Desdemona Despair

GUIYANG, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) – A persistent drought in southwest China's Guizhou Province has created a water shortage for 5.5 million people and 2.8 million livestock, local authorities said.

Nearly 70 of the province's counties and cities have been plagued by the drought, according to a meteorological monitoring report released on Monday.

There will be little rain in Guizhou before mid-September, according to the report. Temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius will persist, exacerbating the effects of the drought, the report said.

The drought, which began in early July, has dried up hundreds of reservoirs and rivers, devastated crops and reduced available supplies of drinking water.

A long-lasting drought has also plagued southwest China's Sichuan Province, leaving 1.68 million people and 1.25 million livestock short of drinking water, said Yang Hai, a provincial drought relief official.

"Some counties and cites in Sichuan have been dealing with the drought for more than 50 days," said Yang, deputy head of the provincial agricultural water bureau's drought relief office.

Yang said that the drought has been particularly hard on rural residents, as many of them have to walk long distances to obtain drinking water.

The Sichuan provincial government has allocated 100 billion yuan (about 15.67 billion U.S. dollars) to create a drought relief fund.

Lingering droughts plague SW China

August 30 (Al Jazeera) – As Muslims around the world mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid Al-Fitr, many Somali Muslims will not be able to participate due to the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa.

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis, threatened by drought and civil war, have wound up at Dadaab - the world's largest refugee camp.

Situated on the Kenyan-Somali border, the Dadaab complex comprises three refugee camps - Dagaheley, Ifo and Hagadera. Spanning an area of 50km, the camps are designed to host a total of 90,000 people.

However, with a population of 440,000 hungry refugees, Dabaab houses nearly five times more people than its infrastructure is supposed to handle.

And with drought threatening 12 million people throughout the Horn of Africa, the numbers are growing.

Al Jazeera's Azad Essa, reporting from Dadaab, said that despite aid agencies claiming that the number of new arrivals had reduced to around 800 per day from a high of 1500-1800 arrivals per day in July, little on the ground has changed.

"A few thousand have moved to the new Ifo camp, but thousands still remain on the outskirts, living in squalor conditions.

"Agencies have now begun operating in the Somali border town Dobley, and this has reduced the number of refugees entering Kenya.  But the fact that hundreds still continue to arrive every day suggests that firstly, the agencies in Dobley are overburdened and secondly, those fleeing might still think they are safer off in Dadaab.

"The danger of course is to think that since the story and focus has now moved on to Somalia,  the epicentre of the crisis, that conditions here in Dadaab might have improved … because they have not."

East Africa's worst drought in 60 years has wreaked havoc on war-torn Somalia and parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda.

The situation has deteriorated so badly that the UN has declared a famine in five regions of Somalia.

UN officials say the drought has killed tens of thousands of people over the past few months, forcing desperate survivors to walk for weeks in search of food and water.

Many famine victims travel between Somalia and Kenya seeking food and shelter - walking along a road that French Minister Bruno Le Maire has described as "a road of hope, but also a road of death".

Aid agencies estimate that up to 800 children, braving rapists and thieves, flee Somalia for Kenya's camps every day. Many arrive unaccompanied.

UN refugee agency chief Antonion Guterres has called the plight of the refugees "the worst humanitarian tragedy" in the world today. […]

No relief for Somali refugees in Dadaab

August 31 (MSNBC) – Hurricane Irene's rampage up the East Coast has become the tenth billion-dollar weather event this year, breaking a record stretching back to 1980, climate experts said Wednesday.

The storm, which damaged infrastructure, left 2.5 million without power and thousands of water-logged homes and businesses from North Carolina through New England, has been blamed for at least 44 deaths in 13 states. Estimates put the total cost at up to $10 billion.

The National Climate Data Center said on its website that 2011 had been a particular bad year for storm damage.

"While it will take several months to determine an accurate estimate of the damage from Hurricane Irene, there is no question it will rank as the 10th billion-dollar weather event of the year," it said.

"This 10th U.S. billion-dollar disaster officially breaks the annual record dating back to 1980," the center added.

Other very costly disasters include this summer's flooding in the Midwest, the Mississippi River flooding in the spring and summer, several tornadoes and the heatwave that hit the Southwest and Southern Plain, according to a list on the NCDC website.

Insurance industry insiders estimate that Irene will cost between $7 billion and $10 billion, according to The New York Times.

Its unusually high price-tag was due to the storm's large path, which covered a wide area of the East Coast, the newspaper reported.

Insurers, which usually cover around half of losses in similar storms, may cover less than 40 percent of the damages related to Irene, according to Kinetic Analysis Corporation, the Times said.

The paper said Irene would would most likely one of the 10 costliest disasters in U.S. history. […]

Irene makes 2011 a record-breaking year for bad weather

PATERSON, New Jersey, 30 August (Reuters) – Swollen rivers submerged stretches of northern New Jersey on Tuesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, damaging homes, flooding roads and stranding residents, hundreds of thousands of whom had no power.

