rainfall production from thunderstorms. Cloud seeding, which can increase rainfall slightly under specific circumstances, has no chance of alleviating the drought itself, but it could provide some short-term benefits.
Since the start of the drought in October 2010, Wichita Falls has had about 58 inches of rain (and melted snow and ice), Brown said. The typical amount for that period of time is 100 inches. This means that the city needs to make up about a year and a half's worth of precipitation.
Alleviating the drought this spring and summer, Brown says, "would really take an unprecedented amount of spring rainfall.”Alleviating the drought this spring and summer, Brown says, "would really take an unprecedented amount of spring rainfall.”
Victor Murphy, a NOAA meteorologist, gave Mashable further details on Wichita Falls' plight. He said data shows that the past 42 months have been the driest such consecutive period on record in that city, eclipsing any of the drought years in the 1950s and the 1930s "Dust Bowl" era. For water planning purposes, the early 1950s drought is considered to be the drought of record, meaning that the current drought is worse than what policymakers may have prepared for.
The drought is raising concerns about wildfires and massive dust storms this summer, and has already caused an agricultural disaster in the Southern Plains. Texas cattle herds have thinned out, as ranchers are forced to send them to meat plants earlier than planned, or move them northward to states that have water. In response to the drought conditions from Oklahoma to California, meat prices have spiked to their highest level since 1987, and egg prices have also risen by nearly 10% compared to last year, according to the March Consumer Price Index report. Avocado prices are also going up in response to the California drought.
Although May and June are Texas and Oklahoma's wettest months on average, there is such a big rainfall deficit in parts of these states that the drought will almost certainly not be fully eliminated.
If an El Niño event develops as expected by the fall, it could lead to unusually wet conditions from California to Texas next winter, but that is neither guaranteed to happen, nor would it be of any help in the short-term.
While the drought conditions in California and Texas were likely initially triggered by natural variability, such as ocean temperature patterns in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, studies show that manmade global warming can intensify such conditions by raising temperatures and increasing evaporation. In addition, a new study found that manmade global warming likely intensified the weather pattern that has kept California so dry since 2013.
The severe drought that threatens water supplies and a potentially devastating wildfire season is deepening and locking into place across much of the far West, Southwest and Southern Plains, according to new climate data released Thursday.
In California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, where runoff from the spring snowpack provides much-needed water supplies during the dry season, half of the snowpack's liquid water equivalentmelted in just the past week in some areas, due to temperatures that soared as high as 12 degrees Fahrenheit above average of early April, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
To make matters worse, the sudden snow melt in California barely boosted reservoir supplies, which remain well below average across the state.
Officials already knew that the snowpack was unusually thin and would provide below average amounts of water when it melted, considering that the state had its third-driest winter on record, following its driest calendar year in 2013. However, they did not anticipate it would melt so quickly.
The California state snow survey on April 1 found that the snowpack contained just 32% of the average water content at that time of year, when snowpack typically reaches its annual peak. This placed 2014 as among the lowest water-content years on record since such data began in 1930.
The California drought is part of a broader regional drought that encompasses parts of Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, among other areas. In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the California drought is likely to persist throughout the summer, after average precipitation fell during March. This precipitation failed to make up for the deep precipitation deficits the state had been running.
Southern Plains Drought
According to NOAA, drought has expanded and intensified in the Southern Plains as well, where parts of Oklahoma and Texas have been stuck in devastatingly arid conditions since 2010. The geographic extent of extreme and exceptional drought has increased nearly four-fold in Texas, more than five-fold in Oklahoma, and nearly six-fold in New Mexico since the beginning of winter, according to David Brown, a NOAA climate specialist.
New Mexico has had its third-driest start to the year, and Oklahoma and Texas have each had their sixth-driest starts to the year, Brown says.
Nearly two million Southern Plains residents are currently living in areas with "extreme" or "exceptional" drought conditions, which are the two worst categories on the Drought Monitor's scale. The number of affected residents more than doubled since the start of winter, according to Brown. Most of these people are in west Texas and the Texas panhandle, including the cities of Lubbock, Amarillo and Wichita Falls.
Drought Monitor image showing the extent and severity of drought conditions across Texas on April 17, 2014. The dark red areas are where the drought is most intense. IMAGE: U.S. DROUGHT MONITOR
In Wichita Falls, city officials are preparing to raise their water restrictions to an unprecedented "Stage 5" emergency, which would trigger dramatic restrictions on water use. The city also plans to spend $300,000 on cloud seeding this spring, to try to increase rainfall production from thunderstorms. Cloud seeding, which can increase rainfall slightly under specific circumstances, has no chance of alleviating the drought itself, but it could provide some short-term benefits.
Since the start of the drought in October 2010, Wichita Falls has had about 58 inches of rain (and melted snow and ice), Brown said. The typical amount for that period of time is 100 inches. This means that the city needs to make up about a year and a half's worth of precipitation.
Alleviating the drought this spring and summer, Brown says, "would really take an unprecedented amount of spring rainfall.”Alleviating the drought this spring and summer, Brown says, "would really take an unprecedented amount of spring rainfall.”
Victor Murphy, a NOAA meteorologist, gave Mashable further details on Wichita Falls' plight. He said data shows that the past 42 months have been the driest such consecutive period on record in that city, eclipsing any of the drought years in the 1950s and the 1930s "Dust Bowl" era. For water planning purposes, the early 1950s drought is considered to be the drought of record, meaning that the current drought is worse than what policymakers may have prepared for.
