life in general: it continues fast & dangerously: global climate-changing extreme weather

Whether impact of human beings' activities are predominantly responsible or not, the fact that extreme weather worldwide has become the norm in the last few years is undeniable. My city, Bombay (in India), got a bitter taste of it in July 2005 when it rained extremely intensely and caused major devastation including loss of many lives.

About 3 days back, Brazil's Rio de Janeiro has similarly received an unprecedented amount of rainfall causing major damage to properties and lives. Around the same time, Kenya saw extreme flooding.

A month back, Venezuela faced severe drought due to unusually missing rains. Around that time, China witnessed severe sandstorms in Beijing and other parts of the country.

The list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

I pray that the human children of Mother Earth are able to collectively moderate their consumption of planet-damaging goods & services. Economists and policy makers, worldwide, should awaken themselves to the excesses caused due to their obsession with growth of GDP numbers etc.

Anyway, here are some newsreports on the recent severe climatic conditions I talked about above:

1)

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Kenyanews/Floods-displace-10,000-in-Kenya-8007.html

Floods displace 10,000 in Kenya By Sarah Wambui

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 3

The Kenya Red Cross Society now says over 10,000 people have been displaced and marooned by floods after heavy rains pounded parts of Tana River district in the Coast province.
The society’s spokesman Titus Mung’ou said majority of the people were yet to be moved to safer grounds as the roads and bridges in the area had been swept away making movement difficult.

Mr Mung’ou who said the situation had become worse after the River Tana burst its banks but added that the humanitarian organisation would provide temporary shelter, tarpaulins, medical assistance, food aid and other forms of aid to the displaced.  “There is indication that there are more than 13,000 people who require urgent relief because they cannot access any areas where there is food. So far, this is the situation that the team has reported but they are still conducting assessments on the ground and we are yet to get the exact numbers,” he said.
....Mr Mung’ou further added that the floods which started at the beginning of the year in various parts of the country have claimed more than 70 lives. “In January to February about 42 lives were claimed; March had the highest number with about 31 and there are still those that were not accounted for. But there are about 15,000 displaced or needing some kind of relief assistance,” he said. He also added that things could get worse if the rains continued with similar vigour....

2)

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/03/22/Venezuela-faces-hydroelectric-woes/UPI-59211269271495/

Venezuela faces hydroelectric woes    Published: March. 22, 2010 at 11:24 AM

ARACAS, Venezuela, March 22 (UPI) -- The level of water behind the Guri hydroelectric dam in Venezuela is declining as the government struggles with energy issues, officials said. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decclared an energy emergency in February as pervasive drought caused problems for his country, which relies heavily on hydroelectric power.

Argenis Carvajal, an operations manager at the Guri dam, said the water level fell nearly 6 inches despite government efforts to control consumption, Venezuela's El Universal newspaper reports. "Should we have not taken any measures, we would be undoubtedly (5 feet) below the present dam level and would be declining 7-8 inches on average," Carvajal said. A plan to cut energy consumption by 20 percent in Caracas was enacted Feb. 11, though the National Electric Corp. said only 37 percent of heavy energy consumers in Caracas were meeting that goal. Without restrictions, Carvajal said, the energy crisis would be more serve. "This means that we would have to withdraw from the domestic electricity grid approximately 5,000 megawatts, that is, 2 1/2 cities like Caracas without power supply," said the manager.

Demand for conventional energy resources has surged as regional drought decreases productivity from the country's hydroelectric plants.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

3)

http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/Sand-storms-hit-central-Beijing/3116/

 

Sand storm hits central Beijing

A sand storm hits central Beijing on March 22, 2010.Tons of sands carried by winds of up to 90 km.h, has affected more than 270 million people in 16 provinces since Friday, state media reported. UPI/Stephen Shaver

4a)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100406/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_flooding

Rio's worst rains in history kill at least 95   By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writers Bradley Brooks, Associated Press Writers – Tue Apr 6, 6:39 pm ET

RIO DE JANEIRO 

The heaviest rains in Rio de Janeiro's history triggered landslides Tuesday that killed at least 95 people as rising water turned roads into rivers and paralyzed Brazil's second-largest city. The ground gave way in steep hillside slums, cutting red-brown paths of destruction through shantytowns. Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill, only to bury other structures.

The future host city of the Olympics and football World Cup ground to a near halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay home and closed all schools. Most businesses were shuttered. Eleven inches (29 centimeters) of frain fell in less than 24 hours, and more rain was expected. Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of 6 million people.

Paes urged people in endangered areas to take refuge with family or friends and he said no one should venture out. "It is not advisable for people to leave their homes," said Paes. "We want to preserve lives." He told the Web site of the newspaper O Globo that the rainfall was the most that Rio had ever recorded in such a short period. The previous high was nine inches (24 centimeters) that fell on Jan. 2, 1966.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.

"This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day," Silva told reporters in Rio. "And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city."

A representative for the Rio de Janeiro fire department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were known dead and 44 more had been hospitalized. Most of the victims were from Rio's hillside shantytowns whose homes were buried under tons of mud and rubble. "We expect the death toll to rise," said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Thousands of motorists were stranded overnight on highways blocked by rising water..........

___

Associated Press Writer Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Brazil, contributed to this report.

4b) 

The pics below are taken from here.