With at least nine river locations hitting or surpassing record flood levels in northern New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie said he was seeking expedited disaster assistance from the federal government.

"Hurricane Irene was a catastrophe of enormous severity and magnitude," he said in a statement. "Torrential rains have caused significant flooding in areas across the state, impacting residences, major and local roads, and necessitating highway closures and a suspension of rail services."

Authorities said rivers including the Passaic, Ramapo and Pompton were overflowing from heavy rains and storm surges left behind by Hurricane Irene, which hit the state on Sunday.

Wallington, in Bergen County, ordered a mandatory evacuation of about 1,000 families who live closest to the raging Passaic River, which was expected to crest at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday.

"Many people were caught off guard," said James Furtak, acting emergency management coordinator of the borough of 11,000 residents. "Their basements were flooded up to the ceiling and the first floor."

People were climbing out windows to get out of their flooded homes, he said.

The Passaic crested in Fairfield, New Jersey, overnight at 24.12 feet, breaking the record set in 1903 of 23.2 feet, Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Anthony Manna said.

Fairfield is surrounded on three sides by the curving river, and National Guard troops were using boats to rescue flood-stranded residents, he said.

In Paterson, where the Passaic slices through the city with dramatic waterfalls, hundreds of residents were taken to a shelter as torrential waters threatened to destroy homes, authorities said.

Peter Hennen was helping his son, a Paterson homeowner, rig up pumps to remove water from his house.

"I'm from this area," he said, "and this is the worst that I've seen here, the farthest up this water has come. […]

Record-breaking river flooding swamps New Jersey

According to data collected by the International Disaster Database, the frequency of disastrous storms and floods has increased over the past 100 years, particularly in the past three decades.5 Extreme storms reached a peak in the mid-1990s, but floods appear to be occurring at a steadier rate. Given the extreme storms and floods that have occurred recently, 2011 may turn out to be another peak year. Indeed, April 2011 was the wettest on record for the Central climate region, which includes Illinois. March 2011 was the second-wettest March on record for Washington, the fifth-wettest for Oregon, and the ninth-wettest for California.

Thirsty for Answers: Preparing for the Water-related Impacts of Climate Change in American Cities

August 30 (ReliefWeb) – Drought-hit Kenyans are resorting to desperate measures to find water which are putting their lives at risk, according to a Tearfund partner.

The Turkana region is one of the worst affected by the lack of rain in Kenya, leaving many thousands of people who rely on livestock for their livelihoods battling for survival.

Family life is being disrupted with many children unable to attend school because their families need them to obtain water from any source available.

A spokesman for Tearfund partner, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), which is providing emergency water supplies in Turkana and West Pokot to 1,000 pastoralists and their families, said, ‘Unfortunately, many of these alternative sources are unsafe. The water itself is unsafe and some of the methods of obtaining it can be very hazardous.’

One common practice involves children digging down deeper in wells to find water but the dry sandy soil means as they go further down the chance of collapse increases. Youngsters have been severely injured, even killed, trying to obtain water this way. […]

Typical of them is Genesse and Safia Mohamed and their three children aged between four months to six years old, who arrived in Dhamajaley on the Kenyan side of the border recently.

They fled from Kismayu in Somalia because of the drought and conflict, traveling for ten days on foot with a donkey cart, which also doubled as their shelter.

They have ten goats remaining in their herd, but it is difficult to find pasture for them. They are travelling to Hagadera refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya and don’t want to return home until there is peace in Somalia.

Hunt for water turns desperate

By Damian Carrington
30 August 2011

If, like me, you think urgent global action is needed to avert the worst impacts of global warming, then you will also agree that global opinion is crucial: political will is created directly out of public pressure.

So a new global survey suggests the glass is two-thirds full. Sixty nine percent of citizens in 51 nations around the world are concerned about climate change, and that two-to-one majority is essentially unchanged over the last four years. But there's less cheer in the details of the survey, conducted by Nielsen and available here (first link, free registration required).

The global climate negotiations, still the only real game in town, are dominated by the US and China. The Nielsen survey finds that less than half of Americans (48%) are concerned about global warming, compared to 51% in 2009 and 62% in 2007. With 14 point fall in 4 years, one can see why Republican climate sceptics feel comfortable rejecting the idea that every nation on earth (including their own) has accepted: that human activities are causing climate change and that the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions is pressing.

More surprisingly perhaps, opinion in China is also on the slide. Concern fell from 77% in 2009 to 64% in 2011, putting it back nearer to 2007's figure of 60%.

The Guardian's Asia environment correspondent, Jonathan Watts, tells me from Beijing that public awareness of environmental issues was rising until 2009, albeit from a very low base. "Local issues such as pollution were foremost, but in 2008 and 2009 climate change rose up the political and media agenda ahead of the Copenhagen summit" attended by 120 world leaders, he says. But it has since slipped and Watts says Chinese journalists are finding it harder to interest their editors in the climate change issue.

