World must fix climate in less than 10 years -UNDP | 27 Nov 2007 17:55:29 GMT | Source: Reuters | By Raymond Colitt
BRASILIA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Unless the international community agrees to cut carbon emissions by half over the next generation, climate change is likely to cause large-scale human and economic setbacks and irreversible ecological catastrophes, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.
The U.N. Human Development Report issued one of the strongest warnings yet of the lasting impact of climate change on living standards and a strong call for urgent collective action.
"We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years," Kevin Watkins, lead author of the report, told Reuters. ...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Northern Hemisphere is the warmest this year since record-keeping started 127 years ago
Winter forecast a mild one as temperatures get toastier | By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
The Northern Hemisphere is the warmest this year since record-keeping started 127 years ago, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Temperatures for January through October averaged 1.3 degrees above the norm. If the trend continues, the year could break the record for the warmest set in 2005.
The Northern Hemisphere is the warmest this year since record-keeping started 127 years ago, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Temperatures for January through October averaged 1.3 degrees above the norm. If the trend continues, the year could break the record for the warmest set in 2005.
Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study: 500 vs. 120 in early '80s
Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study | Sun Nov 25, 9:33 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.
"Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest.
The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report. ...
LONDON (AFP) - More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.
"Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest.
The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report. ...
Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life
Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life | Center for American Progress. Posted September 29, 2007.
Say goodbye to French wines, baseball and the Great Barrier Reef. Say hello to massive amounts of mosquitoes, the northwest passage and hurricanes.
Say goodbye to French wines, baseball and the Great Barrier Reef. Say hello to massive amounts of mosquitoes, the northwest passage and hurricanes.
Say Goodbye to French Wines. ... [LA Times]
Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines. ... [Washington Post]
Say Goodbye to Pinot Noir. ... [Bloomberg]
Say Goodbye to Baseball. ... [NY Times]
Say Goodbye to Christmas Trees. ... [Seattle Post Intelligencer]
Say Goodbye to the Beautiful Alaska Vacation. ... [Alaska Science Forum]
Say Goodbye to Fly Fishing. ... [Softpedia]
Say Goodbye to Ski Competitions. Unusually warmer winters caused the International Ski Federation to cancel last year's Alpine skiing World Cup and opening races in Sölden, Austria. Skiers are also hard-pressed now to find places for year-round training. Olympic gold medalist Anja Paerson: "Of course we're all very worried about the future of our sport. Every year we have more trouble finding places to train." [NY Times]
Say Goodbye to Ski Vacations. Slopes on the East Coast last year closed months ahead of time due to warmer weather, some losing as much as a third of their season. [Washington Post]
Say Hello to Really Tacky Fake Ski Vacations. ... [WSJ]
Say Goodbye to That Snorkeling Vacation. ... [Denver Post]
Say Goodbye to That Tropical Island Vacation. ... [ABC News]
Say Goodbye to Cool Cultural Landmarks. ... [AP]
Say Goodbye to [Wild] Salmon Dinners. ... [ENS]
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Climate change ... will disproportionately affect agriculture in the planet's lower latitudes ... India down 40%, Africa down 30%, ...
Facing a Threat to Farming and Food Supply | By Rick Weiss | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, November 19, 2007; Page A06
...
...
Several recent analyses have concluded that the higher temperatures expected in coming years -- along with salt seepage into groundwater as sea levels rise and anticipated increases in flooding and droughts -- will disproportionately affect agriculture in the planet's lower latitudes, where most of the world's poor live.
India, on track to be the world's most populous country, could see a 40 percent decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s as record heat waves bake its wheat-growing region, placing hundreds of millions of people at the brink of chronic hunger.
Africa -- where four out of five people make their living directly from the land -- could see agricultural downturns of 30 percent, forcing farmers to abandon traditional crops in favor of more heat-resistant and flood-tolerant ones such as rice. Worse, some African countries, including Senegal and war-torn Sudan, are on track to suffer what amounts to complete agricultural collapse, with productivity declines of more than 50 percent.
Even the emerging agricultural powerhouse of Latin America is poised to suffer reductions of 20 percent or more, which could return thriving exporters such as Brazil to the subsistence-oriented nations they were a few decades ago. ...