The drought is raising concerns about wildfires and massive dust storms this summer, and has already caused an agricultural disaster in the Southern Plains. Texas cattle herds have thinned out, as ranchers are forced to send them to meat plants earlier than planned, or move them northward to states that have water. In response to the drought conditions from Oklahoma to California, meat prices have spiked to their highest level since 1987, and egg prices have also risen by nearly 10% compared to last year, according to the March Consumer Price Index report. Avocado prices are also going up in response to the California drought.
Although May and June are Texas and Oklahoma's wettest months on average, there is such a big rainfall deficit in parts of these states that the drought will almost certainly not be fully eliminated.
If an El Niño event develops as expected by the fall, it could lead to unusually wet conditions from California to Texas next winter, but that is neither guaranteed to happen, nor would it be of any help in the short-term.
While the drought conditions in California and Texas were likely initially triggered by natural variability, such as ocean temperature patterns in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, studies show that manmade global warming can intensify such conditions by raising temperatures and increasing evaporation. In addition, a new study found that manmade global warming likely intensified the weather pattern that has kept California so dry since 2013.
Monday, March 24, 2014
People May Die of Thirst as Fossil Fuel Production Exhausts and Pollutes Our Fresh Water Supply
People May Die of Thirst as Fossil Fuel Production Exhausts and Pollutes Our Fresh Water Supply
MARK KARLIN, 24 March 2014 TRUTHOUT
You cannot live without water, but the fossil fuel industry is counting on squeezing the last drop out of the Earth to extract oil and natural gas.
On March 21, Bloomberg news ran an article, "Global Energy Thirst Threatens Water Supplies, UN Says." It's rather grim to foresee that when the fresh water runs out or becomes too polluted to drink -- and desalination plants can only provide a small portion of drinking water -- the only option that the fuel industry may leave us with is imbibing toxic oil sludge.
Truthout and BuzzFlash are able to confront the forces of greed and regression only because we don’t take corporate funding. Support us in this fight: make a tax-deductible donation today by clicking here!
According to Bloomberg News coverage of the latest United Nations World Water Development Report on which its article is based:
Shale gas and oil production as well as biofuels “can pose significant risks” to water resources, pitting energy producers against farmers, factories and providers of drinking and sanitation services, the agency said....
Water-related needs for energy production have tripled since 1995, according to GE Water, while more than half of the global cotton production is grown in areas with high water risks. Electricity demand is forecast to rise at least two-thirds by 2035, driven by population growth.
"Significant risks" is perhaps an understatement as to the threat posed by such oil and other fossil fuel extraction processes that threaten a global supply that is already inadequate and is highly likey to decrease due to global warming.
A February Guardian UK commentary noted in an aritcle entitled, "Fracking is depleting water supplies in America's driest areas, report shows. From Texas to California, drilling for oil and gas is using billions of gallons of water in the country's most drought-prone areas":
America's oil and gas rush is depleting water supplies in the driest and most drought-prone areas of the country, from Texas to California, new research has found.
Of the nearly 40,000 oil and gas wells drilled since 2011, three-quarters were located in areas where water is scarce, and 55% were in areas experiencing drought, the report by the Ceres investor network found.
Fracking those wells used 97 [billion] gallons of water, raising new concerns about unforeseen costs of America's energy rush.
The spiral of self-destruction for the species is not only the fresh water that is lost and polluted by fracking, the water used by fracking and other fossil fuel production methods is competing with water needed by farms. As the water necessary for agricultural production decreases, there will be less food and higher prices for what can be cultivated.
Looking at another fossil fuel extraction process that is a net destroyer of the Earth and the basic water and sustenance we need to survive, Friends of the Earth evaluates the impact of tar sands processing:
Extracting the fossil fuels in tar sands from the sand, silt, and clay requires enormous amounts of water. It takes about three barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil. More than 90 percent of this water, 400 million gallons per day, ends up as toxic waste dumped in massive pools that contain carcinogenic substances like cyanide.
Of course, the fossil fuel industry regularly pollutes rivers, streams and lakes in the US through coal mining residue, refineries, pipeline spills and so many other negligent factors. That is also the case with the tar sands production, leading to more water lost to pollution.
The bottom line is chilling: the fossil fuel energy complex is so wealthy and has so much power, it is the tysannosaurs rex of industrial development ravaging the Earth. Without full awareness of the general polutation of the world: big oil and its colleagues (along with the US, Canadian, and UK governments, among others) have decided to push energy development to absurd proportions that will limit the life of the human species on the planet in order to make billions of dollars more in profit.
The depletion of fresh water due to its exponentially growing roll in the fossil fuel extraction is just one part of the problem of extinction that faces us. The other, of course, is that these methods themselves are only worsening the carbon crisis that is primarily causing global warming -- and that in turn will dry up even more fresh water.
Recently, Truthout featured "Windfall" as its Progressive Pick of the Week. An excerpt from the book was headlined, "Profiteers Are Lining Up To Make Money Off Global Warming." The key point of the book is that for every destructive impact of the industries causing climate change and a tempestuous disruption of the Earth's eco-balance, there are corporations and investors scheming to make money off of the devastation.
One key area is the growing privatization of water supplies, so that when fresh water becomes extremely scarce, the companies and financiers who have invested in owning lakes and tributary systems will demand a premium price for the right to survive in an environment where the temperatures are soaring.
You'll theoretically have a choice between five dollars for a glass of water and a glass of toxic sludge.
In such a scenario, only the wealthy will survive.
MARK KARLIN, 24 March 2014 TRUTHOUT
You cannot live without water, but the fossil fuel industry is counting on squeezing the last drop out of the Earth to extract oil and natural gas.