But turning to two other big beasts at the climate talks, the opposite trend is seen. In India, concern about global warming is at 86%, up from 80% in 2007, and concern in Europe has risen from 58% to 68% since 2009.

The most concerned region of the world is Latin America (90%), followed by the combined Middle East-Africa region used by Nielsen, where concern has gone up 11% to 80% in two years. I think the Latin American case is instructive.

"Latin America has experienced a number of distressing and impactful environmental events over the last several years, and the region's consumers are increasingly attributing these events to broad climate change," says Arturo García, president at Nielsen Latin America. "People are expressing clear concern about unusual weather patterns including increased rainfall, hurricanes, and floods in some parts of Latin America, and severe droughts in others." […]

Climate change concern tumbles in US and China

Shire, Ethiopia, August 30 (AFP) -- In Ethiopia's Endabaguna refugee camp, rows of gaunt Eritreans clad in rubber sandals give vent to their exasperation after days of trekking and dodging soldiers in an attempt to escape failed crops, hunger and an autocratic government.

Over 12 million people across the Horn of Africa are struggling from the region's worst drought in decades, but secretive Eritrea is the only country to deny it has been affected by the crisis.

"This year I farmed, but there was lack of rain. I don’t know what’s going to happen, only God knows," said Mehreteab, a refugee.

He escaped from the army, risking death or jail if caught crossing the heavily militarized border, leaving his wife and three children behind.

"There is no food and no grain in the home," he said. "I don’t have any idea what’s going to happen to them."

Camps in northern Ethiopia receive about 900 refugees every month from Eritrea, one of the regions most isolated countries. […]

According to satellite imagery from the weather monitoring group FEWSNET, rainfall in parts of Eritrea this year has been "below average" - less than 10 percent of normal levels in some areas.

Aid workers admit it is nearly impossible to know just how gravely the Eritrea is affected because access to information is so limited in the country where the only media is state-run.

"Its been a black hole for us, we don’t know what’s going on there," said Matthew Conway, spokesman for the UN humanitarian coordination office in Nairobi. "But that’s not to say its not happening."

The US ambassador to the United Nations has said she is "deeply concerned" that Eritrea is facing extreme hunger, and urged the government to allow humanitarian access.

"The people of Eritrea who most likely are suffering the very same food shortages that were seeing throughout the region are being left to starve," Susan Rice told reporters in New York. […]

The Eritrean authorities deny the country is facing food scarcity.

"This nonsense about a hidden famine in Eritrea is utterly false," the Eritrea's information ministry said in an online statement last week.

Instead, Asmara claims last year's harvest was the best in a decade, while state run media heap praise on government-run food security programs.

But refugee Gebrielxavier, 25, said this is not true. He left Eritrea last November because his crop failed, he could not find work and his family went hungry.

"We couldnt live. We were famished," he said. "And the government? It did nothing." […]

Amid government denials, Eritreans flee harsh drought

By Natalia Konstantinovskaya; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Chris Gallagher
29 August 2011

TOKYO (Reuters) – The environmental group took samples at and near three schools in Fukushima city, well outside the 20 km exclusion zone from Tokyo Electric Power's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan's northeast.

"No parent should have to choose between radiation exposure and education for their child," said Kazue Suzuki, Greenpeace Japan's anti-nuclear project head.

The government had already taken steps to decontaminate schools in Fukushima prefecture, where the crippled plant has been leaking radiation since it was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Calling the measures "deplorably late and inadequate," Greenpeace said it had found average dose rates above the maximum allowed under international standards, of 1 millisievert per year, or 0.11 microsievert per hour.

Japan's education ministry on Friday set a looser standard, allowing up to 1 microsievert per hour of radiation in schools.

Greenpeace said that inside a high school it tested, the reading was 0.5 microsievert per hour, breaching international standards even after the government's clean-up.

At a staircase connecting a school playground to the street, it found radiation amounting to 7.9 microsieverts per hour, or about 70 times the maximum allowed, exceeding even Japan's own standard.

Greenpeace urged the government to delay reopening the schools as planned on September 1 after the summer break and relocate children in the most affected cities until decontamination was complete.

Fukushima city dismissed Greenpeace's calls, saying the schools were safe under the government's norms.

"We're finished decontaminating the schools, and they no longer have high radiation levels," city official Yoshimasa Kanno said. He added that postponing the opening of more than 100 schools in the city based on Greenpeace's findings of "only three" would be unreasonable.

Despite the government's reassurances, parents have removed thousands of children from schools in Fukushima since the disasters, fearing damage to their health. […]

Greenpeace: Fukushima schools unsafe after clean-up

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
August 29, 2011

In one scene a young man, perhaps not long ago a boy, named Douglas stands shirtless and in shorts as he runs a chainsaw into a massive tropical tree. Prior to this we have already heard from an official how employees operating chainsaws must have a bevy of protective equipment as well as training, but in Papua New Guinea these are just words. The reality is this: Douglas straining to pull the chainsaw out of the tree as it begins to fall while his fellow employees flee the tumbling giant.

