Climate Change - it hasn't gone away

While the world has been focused on events in Washington, the following climate-related events have been playing out around the world in the last week:

• 30,000 people have been caught up in severe flooding in the southern Phillipines, described by many as "the worst in living memory." Local bloggers are blaming deforestation, over-development and global warming as contributory causes.
• Madagascar has been caught between Tropical Storm Eric and Cyclone Fenale, with areas of the country being lashed by winds of up to 250 km/hour. Over 60,000 houses in one region alone have lost their roofs. Although an annual occurance, the storms of 2008 were particularly devestating, producing up to 6,000 casualties.
  
• Brunei has experienced monsoon rains and flooding this month. One blogger states in imperfect English: funny that we never seem to encounter these problem a decade ago. Either we are sinking or that global warming is taking its toll.
• 8,000 people have been evacuated in Sarawak (Malaysia) as a result of severe flooding.
• 50,000 people have been evacuated in Indonesia as flooding has hit 13 provinces and claimed the lives of 14 people. Jakarta has been under up to two metres of water. Bali has also been flooded.
  
• Eight people have died and 10,000 made homeless in a week of flooding in Fiji.
  

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Bush Widens America's Afghan War, a Throwback to Cambodia

News that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff are calling for American troops to pursue "extremists" across the Afghan boarder into Pakistan reminds me of the failed US policy in Vietnam when, faced with an unwinnable war, the decision was taken in 1970 to widen its scope into neighbouring Cambodia.

As today in Afghanistan, the situation in south east Asia in 1970 appeared to justify the initiative. Viet Cong forces had extended the Ho Chi Minh Trail into Laos and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh was under threat of communist attack. American forces were vulnerable to attacks originating from within Cambodia and on that basis Commander of US forces in South Vietnam General Creighton Abrams argued for the elimination of their bases on the Cambodian side of the boarder.

Without consulting of informing the Cambodian government of Lon Nol, President Nixon agreed with his General's advice and ordered 20,000 American troops and warplanes across the boarder, announcing on a televised broadcast on April 28th that the future of world peace depended on America's success in Cambodia.

38 years later, and illustrating the maxim that there is nothing new under the sun, we are faced with an American military commander (Admiral Mike Mullen) calling publicly for a military strategy that covers "both sides of the boarder" between Afghanistan and Pakistan, announcing to the House Armed Services Committee that

"In my view, these two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency....We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan... but until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming."

One can only hope that President Bush resists this call in the final months of his administration - an initiative that will plunge America's only "ally" in the region into complete turmoil and dissipate the remnants of any good will that may exist among the Pakistani population. The evidence so far gives little hope for that outcome:

• in July, President Bush approved orders enabling US Special Operations forces to conduct ground operations in Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistan government
• since April, missile strikes have been carried out on positions within Pakistan, attributed to coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan - strikes that have killed both Pakistani civilians and militants
• A raid in South Waziristan last week left 15 people dead and prompted Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to strongly criticise the raids and insist that there was no deal allowing foreign troops to conduct operations inside the country: "The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost," he added in a statement subsequently backed by the country's Premier Yousaf Raza Gilani.

It seems to be a principle of imperialism that when losing a war, the "arrogance of power" (to quote Senator J. William Fulbright) dictates an expansion of that same war. The Senator's observation from 1966 still seems relevant in 2008:

"Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence."

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Bangladesh's Climate Refugees

Bangladesh is facing the reality of a growing number of climate refugees - as families are forced to move inland as increasing areas of the coastal plain are submerged under higher tides caused by rising sea levels.

This trend is despite the fact that the country's two large rivers - the Ganges and the Brahmaputra - are carrying downstream more than a billion tonnes of sediment per year. About one third of this is deposited on the country's southern coast, forming new sand bars and, eventually, extending the coastline by a rate of about 8 square miles per year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there will be 20 million people internally displaced people within Bangladesh by 2050 as a result of climate change. James Hansen, meanwhile, of the NASA Goddard Institute predicts that the country's entire population of 144 million are at risk of becoming environmental refugees by the end of the century. Source: AFP

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GM Producers to Benefit from Food Crisis?

News that China, Russia and the Philippines are considering relaxing their historic opposition to GM rice is a depressing development.

The commercial production of GM crops will strengthen the hand of multinationals such as Monsanto by tying farmers into expensive contracts to buy their GM seed.

This is in addition to the long-term impact of genetically modifying crops - the effects of which we simply don't know.

The current food crisis has been caused in part by the industrialization of food production at the expense of local and sustainable approaches. The tragedy would be if the crisis became the excuse to open the door to further food industrialization, which may be irreversible.

Greenpeace's position on GM food can be viewed here.

