Human Forcings On Climate Already A Factor In Mediterranean Droughts

NOAA: Human Forcings On Climate Already A Factor In Mediterranean Droughts

Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

“The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone,” said Martin Hoerling, Ph.D. of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., lead author of a paper published online in the Journal of Climate this month. “This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.”

The above is from a news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “NOAA study: Human-caused climate change a major factor in more frequent Mediterranean droughts.”

It’s a bombshell for three reasons. First, this NOAA team has not always found a human cause for extreme weather events, as Climate Progress discussed here. Second, the study found that global warming is already driving drought in a key region of the world: Climate change is harming a great many people now. Third, the analysis provides important confirmation of climate predictions that human-caused emissions would lead to drying: “The team also found agreement between the observed increase in winter droughts and in the projections of climate models that include known increases in greenhouse gases.”

This comes on the heel of the USGS study, that, despite its flaws still found, “The decrease of floods in the southwestern region is consistent with other research findings that this region has been getting drier and experienced less precipitation as a likely result of climate change.”

And these studies amplify the piece I had in the journal Nature this week that argued drying and Dust-Bowlification driven by climate change — and the impact on food insecurity — are probably the gravest threats the human race faces in the coming decades.

The fact that the NOAA analysis confirmed the climate models predictions of drying is especially worrisome because the climate models project a very dry future for large parts of the planet’s currently habited and arable land in the coming decades:

More at the link
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And in turn this will lead to water and food wars (especially now with corporations buying up land in developing countries to grow corn for fuel) since without potable water you can't grow food, or have proper sanitation which leads to more diseases. Would like to be around to hear what theusual detractors will tell their children and grandchildren when they ask them why they did nothing to address this because they didn't care enough about them.



Cyprus was the first country in the EU to run out of water and experience the meaning of "peak water." Overuse of aquifers with declining rainfall are now making the people here appreciate what they have much more. Desalination is all the Greek south has now, and it is costly both economically and for the environment. But these technological bandaids cannot compensate in the end for understanding the importance of this and doing all we can to conserve water. As the video claims, even though the Turkish north of Cyprus will be getting water piped in from Turkey through a new pipeline, Turkey can simply change that at any time. Turkey is also experiencing drought as well and with more dams being built to provide hydropower in areas of drought ( which I think is so wasteful when the sun is so prevalent) it only makes matter worse. It really does all come down to us.

Why The Earth May be Running Out Of Clean Water

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Why The Earth May Be Running Out Of Clean Water

Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to confront a pretty dire problem: they were running out of water. Due to a severe and lasting drought, water reserves in this country of 11,000 people had dwindled to just a few days' worth. Climate change plays a role here: as sea levels rose, Tuvalu's groundwater became increasingly saline and undrinkable, leaving the island dependent on rainwater. But now a La Niña–influenced drought has severely curtailed rainfall, leaving Tuvalu dry as a bone. "This situation is bad," Pusinelli Laafai, Tuvalu's permanent secretary of home affairs, told the Associated Press earlier this month. "It's really bad."

So far Tuvalu has been bailed out by its neighbors Australia and New Zealand, which have donated rehydration packets and desalination equipment. But the archipelago's water woes are just beginning — and it's far from the only part of the world facing a big dry. Other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will see their groundwater spoil as sea levels rise. Texas, along with much of the American Southwest, is in the grip of a truly record-breaking drought — even after days of storms in the past month, Houston's total 2011 rainfall is still short of its yearly average by a whopping 2 ft., or 60 cm. Australia has experienced severely dry weather for so long, it's not even clear whether the country is in a state of drought, or more worryingly, a new and permanent dry climate that could forever alter life Down Under. "Climate-change impacts on water resources continue to appear in the form of growing influence on the severity and intensity of extreme events," says Peter Gleick, one of the foremost water experts in the U.S. and head of the Pacific Institute, an NGO based in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on global water issues. "Australia's recent extraordinary extreme drought should be an eye-opener for the rest of us."
(See photos of the world's water crisis.)
end of excerpt


Water is being used as a commodity by those who do not understand its true intrinsic value. We need to stop fracking it, stop polluting it, stop disturbing its flow, stop wasting it, stop damming it and stop thinking it will last forever.

Tuvalu is a lesson.

Lake Eries' Toxic Algae Bloom Seen From Space

Lake Erie's Toxic Algae Bloom Seen From Space

Toxic algae is sucking the oxygen out of Lake Erie.

The lake is currently undergoing one of the worst algae blooms in decades, turning the water a scummy bright green. According to NASA, blooms like this did occur in the 1950's and 60's, but now phosphorus from farms, sewage, and industry have fertilized the waters.