The new film Bikpela Bagarap ('Big Damage') documents the impact of industrial logging on the lives of local people in Papua New Guinea. Filmed over three months by one guerrilla filmmaker—David Fedele—using a simple handheld camera, the movie shows with startling intimacy how massive corporations, greedy government, and consumption abroad have conspired to ruin lives in places like Vanimo, Papua New Guinea.

"The whole industry is corrupt from the highest level downwards. The entire system is broken, and people have no other choice than to participate in this system—it is basically an unregulated industry," Fedele told mongabay.com in a recent interview.

The corruption starts at the beginning, when tribal groups sign over land for logging without being able to read the documents they are signing while being told little more than sign this and we'll pay you.

"The local landowners have no idea about the value of their trees—so when a company comes in and offers them a little bit of money, or even offers to pay them with other things such as water tanks or roads or houses, most of the time they just jump at the offer and sign whatever is put in front of them," Fedele says.

Then what the locals call 'The Company'—in this case a corporation known as WTK Realty—takes over the community. While the forest is destroyed, Fedele says the logging company takes advantage of locals by paying them pittance for their work while making sure they run all the businesses in town.

"[The company] owns the only supermarket, the hotel, the gaming machines and control the fuel and shipping. Local people are treated like slaves in their own country, made to work long hours for little money. […] So people try to get money in whatever way that they can. Violent crime is a huge and increasing problem, particularly related to alcohol and marijuana. Prostitution is a big problem, and AIDS is an issue that not many people are aware of, but is increasing at a great rate."

As societal ills expand, the natural resources, on which the locals have depended for centuries, are destroyed for raw logs to be shipped to China and then processed, likely into furniture.

"I wouldn’t say having natural resources is a curse in itself—it's the exploitation and greed of the modern world that is the curse," Fedele says. […]

Big damage in Papua New Guinea: new film documents how industrial logging destroys lives

By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature
30 August 2011

Killer whales, the ocean's fiercest predators, are easily recognisable by their black and white markings.

But their future seems less clearly defined.

Marine experts are concerned about an invisible threat to the animals that has been building in our seas since World War II.

That was when industries began extensively using chemical flame retardants, such as PCBs.

These chemicals were later found to harm human health and the environment, and governments around the world banned their use in the 1970s.

But their legacy lives on in the world's seas and oceans, say biologists, posing a modern threat to animals such as killer whales, also known as orcas.

Ingrid Visser grew up watching killer whales, the largest members of the dolphin family, from the shores of her native New Zealand. She has dedicated her life to knowing more about the animals.

The island nation's orca population is made up of fewer than 200 individuals and as such is listed as threatened. […]

As large mammals, killer whales consume a large amount of prey.

But this position at the top of the food chain, as "apex predators", makes them particularly vulnerable to changes in their prey.

That is because orca feed on fish that in turn eat polluted prey or absorb pollution from the water. So the orca ingest all of the pollution in the chain, in a process called "bioaccumulation".

Dr Visser says her studies of the bodies of stranded orca and the sharks and rays they feed on have confirmed this fear.

"Their prey is definitely polluted - we are seeing spikes in the same chemicals as are seen in the orca," she says.

New Zealand orca are not the only ones living with pollution, according to Alex Rogers, Professor in Conservation Biology at the University of Oxford, UK.

"Studies have identified high levels of flame retardant chemicals in orca particularly from the Northern Hemisphere, for example from the north Pacific, particularly off Canada and the Arctic," he says.

"These chemicals have also been found at high concentrations in orca from the Southern Hemisphere."

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were banned globally from the 1970s.

In recent years, the European Union has also banned the use of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) in foam for furniture and electrical devices due to their potential toxicity.

"The two main groups of flame retardant chemicals, PCBs and PBDEs have a range of effects on animals including interference with thyroid function and vitamin A metabolism, negative effects on neurological and reproductive development and impacts on immune function," says Prof Rogers.
Persistent threat

But despite actions to limit use of these chemicals, also referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), marine experts suggest the damage has already been done.

"PCBs are not water soluble, they only dissolve and accumulate in fatty tissue," says Dr Paul Jepson from the Zoological Society of London.

Dr Jepson says this fat solubility is a considerable issue for female cetaceans such as killer whales who feed their young for up to a year on high fat milk to kick-start their development.

"You get this huge maternal transfer. It's been calculated that in whales and dolphins about ninety percent or more of the mother's body burden of PCB can be offloaded, particularly to the first calf," he tells BBC Nature.

POPs are a problem that is not going away.

"Even though PCBs have been banned they're just so resistant to break down in the environment. The decline of these pollutants is happening very slowly," says Dr Jepson. […]

"We're not really finding any decline at all in PCBs in our harbour porpoises … levels in the UK appear to have plateaued since about 1997." […]

Natural World: The Woman Who Swims With Killer Whales airs on BBC Two at 2000 BST on Wednesday, August 31.

