Desdemona Despair

The number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children.

Food Stamp Usage Across the Country

By Rachel Morris, www.motherjones.com, November/December 2009 Issue

IT'S A BRIGHT, BALMY SUNDAY afternoon and I'm driving through the western outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand, the kind of place you never see on a postcard. No majestic mountains, no improbably green pastures—just a bland tangle of shopping malls and suburbia. I follow a dead-end street, past a rubber plant, a roofing company, a drainage service, and a plastics manufacturer, until I reach a white building behind a chain-link fence. Inside is a kernel of a nation within a nation—a sneak preview of what a climate change exodus looks like.

This is the Tuvalu Christian Church, the heart of a migrant community from what may be the first country to be rendered unlivable by global warming. Tuvalu is the fourth-smallest nation on Earth: six coral atolls and three reef islands flung across 500,000 square miles of ocean, about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. It has few natural resources to export and no economy to speak of; its gross domestic product relies heavily on the sale of its desirable Internet domain suffix, which is .tv, and a modest trade in collectible stamps. Tuvalu's total land area is just 16 square miles, of which the highest point stands 16 feet above the waterline. Tuvaluans, who have a high per-capita incidence of good humor, refer to the spot as "Mount Howard," after the former Australian prime minister who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. … 

Tuvalu and other low-lying island countries like Kiribati and the Maldives are, in one sense, the starkest example of how climate change will reshape the world. But Auckland's Tuvaluan community also represents a best-case scenario—so far their migration has been orderly, and their numbers are minuscule compared with the millions of impoverished people who live in global warming hot spots like Africa's Sahel, coastal Bangladesh, and Vietnam's deltas. Koko Warner, an expert on climate change and migration at the United Nations University in Bonn, says the displacement of those populations could be "a phenomenon of a scope not experienced in human history." …

What Happens When Your Country Drowns? via The Oil Drum

PARIS, Nov 29 (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 -- The UN refugee agency says some 24 million people worldwide have fled their homes due to environmental factors, and warns their ranks could grow tenfold by mid-century, spurred greatly by climate change.

Sheer numbers and the lack of legal status under international law mean a vicious humanitarian crisis is looming, say experts.

Bottom line? Millions of hungry, poor, vulnerable people may simply have nowhere to go.

"In the future, who is going to open their doors to all this misery?" is the rhetorical question asked by Jean-Francois Durieux, in charge of climate change at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). …

"Environmentally induced migration has the potential to become a phenomenon of unprecedented scale and scope," said Koko Warner at the UN University Institute of Environment and Human Security in Bonn, Germany.

"At 4.0 C (7.2 F), climate-driven migration redraws the map of population distribution across the surface of the globe," said Francois Gemmene of France's Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI).

At least three forces are likely to push people in search of more hospitable terrain: rising sea levels, drought and dying coral reefs.

If the world's population peaks at about nine billion in 2050, a large chunk of humanity will live in mega-cities spread across deltas vulnerable to the twin threats of submergence and subsidence. …

And what if climate refugees have no place to go?

Annual emissions of carbon from changes in land use (Note P = 10¹⁵).²⁰

Virtually all of the carbon released to the atmosphere from land use changes now comes from the tropics. Tropical deforestation, including logging and the permanent and temporary conversion of forests to croplands and pastures, releases about 1-2 PgC/yr. This is 15-35% of annual fossil fuel emissions during the 1990s (adding in all the other gases that result from land use change e.g. methane, nitrous oxide etc., tropical deforestation accounts for about 25% of the total anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases). Africa contributes about 0.12-0.35 PgC/year.

The science of climate change in Africa: impacts and adaptation [pdf]

[20] R. A. Houghton. Tropical deforestation as a source of greenhouse gas emissions. In P. Moutinho and S. Schwartzman (eds.) Deforestation and Climate Change, Amazon Institute for Environmental Research, 13-21, 2005. [pdf]

Australia, already the driest inhabited continent on Earth, is drying up for good. The state of New South Wales is particularly hard-hit, with catastrophic mega-fires destroying the eucalyptus forests, major rivers reduced to muddy streambeds, and dams drained to nothing but algae-filled ponds.

Wyangala Dam is an example of how it will end. Now down to less than 5% of its capacity, drastic water-usage limitations have been imposed by the state; without these measures, the dam will be empty by February 2010. Whole towns are being cut off and agriculture abandoned to provide water for upstream towns to water their lawns.