On March 21, Bloomberg news ran an article, "Global Energy Thirst Threatens Water Supplies, UN Says." It's rather grim to foresee that when the fresh water runs out or becomes too polluted to drink -- and desalination plants can only provide a small portion of drinking water -- the only option that the fuel industry may leave us with is imbibing toxic oil sludge.
Truthout and BuzzFlash are able to confront the forces of greed and regression only because we don’t take corporate funding. Support us in this fight: make a tax-deductible donation today by clicking here!
According to Bloomberg News coverage of the latest United Nations World Water Development Report on which its article is based:
Shale gas and oil production as well as biofuels “can pose significant risks” to water resources, pitting energy producers against farmers, factories and providers of drinking and sanitation services, the agency said....
Water-related needs for energy production have tripled since 1995, according to GE Water, while more than half of the global cotton production is grown in areas with high water risks. Electricity demand is forecast to rise at least two-thirds by 2035, driven by population growth.
"Significant risks" is perhaps an understatement as to the threat posed by such oil and other fossil fuel extraction processes that threaten a global supply that is already inadequate and is highly likey to decrease due to global warming.
A February Guardian UK commentary noted in an aritcle entitled, "Fracking is depleting water supplies in America's driest areas, report shows. From Texas to California, drilling for oil and gas is using billions of gallons of water in the country's most drought-prone areas":
America's oil and gas rush is depleting water supplies in the driest and most drought-prone areas of the country, from Texas to California, new research has found.
Of the nearly 40,000 oil and gas wells drilled since 2011, three-quarters were located in areas where water is scarce, and 55% were in areas experiencing drought, the report by the Ceres investor network found.
Fracking those wells used 97 [billion] gallons of water, raising new concerns about unforeseen costs of America's energy rush.
The spiral of self-destruction for the species is not only the fresh water that is lost and polluted by fracking, the water used by fracking and other fossil fuel production methods is competing with water needed by farms. As the water necessary for agricultural production decreases, there will be less food and higher prices for what can be cultivated.
Looking at another fossil fuel extraction process that is a net destroyer of the Earth and the basic water and sustenance we need to survive, Friends of the Earth evaluates the impact of tar sands processing:
Extracting the fossil fuels in tar sands from the sand, silt, and clay requires enormous amounts of water. It takes about three barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil. More than 90 percent of this water, 400 million gallons per day, ends up as toxic waste dumped in massive pools that contain carcinogenic substances like cyanide.
Of course, the fossil fuel industry regularly pollutes rivers, streams and lakes in the US through coal mining residue, refineries, pipeline spills and so many other negligent factors. That is also the case with the tar sands production, leading to more water lost to pollution.
The bottom line is chilling: the fossil fuel energy complex is so wealthy and has so much power, it is the tysannosaurs rex of industrial development ravaging the Earth. Without full awareness of the general polutation of the world: big oil and its colleagues (along with the US, Canadian, and UK governments, among others) have decided to push energy development to absurd proportions that will limit the life of the human species on the planet in order to make billions of dollars more in profit.
The depletion of fresh water due to its exponentially growing roll in the fossil fuel extraction is just one part of the problem of extinction that faces us. The other, of course, is that these methods themselves are only worsening the carbon crisis that is primarily causing global warming -- and that in turn will dry up even more fresh water.
Recently, Truthout featured "Windfall" as its Progressive Pick of the Week. An excerpt from the book was headlined, "Profiteers Are Lining Up To Make Money Off Global Warming." The key point of the book is that for every destructive impact of the industries causing climate change and a tempestuous disruption of the Earth's eco-balance, there are corporations and investors scheming to make money off of the devastation.
One key area is the growing privatization of water supplies, so that when fresh water becomes extremely scarce, the companies and financiers who have invested in owning lakes and tributary systems will demand a premium price for the right to survive in an environment where the temperatures are soaring.
You'll theoretically have a choice between five dollars for a glass of water and a glass of toxic sludge.
In such a scenario, only the wealthy will survive.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Reporting on a World of Environmental Catastrophes - All in Just One Month
(Image: Earth and sun via Shutterstock)
Reporting on a World of Environmental Catastrophes - All in Just One Month
When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
- Cree Prophecy
Earth
One-third of all the organic farmers in the United States are now reporting widespread contamination by genetically modified crops. Over half of the growers have had entire loads of their grain rejected due to their having unwittingly been contaminated by GMO’s.
Speaking of frankenfood, in Sri Lanka and South American, an herbicide developed by Monsanto, along with a phosphate fertilizer, are likely the causes of an epidemic of a mysterious kidney disease in the areas where rice and sugarcane are grown.
On the fossil fuel front, in Canada, large man-made lakes of oil sands mining waste are leaking into the Athabasca River, while "progress" is being made towards the building of two new giant pipelines that would rapidly expand Alberta’s tar sands project.
In Australia, it was recently revealed that the Australian "Environment Department" did not conduct an independent analysis of how much it would cost monetarily to dump dredged soil onto land before it granted permission to dump it on the Great Barrier Reef.
Given the ever-growing preponderance of our usage of electronics, all of us are morally obligated to look at these photos of Agbogbloshie, which was formerly a wetland in Accra, Ghana. Today, it is now the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite, where discarded computer monitors are used to build footbridges to cross rivers.
A new study has confirmed that a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in Oklahoma - one of the state's biggest man-made quakes - was caused by fracking-linked wastewater injections.
Water
Even the depths of the oceans are now at risk.
Two and a half miles deep in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, mining companies are looking for ore deposits needed to keep feeding the industrial machine and continued production of "smart" phones. The number of companies looking to mine the pristine ocean depths has tripled in recent years, and the deputy secretary general of the International Seabed Authority had this to say of the ramping up of movement toward destroying ecosystems we hardly understand: "The amount of activity has expanded exponentially."