What is killing killer whales?

By Lisa Song, SolveClimate News
19 August 2011

Ten of the nation's largest water utilities have teamed up to connect climate scientists and water providers so utilities will have the information they need to prepare for the harmful effects of global warming.

Climate change will create a host of challenges that affect water supply, water quality, stormwater drainage and flood control. Utilities on the coast may need to prepare for rising sea levels. Utilities in the Southwest could face more intense droughts.

But there's a gap between most climate research and the kind of information that utilities need. Current climate models tend to work best with long-term trends and over large geographic areas. Water utilities, on the other hand, need specific information about how their water supplies and local rainfall patterns will be disrupted before they risk investing their customers' money in new infrastructure.

"It's inherently difficult for water utilities to make heads or tails of how they're going to be affected by climate change," said Kathleen Miller, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "When you zoom in on a particular locality, the scale of global models isn't able to tell you exactly what's going to happen."

To fill this gap, David Behar, who directs the climate program at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, helped found the Water Utilities Climate Alliance (WUCA) in 2007.

"It really is a Wild West out there," Behar said, referring to the lack of guidance on how to make high-level science useful on a regional scale. The local data that are currently available are often scattered or hard to understand, he told SolveClimate News, leaving water utilities without a clear approach for evaluating local climate vulnerabilities.

WUCA aims to integrate climate models into utility infrastructure planning. Its members include the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Denver Water, Seattle Public Utilities, Portland Water Bureau, Tampa Bay Water and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

Miller said WUCA has become a kind of "broker" for the water industry. "They've been engaging very actively with the atmospheric science community to get a layperson's understanding of the science and how to use it [for water resource planning]."

Water utilities have typically used historic stream flows and rainfall data to gauge future water supplies, said Marc Waage, manager of water resource planning at Denver Water. But climate change will disrupt historical weather patterns and add a huge layer of uncertainty to long-term planning.

WUCA has co-authored two studies on bringing climate models into the water utility community. The first report, completed in 2009, identified how climate science can be tailored to better support adaptation needs. A follow-up report in 2010 explained methods for incorporating the science into decision-making.

The organization is now conducting a series of case studies on projected climate impacts for San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Tampa Bay and New York City.

"The purpose is to work closely with the academic community [on issues] related to climate change modeling and how to make that information useful for utilities," said Lorna Stickel, water resources planning manager at the Portland Water Bureau. The projects are funded by the utilities and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. […]

Utilities and Climate Scientists Team Up to Prepare for Bleak Water Future

MONTPELIER, Vermont, August 29 (AP) — Vermont towns battled floods of historic proportions, utility crews struggled to restore power to 5 million people along the East Coast, and big-city commuters coped with transit-system disruptions Monday as the rainy remnants of Hurricane Irene finally spun into Canada.
 
The storm killed at least two dozen people, forced the cancellation of about 9,000 flights, washed away roads and bridges and toppled trees and power lines.
 
It never became the big-city nightmare forecasters and public officials had warned about, but it caused severe flooding in New England, well inland from the coastal areas that bore the brunt of the storm’s winds.
 
In Vermont and upstate New York, normally placid streams turned into raging torrents tumbling with tree limbs, cars and parts of bridges.
 
Hundreds of Vermonters were told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain on the landlocked state. Gov. Peter Shumlin called it the worst flooding in a century, and the state was declared a federal disaster area.
 
Communities were cut off, roads washed out, and at least a dozen bridges lost, including at least three historic covered bridges. […]

“It’s pretty fierce. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Michelle Guevin, who spoke from a Brattleboro restaurant after leaving her home in nearby Newfane. […]

Utilities scrambled to restore power across the Eastern Seaboard with help from thousands of out-of-state repair crews, but it could be days before the lights are back on in some homes.
 
Irene smashed power poles, ripped transmission wires and flooded electrical stations over the weekend, blacking out more than 7.4 million homes and businesses from South Carolina to Maine. Nearly 5 million power customers remained in the dark. […]

One private estimate put damage along the coast at $7 billion, far from any record for a natural disaster. […]

Vermont battles historic flooding after Irene

By David McNeill
29 August 2011

Soma City (The Independent) – Yoshio Ichida is recalling the worst day of his 53 years: 11 March, when the sea swallowed up his home and killed his friends. The Fukushima fisherman was in the bath when the huge quake hit and barely made it to the open sea in his boat in the 40 minutes before the 15-metre tsunami that followed. When he got back to port, his neighbourhood and nearly everything else was gone. "Nobody can remember anything like this," he says.

Now living in a refugee centre in the ruined coastal city of Soma, Mr Ichida has mourned the 100 local fishermen killed in the disaster and is trying to rebuild his life with his colleagues. Every morning, they arrive at the ruined fisheries co-operative building in Soma port and prepare for work. Then they stare out at the irradiated sea, and wait. "Some day we know we'll be allowed to fish again. We all want to believe that."