After the 60's, increased regulations and improvements in agriculture and sewage treatment limited the phosphorus and helped to control the blooms. However, the shallower Western basin near Detroit has been more susceptible to the algae than other deeper areas.

The exact reason behind the bloom is a bit unclear, but scientists believe it could be linked to increased rainfall and, believe it or not, mussels. It seems the types of mussel, zebra and quagga that have invaded the lake feed on phytoplankton instead of algae, making it even easier for the blooms to occur, according to NASA.

While the algae doesn't directly kill fish, it's still not good. As the algae dies, it's broken down by bacteria which uses oxygen from the water. This oxygen removal creates areas where fish can't survive. In addition, if consumed, it can also create flu-like symptoms in people or even kill pets.

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke Thursday in Detroit on the matter, associating climate change with the algae problem. "We're still acting as if it's perfectly OK to use this thin-shelled atmosphere as an open sewer. It's not OK," he said. "We need to listen to the scientists. We need to use the tried and true method of using the best evidence, debating and discussing it, but not pretending that facts are not facts."

While in the past, some have criticized Gore, claiming that he's made exaggerated statements about the environment, yesterday's speech drew upon some pretty hard scientific evidence, leading many leaders at the International Joint Commission to listen a bit more intently.

This past summer, an algae bloom spread across a beach in China, dying everything in its path "a shocking bright green."

End of excerpt



Video of Al Gore's plenary speech at the Great Lakes Biennial
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The conditions we see in Lake Erie now are a call to action. It is said that the condititons in Lake Erie usually dictate the future for the other four. After expending so much time and effort to make such inroads in cleaning up the mistakes of the past, it would be a true tragedy to see it all reversed.

Water levels in the lakes are important as well in regards to maintaining their health. Water levels have been down and with Lake Erie being the most shallow of them all, this too (water evaportation due to increasing temperatures) can have an effect on algae blooms as well as overflows due to less but more extreme rainfalls that move fertilizer downstream.

India And Pakistan At Odds Over Shrinking Indus River

India and Pakistan At Odds Over Shrinking Indus River.

By William Wheeler

For National Geographic News

Published October 12, 2011


This story is part of a National Geographic News series on global water issues.

Nearly 30 percent of the world's cotton supply comes from India and Pakistan, much of that from the Indus River Valley. On average, about 737 billion gallons are withdrawn from the Indus River annually to grow cotton—enough to provide Delhi residents with household water for more than two years. (See a map of the region.)


"Pakistan's entire economy is driven by the textile industry," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "The problem with Pakistan's economy is that most of the major industries use a ton of water—textiles, sugar, wheat—and there's a tremendous amount of water that's not only used, but wasted," he added.

The same is true for India.

That impact is an important part of a complex water equation in countries already under strain from booming populations. More people means more demand for water to irrigate crops, cool machinery, and power cities. The Indus River, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir and flows through Pakistan on its way to the sea, is Pakistan's primary freshwater source—on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends—and a critical outlet of hydropower generation for both countries.

(Related: "Discover Fair Trade Cotton")

Downstream provinces are already feeling the strain, with some dried-out areas being abandoned by fishermen and farmers forced to move to cities. That increases competition between urban and rural communities for water. "In areas where you used to have raging rivers, you have, essentially, streams or even puddles and not much else," said Kugelman.

In years past, the coastal districts that lost their shares of the Indus' flows have become "economically orphaned," the poorest districts in the country, according to Pakistani water activist Mustafa Talpur. Because Pakistani civil society is weak, he says, corruption and deteriorating water distribution tend to go hand in hand.

In the port city of Karachi, which depends for its water on the Indus, water theft—in which public water is stolen from the pipes and sold from tankers in slums and around the city—may be a $500-million annual industry.

In the balance is the fate not only of people, but important aquatic species like the Indus River dolphin, which is now threatened to extinction by agricultural pollution and dams, among other pressures. Scientists estimate that fewer than 100 individuals remain.

Threat to Peace?

One of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the region's fragile water balance is the effect on political tensions.

In India, competition for water has a history of provoking conflict between communities. In Pakistan, water shortages have triggered food and energy crises that ignited riots and protests in some cities. Most troubling, Islamabad's diversions of water to upstream communities with ties to the government are inflaming sectarian loyalties and stoking unrest in the lower downstream region of Sindh.

But the issue also threatens the fragile peace that holds between the nations of India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals. Water has long been seen as a core strategic interest in the dispute over the Kashmir region, home to the Indus' headwaters. Since 1960, a delicate political accord called the Indus Waters Treaty has governed the sharing of the river's resources. But dwindling river flows will be harder to share as the populations in both countries grow and the per-capita water supply plummets.