Never mind that the rapacious machine that runs upon exponential growth has quite possibly already driven Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) past the point of no return, making short-term human extinction not out of the realm of possibility.
Like the rest of the planet, the oceans are being mined, drilled, dredged, polluted and irradiated.
Examples of this abound, but here are just a few.
The state of Alaska now wants the federal government to remove endangered speciesprotections for humpback whales, so as to remove a hurdle for companies that want to explore the Arctic Coast for oil. Given that the Obama administration has provided no evidence that the president will make a decision that would prioritize environmental protection over corporate profit, humpback whales are in trouble. Even the Supreme Court is doing what it can to protect the major emitters of greenhouse gases.
The lunacy of Alaska’s decision comes into even clearer focus given the fact that this year’s Iditarod sled dog race is facing a minor problem - not enough snow.
A new study led by NASA researches shows that fresh water flowing from rivers into the Arctic Ocean is having a powerful impact on the extent of sea ice cover, since the warm water discharges accelerate the melting of sea ice near the coast. This melting also has a wider climate impact: It creates more open water, which is darker than ice and thus absorbs more heat from sunlight, further accelerating planetary warming.
Not surprisingly, in the Gulf of Mexico, dolphins that were exposed to BP’s oil and dispersants from what remains (to date) the largest marine oil disaster in US history,are suffering from a host of maladies, including lung disease and adrenal problems.
A new study published in Current Biology shows that small fragments of plastic waste are damaging the health of lugworms, which happen to be a key cog in the marine ecosystem.
A massive die-off of oysters and scallops off the coast of British Columbia has fishermen and seafood salespersons deeply troubled. Ocean acidification, a direct result of ACD, is suspected as the cause. Further south, Brazil’s shellfishing communities are now blighted by industrial pollution. "There’s this chemical product in the water," fisherwoman Edinilda de Ponto dos Carvalhos said of the phenomenon. "It has no smell, but it kills everything."
Off the coast of South Africa, 4,000 penguins and hundreds of seabird nests were oiled when a fishing trawler carrying approximately 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel ran aground less than three miles from the Betty’s Bay Marine Protected Area.
Back in the United States, a recent oil spill closed down a 65-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that included the Port of New Orleans. The Mississippi, of course, flows into the fragile marsh, where 90 percent of all the organisms in the Gulf of Mexico spend some part of their lives.
Drinking water problems continue to grow all over North America.
People in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, are trying to stop the state from spreading sewage sludge on soils. The state calls the sewage sludge "biosolids" and says it will enrich the soil and improve the overall health of the land and animals. The people are complaining of the stench of the sewage, in addition to the fact that it is making them sick.
Speaking of feces, factory farms of pigs are poisoning Iowa’s drinking water, due to the fact that millions of pigs are jammed into overcrowded barns across the state. While they are being fattened for slaughter, they are also breeding superbugs, which can find their way into the groundwater.
Meanwhile in Delaware, the water quality of the creeks, rivers and streams running through the state is so bad that little of it is even considered healthy. In fact, 94 percent of the state’s rivers and streams are so polluted, fish are unable to thrive. Humans are even told not to swim in 85 percent of them.
In West Virginia, the January chemical spill that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians around Charleston garnered immense media coverage. However, most Americans remain unaware of the fact that many people in rural West Virginia living in places outside the reach of the spill had already been living without drinkable tap water for months, and in some places, years due to contamination from the mining industry.
Of course the rapacious march for ever more oil drilling continues apace, with prospectors now hoping to find their next big gusher in south Florida’s fragile Everglades, whose wetlands are habitats for more than 60 threatened and endangered species, along with the fact that they play an integral role in providing around 7 million residents in south Florida with their drinking water.
As the industrial growth society continues its destructive trundle of consumption and pollution in the name of increasing profit for next quarter’s financial statement, the signs of ACD continue unabated.
Low-lying countries are, of course, already losing land to rising oceans, with even greater displacement coming soon. A recent report shows that Indonesia will likely lose an estimated 1,500 islands to rising oceans by the year 2050. But before that happens, likely by 2030, the country’s International Airport, which serves the capital, will be completely under water. In fact, Jakarta, with 40 percent of its land below sea level, is sinking and will see all of its northern districts turn into lakes by the time the airport is under water.
The flipside of rising seas is increasing drought and/or flash floods on the continents.
In northern India, the once massive Tawi River used to flow through the city of Jammu so powerfully that residents had to take boats to cross it. Today, the river isbarely knee deep for most of the year and has turned into a dumping ground for untreated city waste.
Ongoing research published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change shows us that the number of days with extreme heat will continue to increase even when the overall average does not. And, disturbingly, it is these days of heat extremes, not the average daily temperatures, that matter most when it comes to impact on wildlife, farming and humans.
Another recent report forecasts California’s climate to continue to become hotter and drier, aside from occasional torrential rains and flash floods. The state will continue to get less and less water from an ever-decreasing snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, and the Pacific Ocean will continue rising and consuming the state’s coastal areas.
Weather extremes, the new normal due to ACD, are visible daily around the globe.
Malaysia, a country that usually brings to mind tropical rainforests and beaches, now finds millions of residents having to ration their water due to a scorchingdrought.
Sri Lanka is also in the midst of an extreme heat wave and accompanying drought. Fears there continue to mount as increasing power cuts and interruptions to the country's water supply due to low reservoir levels worsen.
The flip side of this part of the climate coin is deluges of rain and the flooding that comes with it.