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Another Reason Not to Shop at Tesco

Concerns about the dominance of Tesco and other supermarkets in Britain are now being played out in the Asian market as Tesco seeks to expand its operations within Thailand.

Tesco Lotus (as the Thai branch of the business is called) has been opening stores at a rapid rate in Thailand. The company owns over 300 stores across the country and has established itself as the largest supermarket chain in Thailand.

As has been the case in Britain, the growth of the Tesco brand in Thailand has not been without its dissenters. In the last six months, however, three of these critics have found themselves on the receiving end of multi-million dollar libel suits filed by Tesco Lotus.

Jit Siratranont is a former MP and currently vice-general secretary of the Thai Chamber of Commerce. He is accused by Tesco Lotus of criminal libel in connection with a speech made at Bangkok's Kasetsart University in November 2007 in which he stated that Tesco had an "aggressive policy of expansion." If successful in their law suit, Tesco will seek damages of up to 1.1 bn bhat (£17.5 M) from Mr Siratranont. A prison sentence is also possible.

Kamol Kamoltrakul, a writer at the Bangkok Business News, was served with a writ in January of this year claiming she had caused damage to Tesco Lotus through an article critical of the company's rapid expansion, alleging that it was harming smaller grocers. Tesco is seeking 100m baht (£1.6m) in damages from the journalist.

Subsequently, columnist Nongnart Harnvilai was sued for 100m baht (£1.6m) for writing in the same paper that Tesco no longer "loved"' Thais. Tesco Lotus claims that over £1m of damage to their business reputation has been caused by this article.

Tesco Lotus has been strongly criticised by writers' organisations for filing these law suits.

“Tesco Lotus has asked for a combined 1,200 million baht (US $38.7 million) as monetary damages from the three cases. It did not intend to win the compensation awards. But it aimed to stop news reporting on its rapid business expansion and criticism on its impact on small Thai retailers,”

claims the Thai Journalists Association.

In a similar vein, The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) released a statement strongly condemning the suits filed by Tesco Lotus:

“SEAPA sees the Tesco Lotus suits as harassment pure and simple, not only of consumer advocates and Thai civil society actors, but of journalists and commentators in general.”

Earlier this year, the Citizen Media Network in Northern Thailand released an open letter to the Thai public claiming Tesco’s legal action threatens freedom of speech and fair criticism. The group urged the public to join its fight against the expansion of Tesco Lotus stores.

From the UK, Jo Glanville from the Index on Censorship, says "What you're seeing that's new is the globalisation of a chilling effect on free speech, where you've got this multinational linking up from Thailand to the UK."

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has initiated an international letter writing campaign to Tesco Lotus urging them to drop the civil law suits against the three individuals, describing the claims as "punitive and a direct threat to press freedom and free public commentary" and adding that,

"Global experience shows that once the precedent of excessive civil complaints is established the threat of future suits has a chilling effect on the press and reporters’ and editors’ willingness to pursue critical news stories."

Details of CPJ's campaign can be found here. Letters or faxes to Tesco Lotus expressing your views on the matter can be sent directly to:

Mr. Darmp Sukontasap
Senior Vice President
Corporate and Legal Affairs
Tesco Lotus PLC
Bangkok, Thailand

Fax: +66 02 797 9808

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The Ethics of Importing Stray Dogs from Sri Lanka

The news that three British people have been bitten by a rabid dog held in quarantine in Essex was disturbing enough. To then learn that the infected dog was a stray which had been imported, along with (wait for it) THIRTEEN other strays from the streets and rubbish tips of Sri Lanka was a detail too far.



What on earth are people doing importing these hounds into the UK? The claim is that they are "rescuing" them from the admittedly brief and miserable lives that they endure in their native Sri Lanka. But, seriously, has anyone stopped for a moment to question or challenge the whole idea of importing stray dogs?

Consider the following:

• a single dog costs hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds to transport into the UK from Sri Lanka by air, not to mention producing several tons of CO2 in the process
  
• Additional costs include veterinary fees, medicines and kenneling as well as the cost of flying people from Britain to Sri Lanka to round up the hapless mutts in the first place
  
• Many of the dogs thus imported die in quarantine. The BBC reports that 5 of the 13 recently imported and brought to the Chingford centre have been put down since their arrival

Animal SOS Sri Lanka, the organisation responsible for the misguided practice of importing rabid dogs, is a registered charity in the UK, enabling it to claim significant tax relief on donations made by the pet loving British public.

Their web site is full of emotional stories of animal suffering, which, all things being equal, I'm sure we would all prefer not to be happening.