This nation has recovered from worse natural – and manmade – catastrophes. But it is the triple meltdown and its aftermath at the Fukushima nuclear power plant 40km down the coast from Soma that has elevated Japan into unknown, and unknowable, terrain. Across the northeast, millions of people are living with its consequences and searching for a consensus on a safe radiation level that does not exist. Experts give bewilderingly different assessments of its dangers.

Some scientists say Fukushima is worse than the 1986 Chernobyl accident, with which it shares a maximum level-7 rating on the sliding scale of nuclear disasters. One of the most prominent of them is Dr Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and long time anti-nuclear activist who warns of "horrors to come" in Fukushima.

Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster known for his alarmist views, generated controversy during a Japan visit last month when he said the disaster would result in more than 1 million deaths. "Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan," he said. "Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse."

On the other side of the nuclear fence are the industry friendly scientists who insist that the crisis is under control and radiation levels are mostly safe. "I believe the government and Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco, the plant's operator] are doing their best," said Naoto Sekimura, vice-dean of the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo. Mr Sekimura initially advised residents near the plant that a radioactive disaster was "unlikely" and that they should stay "calm", an assessment he has since had to reverse.

Slowly, steadily, and often well behind the curve, the government has worsened its prognosis of the disaster. Last Friday, scientists affiliated with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant had released 15,000 terabecquerels of cancer-causing Cesium, equivalent to about 168 times the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the event that ushered in the nuclear age. (Professor Busby says the release is at least 72,000 times worse than Hiroshima).

Caught in a blizzard of often conflicting information, many Japanese instinctively grope for the beacons they know. Mr Ichida and his colleagues say they no longer trust the nuclear industry or the officials who assured them the Fukushima plant was safe. But they have faith in government radiation testing and believe they will soon be allowed back to sea.

That's a mistake, say sceptics, who note a consistent pattern of official lying, foot-dragging and concealment. Last week, officials finally admitted something long argued by its critics: that thousands of people with homes near the crippled nuclear plant may not be able to return for a generation or more. "We can't rule out the possibility that there will be some areas where it will be hard for residents to return to their homes for a long time," said Yukio Edano, the government's top government spokesman. "We are very sorry."

Last Friday, hundreds of former residents from Futaba and Okuma, the towns nearest the plant, were allowed to visit their homes – perhaps for the last time – to pick up belongings. Wearing masks and radiation suits, they drove through the 20km contaminated zone around the plant, where hundreds of animals have died and rotted in the sun, to find kitchens and living rooms partly reclaimed by nature. "It's hard to believe we ever lived here," one former resident told NHK. […]

Economic cost
Fukushima: Japan has estimated it will cost as much as £188bn to rebuild following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.
Chernobyl: There are a number of estimates of the economic impact, but thetotal cost is thought to be about £144bn.

Safety
Fukushima: workers are allowed to operate in the crippled plant up to a dose of 250mSv (millisieverts).
Chernobyl: People exposed to 350mSv were relocated. In most countries the maximum annual dosage for a worker is 20mSv. The allowed dose for someone living close to a nuclear plant is 1mSv a year.

Death toll
Fukushima: Two workers died inside the plant. Some scientists predict that one million lives will be lost to cancer.
Chernobyl: It is difficult to say how many people died on the day of the disaster because of state security, but Greenpeace estimates that 200,000 have died from radiation-linked cancers in the 25 years since the accident.

Exclusion zone
Fukushima: Tokyo initially ordered a 20km radius exclusion zone around the plant
Chernobyl: The initial radius of the Chernobyl zone was set at 30km – 25 years later it is still largely in place.

Compensation
Fukushima: Tepco's share price has collapsed since the disaster largely because of the amount it will need to pay out, about £10,000 a person
Chernobyl: Not a lot. It has been reported that Armenian victims of the disaster were offered about £6 each in 1986

Aid
Fukushima: The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported bilateral aid worth $95m
Chernobyl: 12 years after the disaster, the then Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, complained that his country was still waiting for international help.

Why the Fukushima disaster is worse than Chernobyl

By Erik Jensen Health
29 August 2011

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ''emotional injury, stress and despair'' in the wake of these events.

The report, A Climate of Suffering: The Real Cost of Living with Inaction on Climate Change [pdf], called the past 15 years a ''preview of life under unrestrained global warming''.

''While cyclones, drought, bushfires and floods are all a normal part of Australian life, there is no doubt our climate is changing,'' the report says.

''For instance, the intensity and frequency of bushfires is greater. This is a 'new normal', for which the past provides little guidance …

''Moreover, recent conditions are entirely consistent with the best scientific predictions: as the world warms so the weather becomes wilder, with big consequences for people's health and well-being.''

The paper suggests a possible link between Australia's recent decade-long drought and climate change. It points to a breakdown of social cohesion caused by loss of work and associated stability, adding that the suicide rate in rural communities rose by 8 per cent.