[21 December 2010 update: Since this was posted, Australia’s “Big Dry” has been replaced by the “Big Wet,” with flooding and mayhem in the previously drought-plagued state of New South Wales. Des has added two new photos from 2010 to show the change in the Wyangala Dam’s water level. The November photo clearly shows the “bathtub ring,” similar to that of Lake Mead. 

Some readers have pointed out that Australia has always experienced the drought-flood cycle, but what’s different now is the rate at which records are being broken, e.g., record heat waves are occurring more frequently. 

The cycle of record-breaking droughts punctuated with record-breaking floods is in accordance with the expectations of climate science. Desdemona fully expects that when the 2010 La Niña passes, the drought trend will re-emerge.]

Wyangala Dam in better days

Wyangala Dam in 2005

Wyangala Dam in 2006

Wyangala Dam in 2009

Wyangala Dam, early 2010

Wyangala Dam, November 2010

By SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press Writer, Sunday, November 22, 2009

YERINGTON, Nev. (AP) — Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.

But she can look through the window from her kitchen table, just past her backyard with its swingset and pet llama, and see an ominous sign on a neighboring fence: “Danger: Uranium Mine.”

For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.

They say they have been met by a stone wall from state regulators, local politicians and the huge oil company that inherited the toxic site — British Petroleum. Those interests have insisted uranium naturally occurs in the region’s soil and there’s no way to prove that a half-century of processing metals at the former Anaconda pit mine is responsible for the contamination.

That has changed. A new wave of testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found that 79 percent of the wells tested north of the World War II-era copper mine have dangerous levels of uranium or arsenic or both that make the water unsafe to drink.

And, more importantly to the neighbors, that the source of the pollution is a groundwater plume that has slowly migrated from the six-square-mile mine site.

The new samples likely never would have been taken if not for a whistleblower, a preacher’s wife, a tribal consultant and some stubborn government scientists who finally helped crack the toxic mystery that has plagued this rural mining and farming community for decades.

“They have completely ruined the groundwater out here,” said Pauly, the wife of a local pastor and mother of two girls who organized a community action group five years to seek the truth about the pollution. …

EPA: Uranium from polluted mine in Nev. wells via The Oil Drum

By PATRICK REYNOLDS, www.IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Friday, November 27, 2009, 9:23 PM
Updated Friday, November 27, 2009, 10:44 PM

Ireland's massive flooding has almost certainly been the result of climate change, says Nobel Prize-winner and Ireland's leading climatologist, Prof. John Sweeney.

"We have reaped what we have sown," he said.

Devastating floods  have swept large parts of the country. Areas of the  south and west of Ireland have been under water in the worst flooding in 800 years, according to experts. Major rivers such as the Shannon and the River Lee have burst their banks and thousands have been evacuated.

Sweeney, of Maynooth College, was one of the climatologists who formed part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and won the Nobel Prize in partnership with Al Gore in 2007 because of their warnings about climate change

He pointed out that, per capita, Ireland is one of the largest  contributors to climate change, as  the country has far greater greenhouse emissions than Germany, France and Britain.

Sweeney was  was also the main author of a report published by the Environmental Protection Agency about the effect on climate change in Ireland. Among his predictions was that winter rainfall amounts would rise steeply in Ireland, which seems to be happening.

"Floods have always been with us and we can't point the finger at any human agency, but the effects of climate change will mean that events like this will become more frequent," he said referring to the flooding. …

Nobel expert: Global warming causing Irish floods, climate change via The Oil Drum

The extraordinary forced relocation of illegal settlers from Kenya’s Massai Mau Forest Complex foreshadows the plight of climate refugees for the rest of the 21st century and beyond. Expect this kind of tragedy to be repeated many times in upcoming decades.

In this case, settlers have defied Kenya law and encroached deeply into the forest to set up slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production. This puts enormous stress on the forest, in addition to the current historic drought. The Mau is one of the “water towers” of Kenya, and the rivers that issue from it are now bone dry. Lake Nakuru, which is fed by three rivers from the Mau, is now so shallow that it’s possible to walk across it.

For an undertaking of this scale that affects so many people so profoundly, there’s surprisingly scant photographic coverage of the event. Here are a few images I've collected as the story has unfolded.

The level of destruction in the western part of the Maasai Mau made it impossible to count other threats individually. However, in western part of the forest, where the pressures are much lower, it was possible to count them individually. They include:

• 1,055 heads of livestock mostly in the south and northeast;
• 36 burnt forest areas, mostly in the south and northeast (Photograph);
• 148 charcoal kilns, mostly on the lower slopes;
• 9 landslides in the northwest.

Massai Mau Forest Status Report 2005 [pdf]

The River Njoro is completely dry year-round.