Residents on Caribbean islands hit by massive storms over Christmas are stillstruggling to recover, as are folks in the UK, who have recently experienced the worst flooding in the history of the country. A recent study brings no solace to UK residents, as it shows that the frequency of severe flooding across Europe is set to double by 2050, a phenomenon which will bring a fivefold increase in annual economic losses resulting from flooding.
Australia can expect the other extreme, as the recent State of the Climate report by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology shows the country being hit by even more extreme heat and high fire danger and the southern regions of the country drying up. The report says these trends will only continue to accelerate as the planet continues heating up and that the projected increase in the number of extremely hot days is underlined by the fact that there were more extreme heat days in 2013 than in the entire 1910-1940 period.
This is particularly bad news, given that the current drought in Queensland is officially the worst and most widespread on record, with 15 more districts and shires in Australia recently declaring drought.
A coal seam gas project in Australia has contaminated a nearby aquifer with uranium at levels 20 times higher than those set by safe drinking water guidelines.
Regarding the oceans, ACD has advanced enough already that even the ocean dynamics of Antarctica are being disrupted, according to another recent study. The report cites the example of a massive ice-free region the size of New Zealand, which used to be a frozen part of the ice blanket of the southern ocean surrounding the ice continent, but has recently disappeared from the region.
Meanwhile at the other pole, new research shows that the Arctic sea ice season has been shortening by five days per decade, due to the formation of sea ice being delayed by warming weather. The study, which appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, indicates that the Arctic Ocean is absorbing more of the sun’s energy in the summer due to shrinking ice cover, and this is leading to the delayed appearance of the autumn sea ice.
Air
Is it not amazing that humans construct massive cities, populate them by the millions, then live amid pollution so intense it kills us?
Beijing is perhaps the best example, being the worst-case scenario of countless smog-choked cities around the planet. Scientists have deemed the air there to be so bad the place is "barely suitable" for living. Last year’s monitoring of Chinese cities showed that more than 95 percent of them failed to meet environmental standards.
Air pollution from coal already kills over 1,000,000 people per year in China, and in vast swaths of the country, life expectancy is already reduced by at least five years.
In fact, Chinese scientists now warn that the entire country’s air pollution is so bad that it resembles a nuclear winter that is even slowing the photosynthesis in plants, which of course will be catastrophic to the country’s food supply for its massive population.
Amazingly, the Chinese state is deploying drones that will spray chemicals into the smog, causing it to solidify and fall to the ground, as part of their "war on pollution."
In Australia, residents in the Latrobe valley are protesting because smoke from a nearby coalmine fire has blanketed their area for several weeks, bringing the town to a standstill and turning the town into a "national disaster" since the pollution reached levels more than 22 times above the recommended safe levels, triggering a health alert.
Then there are the other ongoing, unintended consequences.
Researchers recently found an ancient "giant virus" that was, emphasis on "was," buried deep within the Siberia permafrost. The virus had been previously untouched for more than 30,000 years, but now has been revived. Scientists, of course, blame ACD and "industrial activities" for bringing this and other potential pathogens to the surface.
Another pathogen, the West Nile virus, is now expected to increase in incidence, also due to advancing ACD.
Warmer temperatures are also now causing malaria to spread to new altitudes in the African and South American highlands, traditionally havens from the disease, scientists say.
A doctor in the United States is now proclaiming that ACD constitutes a public health emergency, because it is causing an increase in asthma, hay fever, ADHD, blue baby syndrome and gastroenteritis.
Fire
Radiation from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is being tracked, and a recent study shows radioactive cesium from the Japanese plant reaching the Pacific Coast of North America by April.
Fukushima remains on the forefront of many folks’ minds because it is an ongoing disaster, and its direct impact on our health is obvious. However, we tend to forget how much radiation has already been bombed into the oceans.
Those who have been bombed, however, haven’t forgotten.
Residents of the Marshall Islands recently marked 60 years since the United States dropped a hydrogen bomb on the Bikini Atoll, causing islanders to be exiled from their homeland. Islanders, rightly remain too fearful to go back because of the nuclear contamination.
The United States conducted six nuclear tests there in all, leaving hundreds of forgotten victims among the islanders to live with ongoing health effects and painful memories of loved ones lost from radiation exposure.
Closer to home for those living in the United States, "significant construction flaws" in some of the "newer" double-walled storage tanks at Washington state’s Hanford nuclear waste complex could lead to additional leaks of some of the worst radioactive waste at the most contaminated nuclear site in the country.
Not to be outdone, the only nuclear waste repository in the United States, located in Carlsbad, New Mexico, has an ongoing radiation leak. But that has not stopped the brilliant minds running the repository from pushing to obtain even more nuclear waste.
Japan is struggling with ongoing radiation problems, as more than 500 tons of radioactive waste from Fukushima that is being stored in Tokyo is threatening residents.
Shockingly, all of this ongoing pollution and dramatic evidence of ongoing ACD are happening amid what US and UK scientists recently described as a brief slowdown in global warming. Everything you’ve just read is occurring despite the planet being in the midst of a "pause" in a longer-term trend of increasing temperatures, according to Britain’s Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Their joint announcement added that the current "slowdown" in the pace of global warming since a peak in 1998 "does not invalidate our understanding of long-term changes in global temperature arising from human-induced changes in greenhouse gases."
Yet, there remain those who have chosen to remain willfully ignorant of ACD and ignore the evidence from around the globe that is slapping us in the face every day. Those folks aren’t likely to believe the pedantic scientific data produced by sophomoric institutions like Britain’s Royal Society or the US National Academy of Sciences.
Hence, they are also unlikely to believe anything that comes out of the "progressive" and "left-leaning" US Pentagon, which just released its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, which states:
"Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions - conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."