The report also looks at mental health in the aftermath of major weather events possibly linked to climate change.

It shows that one in 10 primary school children reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the wake of cyclone Larry in 2006. More than one in 10 reported symptoms more than three months after the cyclone. […]

Mental illness rise linked to climate

By Nicky Phillips
29 August 2011

A THICK blanket of grass spanning the width of Australia will pose a significant bushfire threat this season, experts say.

While the record-breaking rains that fell across the eastern states earlier this year replenished drought-depleted soil, they also spurred large amounts of vegetation growth, particularly grass, the likes of which have not been seen in some regions for 20 years.

But a return to drier than normal conditions over the past three months had caused much of the grass to cure and dry, turning most of the state west of the Great Dividing Range into a significant fuel source, a report published by the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council says. […]

The report, compiled by climatologists, fire and land managers and meteorologists who attended the Southern Australian Seasonal Bushfire Assessment Workshop in Adelaide last week, found northern parts of inland NSW, which were already quite dry, were expected to be the first areas to experience fires this season.

The Riverina and South Western fire-prone regions should follow, the report says.

Temperatures throughout August have been significantly warmer than average in the south-east of the country.

Forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology also predict an increased chance of below average rainfall in parts of South Australia, Victoria and NSW over the next few months. […]

The head of climate monitoring and prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology, David Jones, said while the January floods replaced soil moisture, which affected how quickly plants would dry out, it only took a few very hot days to make vegetation flammable.

Dr Jones will speak at the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council conference in Sydney this week.

Inland NSW a tinder box, say bushfire experts

The pH of ocean waters has decreased by about 0.1 since preindustrial times. Each tenth of a pH point represents a tenfold change in acidity. Living corals begin to die off in acidic waters, and the calcium carbonate shells of mollusks, including some commercial shellfish, become weak, resulting in higher rates of mortality.

Thirsty for Answers: Preparing for the Water-related Impacts of Climate Change in American Cities

By Julio Godoy
26 August 2011

Paris (IPS) — The severe drought in the Horn of Africa, which has caused the death of at least 30,000 children and is affecting some 12 million people, especially in Somalia, is a direct consequence of weather phenomena associated with climate change and global warming, environmental scientists say.

"The present drought in the Horn of Africa has been provoked by El Niño and La Niña phenomena in the Pacific Ocean, which unsettle the normal circulation of warm and cold water and air, and dislocate the humidity conditions across the southern hemisphere," Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarbe, senior scientist at the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK, after its German name), told IPS. […]

Such conditions can particularly affect regions north of the Equator, such as the Horn of Africa. Some 12 million people are facing starvation across the region, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan and parts of Uganda, besides Somalia. So far, famine has only been declared in Somalia, a state without a functioning government.

"El Niño and La Niña exacerbate the weather conditions across the southern hemisphere, escalating the rainy season in some areas, especially in Asia and Australia, and droughts in others, especially in Africa," Gerstengarbe said.

Gerstengarbe says climate change and the rising global temperatures caused by it have intensified both El Niño and La Niña, leading to severe floods in Pakistan and Australia, and drought in the Horn of Africa.

Both phenomena have led during the last two years to particularly dry rainy seasons and to extreme hot temperatures over East Africa. […]

The phenomenon leads to hotter temperatures in East Africa. Both the suppression of rain and the higher temperatures this year have caused the worst drought in the Horn of Africa for 60 years.

"Unfortunately, due to the intensification of La Niña, we must reckon with growing desertification in Africa, and with more droughts in the region around the Horn of Africa," Gerstengarbe added.

Jean-Cyril Dagorn, in charge of environment and economic justice for the French branch of the humanitarian organisation Oxfam, concurred that climate change and global warming are exacerbating extreme weather conditions in Africa.

"For two years, rain precipitation has been below average in East Africa, due to La Niña," Dagorn told IPS. "But this year, the drought has been extreme, provoking the present humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia and other adjacent regions."

Dagorn said that the coming rainy season, scheduled to start in October, may intensify the crisis. "Torrential rain falling on extreme dry earth will wash away the most fertile soil, making the food crisis even more dramatic," Dagorn warned.

Dagorn said droughts have so far occurred every five to seven years in the Horn of Africa, but almost never with the extreme conditions of today.

"We estimate that due to climate change and the droughts it causes, agricultural productivity in the region will fall by up to 20 percent in the coming decades, especially in the maize and bean plantations," Dagorn said. […]

In July, the head of the United States agency for international development, Rajiv Shah, said that climate change has contributed to the severity of the crisis.

"There's no question that hotter and drier growing conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced the resiliency of these communities," Shah told U.S. media. "The change in climate has contributed to this problem, without question."

Africa: Global Warming Behind Somali Drought

By Richard Hall
27 August 2011

British Petroleum has again drawn the ire of environmentalists after a security guard at one of its Alaskan oil fields shot dead a polar bear, an animal listed as threatened with extinction.