So the Kenya government has made the decision: no Mau Forest, no Kenya. The Mau Forest is to be rebuilt in a massive environmental restoration project, but first, the squatters must be removed.

Unfortunately, separate from the illegal forest residents are the indigenous Ogiek people. The government makes no distinction between them and the illegal settlers.

The Ogiek have protested, apparently to no avail. To my mind, this is the most tragic aspect of the whole undertaking, because we have good evidence that indigenous peoples are excellent partners in conserving their forests.

In the first phase of Mau reconstruction, 20,000 families are being moved out of the forest. In this photo, a family stands in front of their small plot, which was created by slash-and-burn deforestation. Before it was settled, this area was closed-canopy forest.

In this photo, a family stands in front of their house; the wood is made from poached Mau Forest trees.

Some people have deeds to their land. The government is not honoring them and will not reimburse evicted families.

In November 2009, the evictions began. Families walked out of the forest and collected along roadsides. And waited.

And waited.

Rangers are destroying the homes of evictees, to prevent their return. Some settlers have surreptitiously re-entered the forest.

Now the Mau Forest settlers join the ranks of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in refugee camps. The UN says there may be 150 million climate refugees by 2050. I can’t find any photos of the makeshift camps that are being set up for Mau refugees, so here’s the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

In pictures: Mau forest

U.S. 308,040,933

World 6,800,010,610

23:38 UTC (EST+5) Nov 28, 2009

We are still on target to hit 7 billion in 2012.

U.S. and World Population Clocks

Historic efficiency improvements would meet only a fraction of the projected gap

Agricultural yields in both rain-fed and irrigated areas grew at an annual rate of about 1 percent between 1990 and 2004, a major driver of overall water productivity improvements. A similar rate of improvement occurred in industry. Were agriculture and industry to sustain this rate of improvement through 2030, it would address only 20 percent of the supply-demand gap, leaving a large deficit to be filled. Similarly, a business-as-usual supply build-out, assuming constraints in infrastructure rather than in the raw resource, will address only a further 20 percent of the gap. Even today, a gap between water demand and supply exists when some amount of supply that is currently “borrowed” from environmental requirements is excluded, or when supply is considered from the perspective of reliable rather than average availability.

The impacts of global climate change on local water availability, although largely outside the scope of this study, could exacerbate the problem in many countries. While such impacts are still uncertain at the level of an individual river basin for the relatively short time horizon of 2030, the uncertainty itself places more urgency on addressing the status quo challenge.

[Jim] Note that “Existing accessible, reliable supply” is taken to be constant to 2030. Color me skeptical.

Charting our water future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making [pdf]

Arctic sea ice conditions are even worse than feared after a survey found that ice detected as older and thicker by satellites is actually thin and fragile, a prominent Canadian researcher reported Friday.

University of Manitoba researcher David Barber said experts around the world believed the ice was recovering because satellite images showed it expanding, but the thick, multiyear frozen sheets have been replaced by thin ice that cannot support the weight of a polar bear.

"Polar bears are being restricted to a small fringe of where this multiyear sea ice is. As we went further and further north, we saw less and less polar bears because this ice wasn't even strong enough for the polar bears to stand on," said Barber, who returned from an expedition to the Beaufort Sea in September.

Barber said permanent ice, which is normally up to 30 feet thick, was easily pierced by the research icebreaker he and his team were on. …

Scientists also said Friday that shrinking Arctic sea ice may be forcing some hungry polar bears to cannibalize bear cubs.

At least seven cases of mature male polar bears eating bear cubs have been spotted this year among the animals around Churchill, Manitoba, said Ian Stirling, a retired Environment Canada biologist who specializes in the Churchill bears.

Stirling said evidence suggests the cubs are being killed for food, not just so the male can mate with the sow. … 

"As I watched, over the course of five minutes, the entire multiyear ice floe broke up into pieces. This floe was 10 miles across," said Barber, who holds the Canada research chair in Arctic science at the University of Manitoba.

The ice is unable to withstand battering waves and storms because global warming is rapidly melting it at a rate of 27,000 square miles each year, he said.

Multiyear sea ice used to cover 90 percent of the Arctic basin, Barber said. It now covers roughly 19 percent. Where it used to be up to 33 feet thick, it's now 6 feet at most. …

Much less stable ice for polar bears, expert says via The Oil Drum

By BRIAN ROBINS
November 28, 2009

LOW water levels will force the shutdown of the large Wallerawang power station near Lithgow over Christmas, as efforts are made to to take pressure off local water supplies.