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahooeditorspicks/galleries/72157623666059659/#photo_4497827088

(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4497496244_932c891121.jpg)

 (http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4499256171_ef39e63219.jpg)

(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4496342287_b7dd4684ab.jpg)

life in general: india's regressive stance on climate change mitigation measures

India, China and some other economically-growing countries are refusing to commit to any global measures to reduce emissions of Earth-harmful carbon dioxide and other Earth-harmful gases. The logic is that the already-large economies have, in the last couple of decades, grown on the back of severe emissions and so these large economies should first cut down drastically on their emission levels.

So far, this line of argument is fair. The large economies should actually, and concretely, reduce their emissions.

But after this, the egg-headedness of India, China etc comes into play. Saying that they will not commit to emission-reductions is a regressive decision. The next 2-3 decades will see the highest harmful-gases emissions, on our Mother Earth, from China and India if it goes on at the current rate.

According to the ruling political forces from India & China the large economies became large only because of their past, un-hindered, emissions and so their growth can not be stunted. But in this argument it is forgotten that more than half of what is produced in countries such as India and China is consumed in the already-large economies. So, instead of cribbing, India and China should impose an extremely-large carbon tax on all its exports to the already-large economies. In the policy matters on environment and emissions, the guts to take on the western large economies should be in this fashion rather than simply say we will not commit to emissions and go on polluting and producing cheap goods and services that is lapped up by consumers in the western countries.

Also, India's and China's un-checked and rampant emissions by its industries are going to do more harm, than good, to their own populations. They will do well to remember this.

life in general: consumers/industrialists/politicians wake up!

Consumers, industrialists, politicians and bureaucrats need to wake up urgently to the consequences of their excesses. The weather and climatic patterns that started changing more than a decade ago is intensifying by the year.

Here is the latest with regard to its impact on India:

From:
Date: 2009/5/22
Subject: CSE press release this week: On the heat wave
To: rgajra@gmail.com
CSE Press Release… this week

Changing climate: what fanned the heat wave
In March-April this year, large swathes of India had been reeling under a searing heat wave. People were dropping dead, and rising temperatures were playing havoc with the air circulation patterns that control heat and cause rain
A frightening pattern has been emerging in all this -- there have been more heat waves and for a larger duration in this decade than in the previous two decades
A new report focuses on changing weather patterns and points out that the changes are happening much faster and outstripping all efforts to predict them

New Delhi, May 22, 2009: Disturbances in air patterns, different parts of the earth heating at different rates, and an early rise in temperatures were some of the reasons scientists in India held responsible for the bruising heat wave that had swept several states in India in March-April this year.

And what is even more disturbing is that these changes have been taking place “faster than scientists can predict” – says a latest report in Down To Earth, a fortnightly magazine that Centre for Science and Environment helps publish.

Unusual changes
In March-April, over 70 people reportedly died in Orissa due to sunstroke, with mercury soaring to 46 degree centigrade in April in some cities. The state’s health machinery was caught napping. In West Bengal, the heat wave killed nine. ‘Abnormal’ dry spells and dust storms swamped Guwahati in Assam, while the entire Malwa region in Madhya Pradesh reeled from a severe water stress.

What is wrong with the weather, asks the report. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), disturbances in the air circulation pattern over India led to mercury soaring across the country. Circulation of air helps distribute heat over the earth. The cyclonic storm, Bijli, which formed in the Bay of Bengal in mid-April, cut off the cool easterly winds blowing in from the Bay of Bengal. To add to it, an anticyclone hovering around Rajasthan blew hot winds from north–west to central and western India.

Some scientists have attributed the heat wave to an exceedingly dry winter, while others have pointed to the unusual heating of the Tibetan Plateau – which was two degrees warmer than normal in February this year.

The IMD also puts the lack of winter cyclones that form in Bay of Bengal and provide rains to the north-east, as a reason. The Down To Earth report quotes A K Srivastava, a scientist at the department’s Pune centre: “Tropical cyclones in the peak cyclone months of May and November have increased, while those occurring in the rest of the year have decreased.”

Warming – earlier, more frequent and more intense
An IMD study has compared the number, duration and spread of heat waves from 1971 to 2000 recorded in 35 sub-divisions across the country. The study says that on an average, almost 23 sub-divisions were hit by heat waves between 1991 and 2000, while 10 sub-divisions were hit in 1981-1990 and only about 7 were hit in 1971-1980.

The study also says that 25 sub-divisions went through more than 15 spells of heat waves in 1991-2000, compared to only two in the previous two decades. Notably, the decade 1991-2000 has been the warmest in the last 140 years.

Meteorological data shows that March and April have been warming faster in the last 100 years. The average temperature for March has increased by 0.76 degree centigrade over the last century; that for April has increased by 0.58 degree centigrade.

While governments sleep over these very visible trends, more intense and longer heat waves are taking a higher toll. Is climate change more imminent than thought of?

Resources
For more on the subject, see the latest Down To Earth cover story at http://www.downtoearth.org.in/cover.asp?foldername=20090531&filename=news&sid=13&sec_id=9
For more details, or to speak with a climate change expert at CSE, please contact Shachi Chaturvedi at shachi@cseindia.org or on 98187 50007.
You can also speak with Dr D R Pattanaik, scientist, IMD-Delhi on 98683 97243, or write to him at drpattanaik@gmail.com; or with Dr M Rajeevan, scientist, National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Tirupati on 08585-272016 or 272026, or write to him at rajeevan@narl.gov.in , rajeevan61@yahoo.co.in