Some growth models predict that by 2025, India's population will grow to triple what it was—and Pakistan's population to six times what it was—when the Indus treaty was signed. Lurking in the background are fears that climate change is speeding up the melting of the glaciers that feed the river.

Mountain glaciers in Kashmir play a central role in regulating the river's flows, acting as a natural water storage tank that freezes precipitation in winter and releases it as meltwater in the summer. The Indus is dependent on glacial melting for as much as half of its flow. So its fate is uniquely tied to the health of the Himalayas. In the short term, higher glacial melt is expected to bring more intense flooding, like last year's devastating deluge.

Both countries are also racing to complete large hydroelectric dams along their respective stretches of the Kashmir river system, elevating tensions. India's projects are of a size and scope that many Pakistanis fear could be used to disrupt their hydropower efforts, as well as the timing of the flows on which Pakistani crops rely.

(Related: "Seven Simple Ways to Save Water")
End of excerpt.
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This is the perfect storm between population, climate change and political corruption. A true dichotomy in a land that with excessive flooding still thirsts. The Indus River is the most important river in Pakistan and also the longest river. Without its flow Pakistan has no life. The system is fed mainly by the glaciers of the Himalayas which are now seeing melting as well due to climate change. Extensive deforestation, industrial pollution and climate change are affecting the vegetation and wildlife of the delta as well as a rash of dams being built that only exacerbates the deforestation and affects the flow of the river.

Study Of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods On The Indus

India Issued Restraining Order Regarding Dam in Pakistan

World Energy Use To Double By 2035-Driven By Fossil Fuels In China/India

World Energy Use To Double By 2035-Driven By Fossil Fuels In China/India

"Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a mind-boggling 225,700 terawatt-hours (770 quadrillion BTUs ) as water- and carbon-intensive fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s economies, despite the global recession and the strong growth in the renewable sector, according to a new annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

About half of the projected increase in energy use will occur in China and India, the world’s first- and third-largest energy consumers, respectively. The two developing economies will account for more than 30 percent of the global energy use during the next two decades.

“China alone — which only recently became the world’s top energy consumer — is projected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States by 2035,” said Howard Gruenspecht, the administrator for the EIA, in a press release.

In general, however, the overall projections made in the EIA report only reflect laws and policies as they stood at the beginning of 2011. In other words, the report does not incorporate prospective legislation — in China, for example — that, together with oil-price volatility and the pace of global economic recovery, could significantly affect energy markets.

Coal Production and Consumption
China relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy generation, consuming 3.15 billion metric tons (3.5 billion tons) of coal last year. Meanwhile, India has been steadily increasing domestic coal production, its major source of energy, reaching over 500 million metric tons (551 million tons) in 2010.

Though future generation from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power will largely displace coal-fired production, coal will remain the largest source of world electricity through 2035, particularly in developing nations, according to the EIA projections. China alone will account for 76 percent of the projected increase in world coal use."
more at the link
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I truly hope this report does not come to pass, because if it does, we will be living in a world of degradation, famine and continuous war. Nothing will change for all of our protests if we do not move towards a clean energy economy now. The same status quo will be in place. Personally, I think we need to be occupying the THE WORLD BANK and the IMF. They are the entities perpetuating global poverty and working to keep us from moving truly forward globally. And China dares to try to outdo us regarding solar energy to make themselves look "green" when they still use mostly coal.

The time is now for us to push off the oil soaked members of Congress who think China has beaten us already and for them to start supporting this country and its people regarding renewable energy! Solar is a rising market despite their BS on Solyndra and their media PR. Oil companies make BILLIONS a yr by destroying and toxifying this planet and killing life and all these traitors in Congress can do now is say "Solyndra?"

Water access and scarcity must also be taken into account here. We simply cannot afford a future where water wasting and polluting fossil fuels remain the only source or primary source of energy or for use in agriculture, especially in countries where the effects of climate change and water shortages are already being felt at the extremes they are now. PRICE FOSSIL FUELS with the indirect costs of it included in the price and see how soon this tide turns.

We are going in the wrong direction!

We must change our perception of this world and our place in it before we can understand just how much is at stake.



This is a MUST SEE documentary in order to understand how important it is to change our perceptions.

Wangari Maathai dies at 71

UPDATE: Dr. Wangari Maathai Laid To Rest In Kenya



Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and leader of Greenbelt Movement dies at 71

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Obama, and other world leaders today paid tribute to Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of Africa’s foremost environmental campaigners, who died on Sunday. She was 71.

“It is with great sadness that the family of Professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September, 2011, at the Nairobi Hospital, after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer. Her loved ones were with her at the time,” the Green Belt Movement announced on its website. Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement that encouraged women in rural Kenya to plant trees to improve their livelihoods through better access to clean water, firewood for cooking and other resources. Her movement planted an estimated 45 million trees in Africa and assisted nearly 900,000 women to establish tree nurseries and plant trees to reverse the effects of deforestation, according to the United Nations tribute to her.