The move is the clearest impact yet of the dry weather conditions on the state's electricity industry.

A continuing lack of rain could begin to affect the state's power supplies from late January, as electricity demand begins to rise following the summer holidays.

''Wallerawang will be able to operate for short periods, but not for long periods during high demand periods,'' one electricity market trader said.

At this stage the Australian Electricity Market Operator, which manages the national electricity market, has not indicated concerns about a lack of generation capacity in NSW, although this could change if the state suffers from a dry, hot summer, as is predicted.

As the temperature soared last weekend, so did power demand. Extreme hot weather coupled with high winds are a combustible combination for the state's aging electricity network. …

Shortage of water will shut power station

By Josephine Tovey, November 28, 2009

FISH lie belly-up on the cracked bed of Lake Cargelligo. Like the lake it is built around, the town is drying out.

Lake Cargelligo, a settlement of 1300 in the geographical heart of NSW, was once a holiday haven for swimmers and waterskiers. Now empty shops line the street and even the post office is for sale.

On Tuesday hundreds of those who are still here gathered to listen to a travelling roadshow of water bureaucrats about what was going to be done with the little bit of water that remains in the dam upstream.

The Lachlan River, muse of Banjo Paterson and lifeblood to tens of thousands in the region, is being cut off at Condoblin, with only small flows being released below. Towns further south-west will go without.

If they did not do this, State Water staff told the meeting, the dam would be sapped by February. …

''If this is the Government's climate change policy,'' said Patti Bartholomew, a cattle farmer, ''then God help NSW.'' …

Ten years ago Wyangala Dam was at 99 per cent, a wall of water 25 storeys high licked the top of its wall. Since then the inflows have been the lowest on record, less than half of what they were during the Federation drought. The dam is now less than 5 per cent full.

As water disappears, cracked creek beds and muddy embankments are left exposed. Animals searching for water are getting bogged up to their necks.

The Herald saw a farmer crawl out on logs and sink his hands deep into the thick mud to wrench out his neighbour's sheep. Most of the people the Herald spoke to are sceptical about climate change, but according to CSIRO and other climate models, they are some of the hardest hit. ''Certainly the southern part of the Murray-Darling Basin, which includes the Lachlan, [is] looking at hotter and drier projections in the future,'' a senior research fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, Dr Jason Evans, said. …

Everything's dried up and communities begin to crack

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing mankind. It claims many lives. And it also costs a great deal, given the rising trend in weather-related natural catastrophes and resulting losses. Whilst a number of factors are involved, there is clear evidence indicating that one cause is climate change. Climate protection is necessary and makes economic sense. It is therefore very important for the Copenhagen climate summit (7–18 December 2009) to achieve significant progress and, as far as possible, lay the cornerstones of a strict climate agreement.

"Our statistics clearly show that the loss burden from weather-related natural catastrophes is increasing. A year like 2009, with relatively low losses to date, in no way contradicts this", said Torsten Jeworrek, member of Munich Re’s Board of Management responsible for reinsurance business. "Something must be done. Even if an all-embracing agreement does not seem feasible in Copenhagen, at the very least fundamental framework conditions should be established. We cannot afford a delay at the expense of future generations."

Munich Re’s NatCatSERVICE database shows that, globally, the average number of major weather-related catastrophes such as windstorms, floods or droughts is now three times as high as at the beginning of the 1980s. Losses have risen even more, with average increases of 11% per year since 1980. To what extent the increased losses are due to climate change is not yet clear. Preliminary analyses suggest that it accounts for a low single-digit percentage of annual overall losses.

Although this increase appears low, the amounts involved are enormous. This is illustrated by total natural catastrophes losses in the period 1980–2008. According to studies by Munich Re, overall losses due to weather-related events came to around US$ 1.6tn in original values, with insured losses amounting to approximately US$ 465bn. In the period from 2000–2008 alone, overall losses totalled over US$ 750bn, whilst insured losses came to around US$ 280bn.