Every single piece of information you’ve just read is only from the last month.
This is what catastrophic ACD looks like.
This information may lack the dramatic background music and thrilling scenes that would accompany the Hollywood blockbuster movie that many in the United States might expect advancing ACD to look like. However, it is real. It is happening right now. And it is time for all of us to pay attention.
Reporting on a World of Environmental Catastrophes - All in Just One Month
Dahr Jamail, 17 March 2014 Truthout
When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
- Cree Prophecy
Earth
One-third of all the organic farmers in the United States are now reporting widespread contamination by genetically modified crops. Over half of the growers have had entire loads of their grain rejected due to their having unwittingly been contaminated by GMO’s.
Speaking of frankenfood, in Sri Lanka and South American, an herbicide developed by Monsanto, along with a phosphate fertilizer, are likely the causes of an epidemic of a mysterious kidney disease in the areas where rice and sugarcane are grown.
On the fossil fuel front, in Canada, large man-made lakes of oil sands mining waste are leaking into the Athabasca River, while "progress" is being made towards the building of two new giant pipelines that would rapidly expand Alberta’s tar sands project.
In Australia, it was recently revealed that the Australian "Environment Department" did not conduct an independent analysis of how much it would cost monetarily to dump dredged soil onto land before it granted permission to dump it on the Great Barrier Reef.
Given the ever-growing preponderance of our usage of electronics, all of us are morally obligated to look at these photos of Agbogbloshie, which was formerly a wetland in Accra, Ghana. Today, it is now the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite, where discarded computer monitors are used to build footbridges to cross rivers.
A new study has confirmed that a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in Oklahoma - one of the state's biggest man-made quakes - was caused by fracking-linked wastewater injections.
Water
Even the depths of the oceans are now at risk.
Two and a half miles deep in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, mining companies are looking for ore deposits needed to keep feeding the industrial machine and continued production of "smart" phones. The number of companies looking to mine the pristine ocean depths has tripled in recent years, and the deputy secretary general of the International Seabed Authority had this to say of the ramping up of movement toward destroying ecosystems we hardly understand: "The amount of activity has expanded exponentially."
Never mind that the rapacious machine that runs upon exponential growth has quite possibly already driven Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) past the point of no return, making short-term human extinction not out of the realm of possibility.
Like the rest of the planet, the oceans are being mined, drilled, dredged, polluted and irradiated.
Examples of this abound, but here are just a few.
The state of Alaska now wants the federal government to remove endangered speciesprotections for humpback whales, so as to remove a hurdle for companies that want to explore the Arctic Coast for oil. Given that the Obama administration has provided no evidence that the president will make a decision that would prioritize environmental protection over corporate profit, humpback whales are in trouble. Even the Supreme Court is doing what it can to protect the major emitters of greenhouse gases.
The lunacy of Alaska’s decision comes into even clearer focus given the fact that this year’s Iditarod sled dog race is facing a minor problem - not enough snow.
A new study led by NASA researches shows that fresh water flowing from rivers into the Arctic Ocean is having a powerful impact on the extent of sea ice cover, since the warm water discharges accelerate the melting of sea ice near the coast. This melting also has a wider climate impact: It creates more open water, which is darker than ice and thus absorbs more heat from sunlight, further accelerating planetary warming.
Not surprisingly, in the Gulf of Mexico, dolphins that were exposed to BP’s oil and dispersants from what remains (to date) the largest marine oil disaster in US history,are suffering from a host of maladies, including lung disease and adrenal problems.
A new study published in Current Biology shows that small fragments of plastic waste are damaging the health of lugworms, which happen to be a key cog in the marine ecosystem.
A massive die-off of oysters and scallops off the coast of British Columbia has fishermen and seafood salespersons deeply troubled. Ocean acidification, a direct result of ACD, is suspected as the cause. Further south, Brazil’s shellfishing communities are now blighted by industrial pollution. "There’s this chemical product in the water," fisherwoman Edinilda de Ponto dos Carvalhos said of the phenomenon. "It has no smell, but it kills everything."
Off the coast of South Africa, 4,000 penguins and hundreds of seabird nests were oiled when a fishing trawler carrying approximately 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel ran aground less than three miles from the Betty’s Bay Marine Protected Area.
Back in the United States, a recent oil spill closed down a 65-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that included the Port of New Orleans. The Mississippi, of course, flows into the fragile marsh, where 90 percent of all the organisms in the Gulf of Mexico spend some part of their lives.
Drinking water problems continue to grow all over North America.
People in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, are trying to stop the state from spreading sewage sludge on soils. The state calls the sewage sludge "biosolids" and says it will enrich the soil and improve the overall health of the land and animals. The people are complaining of the stench of the sewage, in addition to the fact that it is making them sick.
Speaking of feces, factory farms of pigs are poisoning Iowa’s drinking water, due to the fact that millions of pigs are jammed into overcrowded barns across the state. While they are being fattened for slaughter, they are also breeding superbugs, which can find their way into the groundwater.
Meanwhile in Delaware, the water quality of the creeks, rivers and streams running through the state is so bad that little of it is even considered healthy. In fact, 94 percent of the state’s rivers and streams are so polluted, fish are unable to thrive. Humans are even told not to swim in 85 percent of them.
In West Virginia, the January chemical spill that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians around Charleston garnered immense media coverage. However, most Americans remain unaware of the fact that many people in rural West Virginia living in places outside the reach of the spill had already been living without drinkable tap water for months, and in some places, years due to contamination from the mining industry.