“Her passing is a loss for the people of Kenya and the world,” Ban Ki-moon said in a statement published on the UN website. Maathai was a “globally recognized champion for human rights and women’s empowerment” and a “pioneer in articulating the links between human rights, poverty, environmental protection and security,” he added.

“She was a visionary who saw over the tree canopy, but never lost sight of the roots.”

“She was a visionary who saw over the tree canopy, but never lost sight of the roots,” said Jan McAlpine, Director of the Secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests, adding that Ms. Maathai was a great woman and a wonderful leader who made a difference both in Kenya and around the world, one tree at a time.

“Wangari Maathai was a force of nature,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a news release. “While others deployed their power and life force to damage, degrade and extract short term profit from the environment, she used hers to stand in their way, mobilize communities and to argue for conservation and sustainable development over destruction.

“She was, like the acacias and the Prunus Africana trees Wangari fought so nobly and assiduously to conserve, strong in character and able to survive sometimes the harshest of conditions,” he added.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 to Wangari Maathai for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

“Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally,” the Committee said when it announced its decision to award her the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Maathai combines science, social commitment and active politics. More than simply protecting the existing environment, her strategy is to secure and strengthen the very basis for ecologically sustainable development,” the Committee added.
more at the link
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Greenbelt Movement
Website for the Greenbelt Movement. Information on dedications, testimonials, memorials, etc. can be found here.
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For those who claimed environmentalism and peace were not connected, the life of Dr. Maathai proves them wrong. Depletion of resources especially now in a world where those resources are being depleted twice as fast as they are being restored is one of the primary reasons for conflict. Water scarcity, deforestation, land grabs, pollution, etc. as well as the effects of climate change as a result of human actions is already leading to crop failure, degradation of land, water scarcity and other effects on biodiversity up the food chain and web of life.

Dr. Maathai understood all of these residual consequences of our actions and devoted her life to preserving forests which balance out biodiversity and climate while providing water, sustenance and a way of life for so many indigenous people who now see their land and water being sacrificed for corporate greed. For those who did not know of her, your life can only be enriched by reading her story of courage.

I got to know of her by reading of her while researching a paper on the environment when I was college. I learned of the Greenbelt Movement and what she had done in regards to inspiring the women in her group to plant trees. At this time it was considered a threat for women to take on so much power in controlling anything. Yet, Wangari Maathai and her movement brought about great change in Kenya and the world with passion, resolve and courage even in the face of beatings and arrests. For me she was the personification of courage and an inspiration in my life.

A great light has gone out, but the light and hope she gave to this world will never go out. Thank you so much for the gift you gave us all. We will hopefully pay it forward.

My Dedication To Dr. Maathai

You too can plant a tree to keep her legacy alive.



TAKING ROOT: The Vision Of Wangari Maathai



"I will be a hummingbird"

I will do my best.

The Colorado River-Running Near Empty

The Colorado River: Running Near Empty



Excerpt:
"Photographer Peter McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in the Rocky Mountains to its historic mouth at the Sea of Cortez. In this Yale Environment 360 video, he follows the natural course of the Colorado by raft, on foot, and overhead in a small plane, telling the story of a river whose water is siphoned off at every turn, leaving it high and dry 80 miles from the sea.

In the video, McBride, a Colorado native, documents how increasing water demands have transformed the river that is the lifeblood for an arid Southwest."
End
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Where to begin. It was sad to watch this as you see the marked decline of the American Nile as it turns to desert. A once vibrant river, dying. All of the water falls over the Western mountains, yet the people live on the Eastern plains...the desert, which was not considered as being a hub of population growth when the Colorado Water Pact of 1922 was signed. Neither were the effects of climate change considered, nor the two decades of drought the Southwestern U.S. has been dealing with, nor the declining rainfall or snowpack in an area where population continues to rise as then does water usage. And neither was the proliferation of dams and diversion schemes (and golf courses) that were undertaken to satiate the increasing thirst and needs of those who live there and continue to move there.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my entry, Water Changes Everything. Human activities in and of themselves working in harmony with nature without harming the whole are fine. However, we as a species seem to be lacking in this potential on a collective scale.


Click on double bar near the timer to stop it.



We must save the Colorado


Report raises Concerns About Colorado River Basin Dam Impacts To National Parks

As we look back upon the history of this river, its majesty, its power and the concerted efforts of humans to tame it, divert it, strip it, dam it and partition it for their own use one can only wonder as we enter the world we are making by exacerbating climate change where it will end.

How much is enough?