"Even conservative estimates show that we are talking here about climate change costs already running into billions per year. The insurance industry is able to adapt but, in the end, each individual has to bear the cost", said Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research. "It is therefore very important and makes economic sense to lay cornerstones for a new agreement, with ambitious targets, in Copenhagen. After all, the climate reacts slowly. Even now, climate change can no longer be halted, it can only be attenuated. And it is high time this was done." …

Ambitious climate protection targets are needed – or the cost of climate change will keep rising  [pdf]

By Tim McGirk Monday, Oct. 19, 2009

…Depending on your point of view, the World is either the apex of mankind's ingenuity or a cautionary tale about the feverish excesses of Dubai's 21st century boom. Each island was selling for $15 million to $50 million, by invitation only: its developers were pitching the spits of land to tycoons, sportsmen and celebrities. But when Dubai's property market imploded last year, dropping more than 50%, cheeky headlines in the international press suggested that "the end of the World" had arrived. One dealer was quoted as saying that the multibillion-dollar project had been postponed "indefinitely." (See pictures of Dubai.) …

A Five-Star Ghost Town at the End of 'The World' via The Oil Drum

By Jake Richardson
Published on November 26th, 2009

A recent study has produced some astonishing and disturbing results. Tuna was ordered from 31 sushi restaurants. Genetic tests were then used to identify the species of fish ordered. Nineteen of the restaurants surveyed incorrectly described or could could not indicate which species of fish they had served. A few establishments actually served endangered bluefin tuna not knowing which tuna type they were selling to their customers.

The customers were also unaware of what they were eating exactly, because they believed the menu information was correct. Pacific bluefin tuna are overfished and in danger of being driven into extinction. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch has rated them a fish to AVOID. If some restaurants are not aware of the types of tuna they are serving, consumers will have a very difficult time trying to be environmentally conscientious diners. …

 Some Restaurant Sushi Contains Endangered Species via Endangered Species

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia - Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies.

The Northern Territory government announced its plan Wednesday for Docker River, a town of 350 residents where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region.

"The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels," local government minister Rob Knight said in Alice Springs, 310 miles northeast of Docker. "This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action."

The camels, which are not native to Australia but were introduced in the 1840s, have smashed water tanks, approached houses to try to take water from air conditioning units, and knocked down fencing at the small airport runway, Knight said.

The carcasses of camels killed in stampedes at water storage areas are contaminating the water supply, he added.

The government plans to use helicopters to herd the camels about nine miles outside of town next week, where they will be shot and their carcasses left to decay in the desert. The state government will give a 49,000 Australian dollar ($45,000) grant for the cull and to repair damaged infrastructure in the town.

"We don't have the luxury of time because the herd is getting bigger," Knight said.

It is common to see some camels in the remote community, but a continuing drought and an early heat wave have dried up other water sources and forced great numbers of them into town. Much of Australia is gripped by some of the worst drought conditions on record. …

Australian town ‘under siege’ by thirsty camels

By Richard Ingham PARIS (AFP) — Estimates vary widely on the costs of damage from climate change, easing these impacts and taming the carbon gas stoking the problem, but economists agree the bill is likely to be in the trillions of dollars.

Figures depend on different forecasts for greenhouse-gas emissions and the timeline for reaching them. In addition, key variables remain sketchy.

How will rainfall, snowfall, storm frequency and ocean levels look a few decades from now? How will they affect a specific country or region? And how fast will nations introduce low-carbon technologies, carbon taxes and other policies that alter energy use?

Despite these uncertainties, economists share a broad consensus: climate change will ultimately cost thousands of billions of dollars, a tab that keeps rising as more carbon enters the atmosphere.

"The cost of climate impacts goes up with the delay on emissions mitigation," said Sam Fankhauser of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE).

"On the cost of adaptation, there's a timing issue. For instance, there's no point building sea walls now if the sea levels are only going to rise gradually over the next 50 years. But we do know that costs of adaptation will go up non-linearly, in other words exponentially, with the degree of warming that we have." …

Climate change to cost trillions, say economists via The Oil Drum

By Boris Bachorz – Thu Nov 26, 6:15 am ET

NAIROBI (AFP) – From prolonged droughts to melting ice caps to heavy flooding and unpredictable weather patterns, climate change effects are already wrecking lives in Africa, the continent that pollutes the least.

Around 23 million people currently face starvation across east Africa as successive failed rainy seasons have decimated crops, livestock and devastated livelihoods.

Residents of Turkana, a region of northern Kenya withered by severe drought, recently found respite when an NGO bought off their emaciated livestock and slaughtered them to feed the starving.

"It's the worst drought since 1969, the year when the dromedaries died," recalled Esta Ekouam, a grandmother who has no idea how old she is.

Across the border in Ethiopia, poor harvests have left millions at the mercy of relief aid.

"The weather has changed, it's not as it used to be before," lamented Tuke Shika, a farmer in southern Ethiopia. "The rains are increasingly erratic and we are getting less and less yields."

Experts say the east African drought is the worst in decades. …

Climate change already a reality in Africa

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, Friday, 27 November 2009

Concern is growing about the huge number of seabirds being killed by fisheries in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said yesterday.