The trouble is that all things are not equal. 22% of the population of Sri Lanka live below the poverty line. The country has a Gross Domestic Product of $4,100 per head of population, ranked 144 in the world. Infant mortality is 19 per 1,000 live births, more than three times higher than that of the UK or USA. The presence of so many diseased, abandoned and neglected animals on the streets is simply a symptom of grinding human poverty, which SOS seems altogether quiet about.

How can it possibly be just to spend thousands of pounds on dogs instead of on human beings whose life prospects are often no better than the animals they live among?

To me, the most disturbing feature of the web site is the story of the Cat Lady of Sri Lanka. This desperate woman, abandoned and living in squalor next to an open sewer, is presented on the site as a model of compassion for animals. The writer virtually passes over the nauseating state of the woman's physical and mental health to describe the fact that "she was not concerned about her own health and squalid living conditions. Strangely, she seemed resigned to her fate. But, she was concerned about her pets and keeping them as healthy as she could, with no funds."

Resigned?!

"Inspired" by her example, the misguided SOS team draw their sentimental conclusion:

When human companionships are lost,
animals are still there for us.
They always will be and that is why they
are so special.
It is a unique bond that few in this world
will ever understand. For their loyalty
and devotion to us humans, we owe them
a duty of care.

So, at the heart of this nonsense is a sentimental conviction (which, incidentally, few in this world will understand) that diseased dogs should have thousands of pounds spent on flying them round the world to die in kennels in Essex.

Well, I confess plainly that I am clearly among the many in this regard and am stepping into this river of sentimentality and shouting: "Save the human! Save the human! Save the human!"

For a more edifying story from Sri Lanka, read about the work and legacy of micro entrepreneur John Karunaratne here.

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Trouserless Terrorist Causes Toilet Trouble

Humour me and read the story from Singapore please.










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It's Official - Global Warming is Bad for Your Health

Health professionals around the world have issued a variety of warnings about the impact of global warming on human health.

In Canada, the Ontario College of Family Physicians has issued a report highlighting the dangers to public health of continued climate change. These include an increase in the incidence of heat stroke and respiratory illness, especially among children and older people. Citing a two-week heat wave in France in 2003 which resulted in 15,000 premature deaths, the College is urging medical services to prepare for similar events in Canada and elsewhere in the coming years. The report also predicts an increase in the number of cases of malaria and dengue fever, caught by Canadians returning from vacations in a warmer Caribbean. Climate change will, says the report, also lead to an increase in Lyme disease (pictured) and west Nile virus – conditions which the vast majority of Canadian physicians have never seen let alone treated.

College President, Dr. Renee Arnold, says the negative health effects of climate change will be irreversible "if we don't get our act together now and stop damaging our environment."

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has issued a warning of 150,000 deaths a year as a direct result of climate change, with more than half coming from the Asia-Pacific region.

This number of fatalities will be caused by increases in malaria, malnutrition and diarrhoea as well as by flooding triggered by climate change. Citing outbreaks of malaria in regions once considered too cold for the disease to survive – such as the highlands of Papua new Guinea – WHO spokesman Shigeru Omi describes the health effects of climate change as lasting for the long term: "it is inevitable climate change will get worse for some time," Omi said.

Related health developments cited by the WHO include:

• Increased water-borne illness caused by sea water seepage into ground water supplies in Pacific Island nations such as Tuvulu and the Marshall Islands
• Deaths caused by increased flooding and droughts
• The spread of disease caused by the migration of people rendered homeless through environmental degradation

In a separate report, the WHO has also highlighted the link between climate change and mental health with evidence that extreme weather conditions can lead to psychiatric illness.

"Psychosocial illnesses are a part of the various health issues associated with climate change," according to Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Deputy Regional Director of the WHO.

Studies of severe flooding in England and a cyclone-affected area of Orissa in India have demonstrated an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder among affected populations, up to one year after the initial climate event.

The relationship between drought and mental health has been long established: "The phenomenon of farmers’ suicides in India is a typical example of consequences of climatic vagaries in poor, predominantly agrarian economies," according to the report.

Following the Asian tsunami, the WHO estimated that 20-40 per cent of affected people suffered from short-term mild psychological distress and that another 30-50 per cent experienced moderate-to-severe psychological stress. Similar results emerged from those affected by Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

The report concludes that people living in poverty, those in geographically vulnerable areas and those highly dependent on farming for their livelihood are among the groups more likely to experience mental health problems sparked by extreme weather patterns.

Australian doctors, meanwhile, have warned of increased rates of climate-change related illness in Australia and the Pacific, citing heat stroke, mosquito-borne illness and gastroenteritis as representing particular problems.

Dr Graeme Horton is quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying, "Climate change is clearly much, much more than an economic inconvenience, it is a threat to our life support systems."

The final warning comes from the British Medical Association which is calling on health professionals to take the lead in responding to the public health aspects of climate change.