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Only 1 percent of [China]’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union
As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes | By JOSEPH KAHN and JIM YARDLEY | Published: August 26, 2007
BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.
But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.
Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.
Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Beijing is frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics.
Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life. ...
BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.
But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.
Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.
Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Beijing is frantically searching for a magic formula, a meteorological deus ex machina, to clear its skies for the 2008 Olympics.
Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life. ...
Altanta Georgia ... Ankara, Turkey ... Australia ..... Canary Islands ... Morocco ...
November 15, 2007 3:39 pm | Tomgram: As the World Burns | How Dry We Are | A Question No One Wants to Raise About Drought | By Tom Engelhardt
Georgia's on my mind. Atlanta, Georgia. It's a city in trouble in a state in trouble in a region in trouble. Water trouble. Trouble big enough that the state government's moving fast. Just this week, backed up by a choir singing "Amazing Grace," accompanied by three protestant ministers, and 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society, Georgia's Baptist Governor Sonny Perdue led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. " ...
...
...
Over the last decade, 15-20% decreases in precipitation have been recorded. These water losses have been accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. A fierce drought has settled in -- of the hundred-year variety. ...
Sound familiar? As it happens, that's not the American southeast either; that's a description of what's come to be called "The Big Dry" -- the unprecedented drought that has swept huge parts of Australia, the worst in at least a century on an already notoriously dry continent,
...
Or how about Morocco, across the Mediterranean, which experienced 50% less rainfall than normal? Or the Canary Islands, those Spanish vacation spots in the Atlantic Ocean known to millions of visitors for their year-around mild climate which, this summer, morphed into 104 degree days, strong winds, and fierce wildfires. Eighty-six thousand acres were burnt to a crisp, engulfing some of the islands in flames and smoke that drove out thousands of tourists?
...
Georgia's on my mind. Atlanta, Georgia. It's a city in trouble in a state in trouble in a region in trouble. Water trouble. Trouble big enough that the state government's moving fast. Just this week, backed up by a choir singing "Amazing Grace," accompanied by three protestant ministers, and 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society, Georgia's Baptist Governor Sonny Perdue led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. " ...
...
Water rationing has hit the capital. Car washing and lawn watering are prohibited within city limits. Harvests in the region have dropped by 15-30%. By the end of summer, local reservoirs and dams were holding 5% of their capacity.
Oops, that's not Atlanta, or even the southeastern U.S. That's Ankara, Turkey, ......
Over the last decade, 15-20% decreases in precipitation have been recorded. These water losses have been accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. A fierce drought has settled in -- of the hundred-year variety. ...
Sound familiar? As it happens, that's not the American southeast either; that's a description of what's come to be called "The Big Dry" -- the unprecedented drought that has swept huge parts of Australia, the worst in at least a century on an already notoriously dry continent,
...
Or how about Morocco, across the Mediterranean, which experienced 50% less rainfall than normal? Or the Canary Islands, those Spanish vacation spots in the Atlantic Ocean known to millions of visitors for their year-around mild climate which, this summer, morphed into 104 degree days, strong winds, and fierce wildfires. Eighty-six thousand acres were burnt to a crisp, engulfing some of the islands in flames and smoke that drove out thousands of tourists?
...
It's not that no one is thinking about, or doing work on, drought. I know that scientists have been asking the "and then" questions (or perhaps far more relevant ones that I can't even formulate); that somewhere people have been exploring, studying, writing about them. But how am I to find out?
Of course, all of us can wander the Internet; we can visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has just set up a new website to help encourage drought coverage; we can drop in at blogs like RealClimate.org and ClimateProgress.org, which make a habit of keeping up with, or ahead of, such stories; or even, for instance, the Georgia Drought website of the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; or we can keep an eye on a new organization of journalists (well covered recently on the NPR show "On the Media"), Circle of Blue, who are planning to concentrate on water issues. But, believe me, even when you get to some of these sites, you may find yourself in an unknown landscape with no obvious water holes in view and no guides to lead you there. ...
as much as 25 percent of [China's] pollution can be blamed on products made for the U.S. and Europe ... one iPod release 17 pounds of carbon dioxide
Saturday, November 17, 2007 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Global Warming: China Says: Et Tu? | Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial
Fed up with being the favored whipping boy of anti-pollution activists for its massive carbon emissions, China has been fighting back. The country might have a point, as a new report indicates as much as 25 percent of its pollution can be blamed on products made for the U.S. and Europe.