Although conservationists' fears have so far focused on seabirds in the Southern Ocean, especially albatrosses, there is mounting alarm over the numbers of northern species, such as shearwaters and petrels, falling victim to large-scale industrialised fishing methods.

The most deadly of these is longlining, which involves hooks set with bait on lines which stream out for great distances behind fishing vessels. Seabirds swoop on the bait when it is on the surface, before being hooked themselves as a so-called "bycatch".

It is estimated that 200,000 seabirds are being killed in fisheries in European waters every year, the RSPB said, with one species, the great shearwater, suffering an exceptionally high annual bycatch rate of 50,000 birds in the Spanish longline hake fishery to the west of Ireland.

Europe's rarest seabird, the Balearic shearwater, which is critically endangered with a population of just 2,000 pairs, is predicted to become extinct within 40 years if losses continue. Up to 50 individuals have been caught on hooks on a single longline. …

The 'bycatch' downed by industrial fishing

By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: November 22, 2009

It was drizzling lightly in late October when the midnight shift started at the Owls Head Water Pollution Control Plant, where much of Brooklyn’s sewage is treated.

A few miles away, people were walking home without umbrellas from late dinners. But at Owls Head, a swimming pool’s worth of sewage and wastewater was soon rushing in every second. Warning horns began to blare. A little after 1 a.m., with a harder rain falling, Owls Head reached its capacity and workers started shutting the intake gates.

That caused a rising tide throughout Brooklyn’s sewers, and untreated feces and industrial waste started spilling from emergency relief valves into the Upper New York Bay and Gowanus Canal.

“It happens anytime you get a hard rainfall,” said Bob Connaughton, one the plant’s engineers. “Sometimes all it takes is 20 minutes of rain, and you’ve got overflows across Brooklyn.”

One goal of the Clean Water Act of 1972 was to upgrade the nation’s sewer systems, many of them built more than a century ago, to handle growing populations and increasing runoff of rainwater and waste. During the 1970s and 1980s, Congress distributed more than $60 billion to cities to make sure that what goes into toilets, industrial drains and street grates would not endanger human health.

But despite those upgrades, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage is spilling into waterways.

In the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems — including those in major cities — have reported violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere, according to data from state environmental agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.

But fewer than one in five sewage systems that broke the law were ever fined or otherwise sanctioned by state or federal regulators, the Times analysis shows. …

A 2007 study published in the journal Pediatrics, focusing on one Milwaukee hospital, indicated that the number of children suffering from serious diarrhea rose whenever local sewers overflowed. Another study, published in 2008 in the Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health, estimated that as many as four million people become sick each year in California from swimming in waters containing the kind of pollution often linked to untreated sewage. …

As Sewers Fill, Waste Poisons Waterways via Apocadocs

From Calculated Risk:

No one saw this coming …

From Bloomberg: Dubai Debt Delay Rattles Confidence in Gulf Borrowers

Dubai is shaking investor confidence across the Persian Gulf after its proposal to delay debt payments risked triggering the biggest sovereign default since Argentina in 2001. …

Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s cut the ratings on state companies yesterday, saying they may consider state-controlled Dubai World’s plan to delay debt payments a default. The sheikhdom, ruled by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, borrowed $80 billion in a four-year construction boom …

And a few articles from the WSJ: Dubai Starts to Untangle Dubai World Fallout
And European Banks Seen Exposed To Dubai World

Most banks on Thursday said their exposure to Dubai and Dubai World is small or declined to comment, but Credit Suisse analysts estimate European banks have about $40 billion in exposure to debt issued by various Dubai city-state entities, including Dubai World.

And from December 2008: Citi Voices Upbeat View on Dubai (ht jb)

With questions about Dubai's looming debt obligations swirling, Citigroup Inc. said it had raised $8 billion for the Persian Gulf city-state over the course of the past year and still had a positive outlook on its economy.

Citigroup Chairman Win Bischoff was quoted in the bank's statement Monday as saying Citigroup continues to see Dubai as among its "most significant markets."

When there are bad loans to be made, apparently Citi never sleeps. …

Dubai Default

November 24, 2009

Southern Africa's plains zebras and the asiatic wild ass have been identified among animals whose migratory habits have been left in tatters.

A quarter of the world's migrating species are suspected to no longer migrate at all because of human changes to the landscape, and all of the world's large-scale terrestrial migrations have been severely reduced.

A recent research paper has presented the first analysis of dwindling mass migrations, and noted the plight of the plains zebra (Equus quagga) and the asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus), which live in central Asia.