Predictions include the possibility of malaria occurring in the UK, increased water-borne illnesses caused by flooding and a possible increase in skin cancers and sunstroke caused by heat waves becoming “common” by the middle of the C21. Head of Science and Ethics for the BMA, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, also foresees increased mental health issues sparked by climate change.

The BMA report predicts an economic imbalance in the health effects of climate change in the UK with the most deprived 10% of the population “eight times more likely to be living in the coastal floodplain than the least deprived 10 per cent” and thus more at risk.

POST SCRIPT

Exactly one year after this post was published, evidence was submitted today by the US Environmental Protection Agency confirming that greenhouse gases represent a significant and direct threat to human health. Findings include:

• concentrations of six greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluorideare - are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions
  
• these high levels are "very likely" the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate
• Climate change is resulting in increased drought and flooding; more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires; greater sea level rise; harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems
• the health of the poor, the very young, the disabled and the elderly are disproportionately effected by climate change and increased concentrations of ground-level ozone
  

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British Government Urges Biofuel Rethink

News from the Guardian (here) that Chancellor Alistair Darling is calling for an urgent review of Europe and America's use of biofuels is a welcome piece of news for those who have been concerned about the potential environmental and social harm caused by a rush to ethanol - despite its apparent "green" credentials.

The Chancellor's call - ahead of the G7 summit in June - comes amid growing international awareness of the link between, on the one hand, the increase in greenhouse gases caused by clearing land to grow crops for ethanol and, on the other, the effect on world food prices of a shift in agricultural production from traditional foodstuffs to "ethanol crops".

A previous post on this site highlighted the problems facing a number of Asian countries as the cost of rice has soared this year. Meanwhile, the increased costs of wheat, soya and other staples is triggering unrest in several African and Asian countries, with demonstrations and riots in Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia as well as violent protests in Ivory Coast, Senegal and Cameroon over recent weeks.

Darling is quoted in the Guardian as saying, 'If the developed world is serious about meeting the millennium development goals - and we are currently way off track - we have got to do something about rising food prices."

Tony Juniper, meanwhile, director of Friends of the Earth, has called to an immediate halt to grain-based biofuel production because the unintended consequences have become so damaging. "Policymakers have inadvertently created a competition between the drivers of big vehicles and people who do not have enough food to eat," he said.

More provocatively, a quote from David Strahans in his The Last Oil Shock: the rush to diodiesel could leave us "starving to death in a traffic jam."

All posts on the biofuel issue can be followed on this blog by clicking here.

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Drought in China

Northern China has experienced its lowest rainfall for 57 years - only 6.2 mm since January.

The worst hit area is Heilongiiang Province in the north east - China's largest supplier of corn, rice, soybean and wheat.

Keep on eye on this story.

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Climate Change Could Dispalce 125 Million People in South Asia

Dr Sudhir Chella Rajan, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras has warned of the possibility of mass migration from coastal regions of South Asia as sea levels rise due to global warming and as fresh water supplies are disrupted.

In a paper entitled Climate Migrants in South Asia: Estimates and Solutions Dr Rajan warns that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow as projected, leading to a global temperature rise of 4-5°C, the South Asian region could face a wave of displaced migrants.

Bangladeshi environmentalist Mohon Kumar Mondol, responded to the prospect of millions of Bangladeshi refugees:

“India would certainly be the first country to experience an inflow of refugees. This is a reality in my lifetime. I don’t want to see the day I lose my home to the sea and saline deserts where people have to live without clean water. It can be prevented and we are the last generation that can stop it; governments across the world have no choice but to stop this nightmare from becoming reality.”

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Rice - a Staple of Social Upheaval?

Rice may be emerging as the trigger for widespread social unrest across Asia.

As demand surges, prices have doubled in the last five years and reserve stocks have fallen to their lowest levels for thirty years.

In response to this trend, a number of Asian countries have imposed export bans on their own supplies of rice, a move likely to further raise prices in the rice-importing countries.

Recent developments include:

• protests in Indonesia's capital Jakata over the rising cost of rice

• an export ban on Cambodia's rice supply
  

• a 22% reduction in rice exports from Vietnam

• an increased export tax on rice from India - from $500 to $650 per tonne

Meanwhile, the government of the Philippines (the world's largest rice importer) has also asked Vietnam recently to guarantee its own supply of rice among concerns about the former's ability to feed its population, which now stands at nearly 90 million.

The Philippine government has been widely criticized for not ensuring sufficient home-grown supplies of rice over the years as consumers now face major price rises on this staple product.

Meanwhile, China, the world's biggest rice producer, has announced plans to increase the subsidy paid to rice (and wheat) framers in an attempt to boost production and stabilize prices. China's rice crop is almost entirely used in its domestic market.






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