For example, according to The Wall Street Journal, most MP3 players are made in China. The production of each one of those slick little numbers (think of your tiny, shiny ubiquitous iPod) releases 17 pounds of carbon dioxide. As world leaders prepare to meet in Bali next month to shape the next international treaty to fight global warming (the Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012), it seems imperative that the market forces driving pollution are also considered, not just the location of where they’re produced. ...
Monday, November 19, 2007
Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace ... 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages by 2020
UN Panel: Climate Change Accelerating | ARTHUR MAX | November 17, 2007 08:43 AM EST
VALENCIA, Spain — The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.
As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. ...
VALENCIA, Spain — The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.
As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. ...
10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks ...
Nov 19, 2:17 AM EST | China Not Fighting Off E-Waste Nightmare | By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN | Associated Press Writer
GUIYU, China (AP) -- The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.
...
This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.
...
Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers. ...
GUIYU, China (AP) -- The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.
...
This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.
...
Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers. ...
Used Electronics ... "recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine," ... workers exposed to toxic chemicals ....
Destination of 'recycled' electronics may surprise you |
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.
While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.
"It is being recycled, but it's being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. "We're preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world." ...
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.
While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.
"It is being recycled, but it's being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. "We're preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world." ...
Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy, many say
Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy, many say | By Elisabeth Rosenthal and James Kanter | Published: November 18, 2007
VALENCIA, Spain: The blunt and alarming final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released here by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, may well underplay the problem of climate change, many experts and even the report's authors admit.
The report describes the evidence for human-induced climate change as "unequivocal." The rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere thus far will result in an average rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, or 1.4 meters, it concluded.
"Slowing - and reversing - these threats is the defining challenge of our age," Ban said upon the report's release Saturday.
Ban said he had just completed a whirlwind tour of some climate change hot spots, which he called as "frightening as a science-fiction movie."
He described ice sheets breaking up in Antarctica, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and children in Chile having to wear protective clothing because an ozone hole was letting in so much ultraviolet radiation. ...
VALENCIA, Spain: The blunt and alarming final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released here by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, may well underplay the problem of climate change, many experts and even the report's authors admit.
The report describes the evidence for human-induced climate change as "unequivocal." The rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere thus far will result in an average rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, or 1.4 meters, it concluded.
"Slowing - and reversing - these threats is the defining challenge of our age," Ban said upon the report's release Saturday.
Ban said he had just completed a whirlwind tour of some climate change hot spots, which he called as "frightening as a science-fiction movie."
He described ice sheets breaking up in Antarctica, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and children in Chile having to wear protective clothing because an ozone hole was letting in so much ultraviolet radiation. ...
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Almost a third of the entire Southeast is smack dab in the middle of of the National Weather Service's worst drought category—"exceptional"
Apocalypse Now: The Drought | Submitted by Rick Perlstein on November 7, 2007 - 8:09pm.
The month of October saw America wracked by two Biblical-sized calamities: wildfire in California, and drought in the Southeast. Both indict the conservatives' vision of government. Let us first speak of the drought.
Three million Atlanta-area residents get their water from 38,000-acre Lake Lanier. It's three months away from depletion—and that booming metropolis has no backup plan on file for that eventuality. UPS is testing out urinals that don't use water. Coca-Cola's international headquarters has turned off their decorative fountain. Georgia Tech's greening the grass in its football stadium with spray paint, and the city aquarium has shut off its waterfall.
The month of October saw America wracked by two Biblical-sized calamities: wildfire in California, and drought in the Southeast. Both indict the conservatives' vision of government. Let us first speak of the drought.
Three million Atlanta-area residents get their water from 38,000-acre Lake Lanier. It's three months away from depletion—and that booming metropolis has no backup plan on file for that eventuality. UPS is testing out urinals that don't use water. Coca-Cola's international headquarters has turned off their decorative fountain. Georgia Tech's greening the grass in its football stadium with spray paint, and the city aquarium has shut off its waterfall.