"Conservation science has done a poor job in understanding how migrations work, and as a result many migrations have gone extinct," says Grant Harris, of the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, who is lead author of the paper.

"Fencing, for example, blocks migratory routes and reduces migrant's access to forage and water. Migrations can then stop, or be shortened, and animal numbers plummet."  …

Human activity now prevents large groups of these animals from following their food. Fencing, farming, and water restrictions have changed the landscape and over-harvesting of the animals themselves has played a role in reducing the number of migrants.

To assess the impact of human activity on migrations, Harris and his colleagues gathered information on all 24 species of large (over 20 kilograms) ungulates known for their mass migrations.

Animals included in the study, for example, range over Arctic tundra (Caribou), Eurasian steppes and plateaus (Chiru and Saiga), North American plains (bison and elk), and African savannahs (zebra and wildebeests). …

All 24 species in the current study lost migration routes and were reduced in number of individuals.

The analysis found drastic curbing for six species in particular - the plains zebra, asiatic wild ass, the springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis), black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou), the blesbok (Damaliscus dorcas) and the scimitar horned oryx (Oryx dammah) of northern Africa. …

Zebra, asiatic ass migrations left in tatters via Apocadocs

By 2030, demand in India will grow to almost 1.5 trillion m³, driven by domestic demand for rice, wheat, and sugar for a growing population, a large proportion of which is moving toward a middle-class diet. Against this demand, India’s current water supply is approximately 740 billion m³. As a result, most of India’s river basins could face severe deficit by 2030 unless concerted action is taken, with some of the most populous — including the Ganga, the Krishna, and the Indian portion of the Indus — facing the biggest absolute gap.

China’s demand in 2030 is expected to reach 818 billion m³, of which just over 50 percent is from agriculture (of which almost half is for rice), 32 percent is industrial demand driven by thermal power generation, and the remaining is domestic. Current supply amounts to just over 618 billion m³. Significant industrial and domestic wastewater pollution makes the “quality adjusted” supply-demand gap even larger than the quantity-only gap: 21 percent of available surface water resources nationally are unfit even for agriculture. Thermal power generation is by far the largest industrial water user, despite the high penetration of water-efficient technology, and is facing increasing limitations in the rapidly urbanizing basins. …

Agriculture—primarily in India and sub-Saharan Africa—will create the bulk of the additional demand to 2030 (Exhibit 5), although with significantly different underlying dynamics. In India, projected agricultural water withdrawals per capita are almost 800 m³/year in 2030, while in sub-Saharan Africa they are 323 m³/year on average, and in South Africa only 150 m³/year. Irrigated crops mainly responsible for the withdrawals include rice and wheat in India and maize, sorghum, and millet in Sub-Saharan Africa. The comparison between China and India is also instructive to understand the underlying drivers of demand. While both have large agricultural sectors, in India, agriculture will still be a significant driver of GDP in 2030 with a share of ~10 percent, while in China it will account for only 4 percent. In China, unlike in most other large economies, industrial demand for water dominates overall demand growth. In contrast, municipal and domestic demand will grow significantly across all emerging markets.

Charting our water future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making [pdf]

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Roads, buildings and pipelines in Canada's north are at risk from global warming and the government must do more to protect infrastructure in the remote frozen region, an official panel said Thursday.

Temperatures in the north -- which includes the Arctic -- are rising much faster than elsewhere in the world, and this comes at a time of increasing interest in the area's vast mineral and energy reserves.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) said the permafrost layer had begun to melt, a development that can have disastrous consequences.

"Melting permafrost is undermining building foundations and threatens roads, pipelines and communications infrastructure,' it said in a report, also citing the potential danger to energy systems, waste disposal sites and ponds containing toxic tailings from mines.

"The risk to infrastructure systems will only intensify as the climate continues to warm." …

Warming to hit "roads, pipelines" in Canada north

Docker River, an Australian Outback town, is under siege from 6,000 wild camels which have laid waste to the area in search of water.

By Murray Wardrop
Published: 4:20PM GMT 26 Nov 2009

Residents in the Northern Territory settlement have been left cowering in their homes after the animals trampled fences, smashed through water mains and invaded the airstrip.

The camels, driven to extreme lengths by prolonged drought, have even tried to force their way into people’s homes to drink water from air conditioning units and taps.

However, authorities are planning to reclaim the town, which is home to around 350 people, by herding up the camels with helicopters and shooting them.

Rob Knight, the local government minister, said: "The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels.

"This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action. We don't have the luxury of time because the herd is getting bigger.”

