Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Extreme snowfall blankets parts of South Africa

Extreme snowfall blankets parts of South Africa

This video shows the snow In South Africa which in some places is only used to a dusting a couple times a year. This following the 32 inches dumped on Chile this past week... Keep connecting those dots. The hydrologic cycle is oversaturated as we keep contributing to it daily while waiting for some magic bullet. Water evaporation in places of intense heat and drought as wel as oceans are now drying out areas of the world and carrying the moisture to other places where it is not usual, while places in the world needing it sit in drought. This is the damage to our agriculture that has been warned about as well as crops dying in either wilting heat and extended drought or extreme floods.

Excerpt:

'Snow blankets parts of South Africa
By Jason Samenow

Up to two feet of snow covered parts of eastern South Africa Tuesday, bringing traffic to a standstill along major routes and disrupting air and rail transportation. The snow also closed shops and schools.

Reuters Africa reports:

Parts of South Africa usually receive a dusting about once or twice a year but the storm that hit large parts of the eastern half of the country on Monday and Tuesday dumped up to 60 cms (2 feet) in some areas. “Snow is not unheard of but it is usually not this extreme,” said national weather service forecaster Karl Loots.'

Climate change and the effects on the hydrologic cycle.

And just as a reference, Durbin South Africa, a city hit by this extreme snowfall while extreme drought and precipitation also happen across the globe simultaneously is located at a subtropic latitude which is considered predominantly dry with average mild winters. And as this video brought out, not all areas of the world receive the same level of precipitation. However, with climate change, wet becoming wetter is not good for all agriculture and neither is dry becoming dryer. And neither is seeing extreme precipitation due to increased GHGs with increased water vapor and moisture that is moved around the globe and dumped on areas where such precipitation is unusal or not needed while other areas that are the breadbaskets of their countries go dry. This is why it is so important to monitor these effects in order to prepare for changes in growing seasons, what can be grown, the economic fallout and migration of inhabitants to other areas.


Texas Drought Disaster

Heavy Snow in Central Chile

Record Runoff into the Missouri Basin

Severe Drought Causes Famine in East Africa

July Snow in the Uinta Mountains, Utah

The Warriors of Qiugang: A Chinese Village Fights Back by : Yale Environment 360


Like many villages in China’s industrial heartland, Qiugang — a hamlet of nearly 1,900 people in Anhui province — has long suffered from runaway pollution from nearby factories. In Qiugang’s case, three major enterprises with little or no pollution controls churned out chemicals, pesticides, and dyes, turning the local river black, killing fish and wildlife, and filling the air with foul fumes that burned residents’ eyes and throats and sickened children.

The pollution from the Jiucailuo Chemical plant became so egregious that in 2007, Qiugang’s residents — working with a fledgling environmental group, Green Anhui — began to try to do something about it. Their efforts soon attracted the attention of Chinese-American filmmaker Ruby Yang, who with cinematographer Guan Xin and longtime collaborator Thomas Lennon, spent the ensuing three years chronicling the struggle of Qiugang’s increasingly emboldened population to curb the pollution that was poisoning them in their homes, schools, and fields.

This exclusive e360 video report, “The Warriors of Qiugang” — co-produced by Yale Environment 360 — tells the story of how the villagers fought to transform their environment, and, in the process, found themselves transformed as well.


end of excerpt
The Warriors Of Qiugang_ A Chinese Village Fights Back
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How can any human being watch stories like this and not weep for what we are doing to the future? And this is one of many stories of corporate abuse of our environment at the expense of human health and the species that share in these ecosystems with us. However, this film is also inspiring in that it relays a fighting spirit amongst those who through necessity fought to preserve their lives and recover balance.

And as we see, this type of blatant moral abandonment is not endemic to one race or creed. It is a fallacy of our species as a whole as a result of a world too tied to monetary value as opposed to the intrinsic natural value of our Earth. We are but an extension of that Earth. We are all a part of a wonderful, beautiful, mystical, empowering all inclusive experience. One we have yet to fully realize. May we all reach deep inside of ourselves to find that place within us where what is important translates to the preservation of this beautiful world around us as we seek to fight the powerful forces that would see that day of knowing never come. That is my wish.

Another World Water Day Gone

We see another World Water Day pass us by. The theme, Water For All, signifies that though some progress has been made we are woefully behin...