Of course the rapacious march for ever more oil drilling continues apace, with prospectors now hoping to find their next big gusher in south Florida’s fragile Everglades, whose wetlands are habitats for more than 60 threatened and endangered species, along with the fact that they play an integral role in providing around 7 million residents in south Florida with their drinking water.
As the industrial growth society continues its destructive trundle of consumption and pollution in the name of increasing profit for next quarter’s financial statement, the signs of ACD continue unabated.
Low-lying countries are, of course, already losing land to rising oceans, with even greater displacement coming soon. A recent report shows that Indonesia will likely lose an estimated 1,500 islands to rising oceans by the year 2050. But before that happens, likely by 2030, the country’s International Airport, which serves the capital, will be completely under water. In fact, Jakarta, with 40 percent of its land below sea level, is sinking and will see all of its northern districts turn into lakes by the time the airport is under water.
The flipside of rising seas is increasing drought and/or flash floods on the continents.
In northern India, the once massive Tawi River used to flow through the city of Jammu so powerfully that residents had to take boats to cross it. Today, the river isbarely knee deep for most of the year and has turned into a dumping ground for untreated city waste.
Ongoing research published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change shows us that the number of days with extreme heat will continue to increase even when the overall average does not. And, disturbingly, it is these days of heat extremes, not the average daily temperatures, that matter most when it comes to impact on wildlife, farming and humans.
Another recent report forecasts California’s climate to continue to become hotter and drier, aside from occasional torrential rains and flash floods. The state will continue to get less and less water from an ever-decreasing snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, and the Pacific Ocean will continue rising and consuming the state’s coastal areas.
Weather extremes, the new normal due to ACD, are visible daily around the globe.
Malaysia, a country that usually brings to mind tropical rainforests and beaches, now finds millions of residents having to ration their water due to a scorchingdrought.
Sri Lanka is also in the midst of an extreme heat wave and accompanying drought. Fears there continue to mount as increasing power cuts and interruptions to the country's water supply due to low reservoir levels worsen.
The flip side of this part of the climate coin is deluges of rain and the flooding that comes with it.
Residents on Caribbean islands hit by massive storms over Christmas are stillstruggling to recover, as are folks in the UK, who have recently experienced the worst flooding in the history of the country. A recent study brings no solace to UK residents, as it shows that the frequency of severe flooding across Europe is set to double by 2050, a phenomenon which will bring a fivefold increase in annual economic losses resulting from flooding.
Australia can expect the other extreme, as the recent State of the Climate report by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology shows the country being hit by even more extreme heat and high fire danger and the southern regions of the country drying up. The report says these trends will only continue to accelerate as the planet continues heating up and that the projected increase in the number of extremely hot days is underlined by the fact that there were more extreme heat days in 2013 than in the entire 1910-1940 period.
This is particularly bad news, given that the current drought in Queensland is officially the worst and most widespread on record, with 15 more districts and shires in Australia recently declaring drought.
A coal seam gas project in Australia has contaminated a nearby aquifer with uranium at levels 20 times higher than those set by safe drinking water guidelines.
Regarding the oceans, ACD has advanced enough already that even the ocean dynamics of Antarctica are being disrupted, according to another recent study. The report cites the example of a massive ice-free region the size of New Zealand, which used to be a frozen part of the ice blanket of the southern ocean surrounding the ice continent, but has recently disappeared from the region.
Meanwhile at the other pole, new research shows that the Arctic sea ice season has been shortening by five days per decade, due to the formation of sea ice being delayed by warming weather. The study, which appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, indicates that the Arctic Ocean is absorbing more of the sun’s energy in the summer due to shrinking ice cover, and this is leading to the delayed appearance of the autumn sea ice.
Air
Is it not amazing that humans construct massive cities, populate them by the millions, then live amid pollution so intense it kills us?
Beijing is perhaps the best example, being the worst-case scenario of countless smog-choked cities around the planet. Scientists have deemed the air there to be so bad the place is "barely suitable" for living. Last year’s monitoring of Chinese cities showed that more than 95 percent of them failed to meet environmental standards.
Air pollution from coal already kills over 1,000,000 people per year in China, and in vast swaths of the country, life expectancy is already reduced by at least five years.
In fact, Chinese scientists now warn that the entire country’s air pollution is so bad that it resembles a nuclear winter that is even slowing the photosynthesis in plants, which of course will be catastrophic to the country’s food supply for its massive population.
Amazingly, the Chinese state is deploying drones that will spray chemicals into the smog, causing it to solidify and fall to the ground, as part of their "war on pollution."
In Australia, residents in the Latrobe valley are protesting because smoke from a nearby coalmine fire has blanketed their area for several weeks, bringing the town to a standstill and turning the town into a "national disaster" since the pollution reached levels more than 22 times above the recommended safe levels, triggering a health alert.
Then there are the other ongoing, unintended consequences.
Researchers recently found an ancient "giant virus" that was, emphasis on "was," buried deep within the Siberia permafrost. The virus had been previously untouched for more than 30,000 years, but now has been revived. Scientists, of course, blame ACD and "industrial activities" for bringing this and other potential pathogens to the surface.
Another pathogen, the West Nile virus, is now expected to increase in incidence, also due to advancing ACD.
Warmer temperatures are also now causing malaria to spread to new altitudes in the African and South American highlands, traditionally havens from the disease, scientists say.
A doctor in the United States is now proclaiming that ACD constitutes a public health emergency, because it is causing an increase in asthma, hay fever, ADHD, blue baby syndrome and gastroenteritis.
Fire
Radiation from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is being tracked, and a recent study shows radioactive cesium from the Japanese plant reaching the Pacific Coast of North America by April.