But the problem hardly ends with one municipality's planning failures and these colorful consequences. Almost a third of the entire Southeast is smack dab in the middle of of the National Weather Service's worst drought category—"exceptional": most of Tennessee and Alabama; the northern half of Georgia; parts of the Carolinas, Kentucky, Virginia. As the AP reports, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue "asked a Florida federal judge to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water draining from Georgia reservoirs into Alabama."
And Alabama has to be thrilled with that. ...
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Western Appetite for Biofuels Is Causing Starvation in the Poor World
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 by George Monbiot | The Western Appetite for Biofuels Is Causing Starvation in the Poor World | Developing nations are being pushed to grow crops for ethanol, rather than food - all thanks to political expediency
It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.
...
Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor on the altar of business, now warns that using food to produce biofuels “might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further”. This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls “a very serious crisis”. Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.
The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren’t entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them. ...
It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.
...
Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor on the altar of business, now warns that using food to produce biofuels “might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further”. This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls “a very serious crisis”. Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.
The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren’t entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them. ...
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Could there be a pattern here? Across the continent, "exceptional drought" ... now a "flame zone" of states suffering persistent drought
Monday, November 5, 2007 | Fire, water and denial | Neal Peirce / Syndicated columnist
Could there be a pattern here?
The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of high-impact wildfires — the worst in the state's history. Many of the blazes coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were declared California's worst ever.
But is there any move to get away from the areas where a century of firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush creating tinderbox conditions? Apparently not. Most homeowners vow that they'll stay in the fire-prone areas, or return to rebuild on the charred foundations of their former homes.
Across the continent, "exceptional drought" — the National Weather Service's worst category — impacts Georgia and its neighboring states. Water levels in Lake Lanier, the 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies water to almost 5 million people, fall so drastically that the lake may dip into its storage capacity dregs in less than four months.
But Georgia limps along without a state water plan. No one wants to talk about water rationing. In suburban rings around Atlanta, planned new subdivisions don't have to prove a long-term water source before developers plunge into construction.
A stiffer assessment comes from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.: "Georgia has been sleepwalking. The Atlanta region has the most rapid growth rate in the history of urbanization. But Georgia's never done an assessment of its water capacity."
...
And it's not just a California problem. This year, Idaho and Utah have seen their largest wildfires in the last 50 to 100 years; Arizona, Colorado and Oregon registered their record years in 2002, and Texas in 2006, Tom Swetnam, a University of Arizona scientist, told a congressional hearing recently. More than 8 million acres have burned this year, the second-largest number in history, behind 2006.
There's now a "flame zone" of states suffering persistent drought and susceptibility to faster, hotter, more erratic wildfires, intensified by global warming, says Blumenauer. ...
Could there be a pattern here?
The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of high-impact wildfires — the worst in the state's history. Many of the blazes coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were declared California's worst ever.
But is there any move to get away from the areas where a century of firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush creating tinderbox conditions? Apparently not. Most homeowners vow that they'll stay in the fire-prone areas, or return to rebuild on the charred foundations of their former homes.
Across the continent, "exceptional drought" — the National Weather Service's worst category — impacts Georgia and its neighboring states. Water levels in Lake Lanier, the 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies water to almost 5 million people, fall so drastically that the lake may dip into its storage capacity dregs in less than four months.
But Georgia limps along without a state water plan. No one wants to talk about water rationing. In suburban rings around Atlanta, planned new subdivisions don't have to prove a long-term water source before developers plunge into construction.
A stiffer assessment comes from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.: "Georgia has been sleepwalking. The Atlanta region has the most rapid growth rate in the history of urbanization. But Georgia's never done an assessment of its water capacity."
...
And it's not just a California problem. This year, Idaho and Utah have seen their largest wildfires in the last 50 to 100 years; Arizona, Colorado and Oregon registered their record years in 2002, and Texas in 2006, Tom Swetnam, a University of Arizona scientist, told a congressional hearing recently. More than 8 million acres have burned this year, the second-largest number in history, behind 2006.
There's now a "flame zone" of states suffering persistent drought and susceptibility to faster, hotter, more erratic wildfires, intensified by global warming, says Blumenauer. ...
Friday, November 2, 2007
The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle ... The water has run out.
Tennessee Town Has Run Out of Water | Nov 2, 7:09 AM (ET) | By GREG BLUESTEIN
...
The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.
The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry.
...
"I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."
...
The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.
The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry.
...
"I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)