The government has pledged $49,000 Australian (£27,000) to combating the camels and repairing damage they have caused. Over the next week, helicopters will be used to drive them about nine miles into the desert before marksmen cull them from the air.

The move has been welcomed by the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association.

It’s chief Luke Bowen said: "This is a plague of biblical proportions laying waste to a sensitive and arid environment. We have to have action, we have to have it now.” …

Thirsty camels lay siege to Australian Outback town

NEW DELHI - INDIA'S water needs are set to double by 2030, which could dry up its river basins, according to new research released on Tuesday that paints a grim picture for supplies across the emerging world.

Global fresh water demand by 2030 will be 40 per cent higher than current supplies and agriculture is predicted to suck up 65 per cent of all resources, said the report by the 2030 Water Resources Group, Charting our water future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making [pdf].

The initiative, headed by consulting firm McKinsey and Co, studied China, India, South Africa and Sao Paulo state in Brazil - four areas that together by 2030 will account for 42 per cent of projected global water demand.

'The situation is getting worse. There is little indication that, left to its own devices, the water sector will come to a sustainable, cost-effective solution to meet the growing water requirements,' it said. …

India water needs set to double

By Idrak Abbasov

PIRALLAHI ISLAND, Azerbaijan, November 24, 2009 (ENS) - The fishermen perched on the beached boats on the Azerbaijan coast watched Faiq Balayev as he threw out his net, drew it in and trudged back to the shore. They need not have bothered, since he had once again failed to catch any shrimps.

"The net was empty again. I have stood in the water for three hours, and I haven't caught even 200 grams of shrimps," he said, as he returned to dry land on Pirallahi Island.

"It's been two years since the shrimps vanished from the Apsheron shore of the Caspian. And in these last few days, I have been returning home with almost nothing. Maybe 200-250 grams of small shrimps end up in my nets, but no one buys them. I give them to friends who fish to use as bait."

From Pirallahi, which juts into the Caspian Sea from the Apsheron peninsula some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Baku, oil platforms are visible a kilometer offshore, and ecologists blame the pollution caused by the oil industry for the collapse in the shrimp population.

"It's not just shrimps, but the other resources of the Caspian too which are dying because of oil and gas production," said Telman Zeynalov, president of the National Centre of Environmental Forecasting.

He says shrimps rely on minute water plants and animals for food, but the sea floor has become heavily polluted with oil recently, meaning the micro-organisms have died.

"The problem is that in the last two years they have started to clean up the ships and other metallic objects that had been dumped in the sea, and as a result the oil spills of many years have once again been stirred into the sea water and caused the deaths of the marine resources of the coastal area," Zeynalov said.

"There is no empty space left on the Apsheron coast in particular. The shore is full of private houses owned by oligarchs or by private beaches. These constructions cause great harm to wildlife," he said. …

Azeri Fishermen Lament Vanished Shrimps

By Eric Ombok

Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya’s tea production fell 7.4 percent in October to 32.7 million kilograms (719.4 million pounds), compared with the same month a year earlier because of a drought.

The country, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea, shipped 27.1 million kilograms of the leaves during the month, the Tea Board of Kenya said in an e-mailed statement today.

Kenya’s tea production between January and October declined 11 percent to 242.2 million kilograms, compared with the same period a year earlier, the board said,

“We will continue to see a decrease in production,” Peter Kegode, an independent agricultural economist, said in a phone interview from the capital, Nairobi, today. “The rains that we are now seeing will improve production of tea, but not to the levels that had been expected. Production will pick up in the second half of next year.” …

Kenyan Tea Output Falls 7.4% in October on Drought

Safiel Kulei's simple statement goes to the heart of the plight of many of his neighbors hit by consecutive years of drought in Kenya.

"I had 88 cows. I sold 50. The rest died. I have nothing at the moment. I have since moved to town," said Kulei, a farmer who is an evangelist with the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC).

Kulei is a member of the Maasai community inhabiting southern Kenya and neighboring northern Tanzania. The people's lives and economy are centered on livestock especially cattle, which are accumulated as a sign of wealth, traded or sold to settle debts, and slaughtered selectively. Before the current rains began, nearly three running years of drought decimated the community's economic mainstay and livelihoods.

"As opposed to previous years, when the clouds formed, no rains fell," Kulei said when he welcomed participants in a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) African region consultation on climate change, food security and poverty. Delegates to the LWF conference had visited the KELC Olirium mission area in the southern district of Kajiado. "When children cried, they were told to make sure there were no tears since people may ask, 'Where did you get the water?'" he said, emphasizing the scarcity of water. …

Africa: Don't Cry Tears Lest They Ask for Water