Fukushima remains on the forefront of many folks’ minds because it is an ongoing disaster, and its direct impact on our health is obvious. However, we tend to forget how much radiation has already been bombed into the oceans.
Those who have been bombed, however, haven’t forgotten.
Residents of the Marshall Islands recently marked 60 years since the United States dropped a hydrogen bomb on the Bikini Atoll, causing islanders to be exiled from their homeland. Islanders, rightly remain too fearful to go back because of the nuclear contamination.
The United States conducted six nuclear tests there in all, leaving hundreds of forgotten victims among the islanders to live with ongoing health effects and painful memories of loved ones lost from radiation exposure.
Closer to home for those living in the United States, "significant construction flaws" in some of the "newer" double-walled storage tanks at Washington state’s Hanford nuclear waste complex could lead to additional leaks of some of the worst radioactive waste at the most contaminated nuclear site in the country.
Not to be outdone, the only nuclear waste repository in the United States, located in Carlsbad, New Mexico, has an ongoing radiation leak. But that has not stopped the brilliant minds running the repository from pushing to obtain even more nuclear waste.
Japan is struggling with ongoing radiation problems, as more than 500 tons of radioactive waste from Fukushima that is being stored in Tokyo is threatening residents.
Shockingly, all of this ongoing pollution and dramatic evidence of ongoing ACD are happening amid what US and UK scientists recently described as a brief slowdown in global warming. Everything you’ve just read is occurring despite the planet being in the midst of a "pause" in a longer-term trend of increasing temperatures, according to Britain’s Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Their joint announcement added that the current "slowdown" in the pace of global warming since a peak in 1998 "does not invalidate our understanding of long-term changes in global temperature arising from human-induced changes in greenhouse gases."
Yet, there remain those who have chosen to remain willfully ignorant of ACD and ignore the evidence from around the globe that is slapping us in the face every day. Those folks aren’t likely to believe the pedantic scientific data produced by sophomoric institutions like Britain’s Royal Society or the US National Academy of Sciences.
Hence, they are also unlikely to believe anything that comes out of the "progressive" and "left-leaning" US Pentagon, which just released its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, which states:
"Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions - conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."
Every single piece of information you’ve just read is only from the last month.
This is what catastrophic ACD looks like.
This information may lack the dramatic background music and thrilling scenes that would accompany the Hollywood blockbuster movie that many in the United States might expect advancing ACD to look like. However, it is real. It is happening right now. And it is time for all of us to pay attention.
Monday, March 17, 2014
State of the Future report: Humans are doing OK, but nature suffers as a result – and we’ll pay for it
Report warns that across the world, water, essential for survival, is running low – with water tables falling in every continent
State of the Future report: Humans are doing OK, but nature suffers as a result – and we’ll pay for it
JONATHAN OWEN, 16 March 2014 independent.co.uk
The future's bright – but only if we rise to the challenges which threaten environmental catastrophe, a major new report warns this week.
Future generations are destined to be healthier, wealthier, better educated, and are set to live longer lives, but it will be at an untold cost to the environment unless action is taken to prevent it.
"The global situation for humanity continues to improve in general, but at the expense of the environment," says the authoritative State of the Future report. "We are winning more than we are losing – but where we are losing is very serious.... It is clear that humanity has the ideas and resources to address its global challenges, but it has not yet shown the leadership, policies, and management on the scale necessary to guarantee a better future."
The report – backed by organisations such as Unesco, the Smithsonian Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation, and drawing on contributions from hundreds of experts around the globe – concludes that the world is "improving better than most pessimists know", while "future dangers are worse than most optimists indicate".
The outlook for the next decade is positive, it says. The report details an index based on analysis of 30 factors, ranging from education and health to freedom, the environment and wealth. It began in 1993, and while it "indicates a slower progress since 2007... the overall outlook is promising".
However, it warns that across the world, water, essential for survival, is running low – with water tables falling in every continent. Civil wars and refugee numbers are on the rise, income gaps are "increasingly obscene", youth unemployment has reached "dangerous proportions", and half the world is "potentially unstable", according to the report by the Millennium Project think tank, formerly part of the World Federation of United Nations Associations.
The world is also under threat from organised crime – representing an army of criminality so vast in scale that it takes in £1.8trn a year, around twice as much as the world's military budgets combined.
Although poverty is being reduced faster "than many thought was possible", the divide between rich and poor "is growing faster than many want to admit". Half of the world's wealth is owned by only 1 per cent of the population. This inequality needs to be addressed "if long-term instability is to be avoided".
And the flipside of progress in education means that a new generation is becoming "less tolerant of the abuse of elite power than in the past", with growing youth unemployment meaning "more people have more time to do something about this abuse".
The report warns: "Unless these elites open the conversation about the future with the rest of their populations, unrest and revolutions are likely to continue and increase." And "an increasingly educated and internet-connected generation is rising up against the abuse of power around the world and demanding accountability".
Another driver of change will be the world's growing population, set to increase by a billion in little more than a decade. This will result in "unprecedented demand for food, water, energy, and employment".
Natural resources "are being depleted faster than nature can resupply them", and: "Unless we improve our economic, environmental, and social behaviors, the next 100 years could be disastrous."
Among the recommendations are that the US and China agree on a 10-year environmental goal to reduce climate change, and a worldwide strategy to fight against organised crime.
"It is reasonable to be cautiously optimistic," says Jerome Glenn, director of the Millennium Project and a co-author of the report. "Collective intelligence systems are quickly improving to eventually make us act smarter, wasting less time," he added.
The report's authors conclude: "The world needs hardheaded idealists who can look into the worst and best of humanity to create and implement strategies of success."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)