A BP spokesman said the security guard shot the bear on 3 August after it approached employee housing. It did not die until a few days later.

The spokesman, Steve Rinehart, said the guard, employed by Purcell Security, thought he was firing a bean bag round at the bear at Endicott Oil Field on the North Slope. Instead, he shot the animal with a "cracker round," which makes a loud noise and lights like a firecracker.

Authorities in Alaska have begun an investigation, as polar bears are listed as threatened with extinction under the US Endangered Species Act and cannot legally be hunted.

Mr Rinehart said it was the first time a polar bear had been shot and killed on BP's operations in Alaska. He said the guard was trying to protect people, not hurt the bear.

Bruce Woods, a US Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman, said: "We're taking this investigation very seriously."

Polar bear shot dead by BP guard in Alaska

By KATE GALBRAITH
26 August 2011

So, is this the result of climate change?

Scientists hedge, particularly when it comes to the drought, because they are reluctant to pin any single weather event on climate change. They point to La Niña, an intermittent Pacific Ocean phenomenon that affects storms, as the immediate cause.

“We can’t say with certainty whether this particular drought is in and of itself a product of climate change,” said David Brown, a regional official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

However, Dr. Brown added, these kinds of droughts will have effects that are “even more extreme” in the future, given a warming and drying regional climate.

Climate change, or global warming, has become a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail. Most scientists, including Dr. Brown, say humans are altering the climate by adding heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. Even so, Gov. Rick Perry, campaigning this month in New Hampshire, declared himself a “skeptic” that climate change is the result of human actions.

Drought and high temperatures are consistent with climate-change forecasts for Texas. According to John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist who was appointed by Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, about 80 percent of the models that were run for a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group overseen by the United Nations, predict declining precipitation for Texas.

Climate change is already raising temperatures, Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said. Texas is one to two degrees warmer than in the 1970s, he said, and “by the middle of the century, it should be another two to three degrees warmer, give or take.” […]

La Niña was present for four years during the 1950s drought, which still ranks as the worst in Texas history due to its longevity. Unusually high surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean also helped cause that drought, and those have also been present in recent years.

“The main factors that contributed to the 1950s drought are also in place right now,” Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said, adding that Texas is “likely to be” at the start of a multiyear drought, though it is hard to know with certainty. […]

Assessing Climate Change in a Drought-Stricken State

Writer: Steve Smith, University Communications, (402) 472-4226
Contact: Brian Fuchs, National Drought Mitigation Center climatologist, (402) 472-6775

The percent of contiguous U.S. land area experiencing exceptional drought in July reached the highest levels in the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, said an official at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Nearly 12 percent of the contiguous United States fell into the "exceptional" classification during the month, peaking at 11.96 percent on July 12. That level of exceptional drought had never before been seen in the monitor's 12-year history, said Brian Fuchs, UNL assistant geoscientist and climatologist at the NDMC.

The monitor uses a ranking system that begins at D0 (abnormal dryness) and moves through D1 (moderate drought), D2 (severe drought), D3 (extreme drought) and D4 (exceptional drought). Exceptional drought's impacts include widespread crop and pasture losses, as well as shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells, creating water emergencies.

Eighteen percent of the country is classified as under either extreme or exceptional drought, Fuchs said. Much of it remains contained in the south, particularly Texas, where the entire state is experiencing drought -- three-fourths of it exceptional.

The most recent drought monitor report, released late last week, indicated that 59 percent of the United States was drought-free, while 41 percent faced some form of abnormal dryness or drought. Two weeks ago, 64 percent of the country was drought-free.

Other states that are at least 85 percent abnormally dry or in drought according to the report include:

• New Mexico (100 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 48 percent exceptional)
• Louisiana (100 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 33 percent exceptional)
• Oklahoma (100 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 52 percent exceptional)
• South Carolina (97 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 16 percent extreme to exceptional)
• Georgia (95 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 68 percent extreme to exceptional)
• Arkansas (96 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 6 percent extreme to exceptional)
• Florida (89 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 20 percent extreme to exceptional)

In the next two to three weeks, some affected areas may see some improvement. The wake of Tropical Storm Don should result in rainfall in the central and western Gulf Coast states, but the degree of drought relief will depend upon the storm's intensity, as well as its track and speed.

"Whenever there is a lot of moisture in a short period of time, the potential exists for rapid improvement," Fuchs said. "But while that possibility exists, it won't necessarily mean the end of drought in those areas. It will likely only improve by one drought category for those areas not impacted by any tropical storms or where drought related impacts improve."

The drought monitor combines numeric measures of drought and experts' best judgment into a weekly map. It is produced by the NDMC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and incorporates review from 300 climatologists, extension agents and others across the nation. Each week the previous map is revised based on rain, snow and other events, observers' reports of how drought is affecting crops, wildlife and other indicators.

To examine current and archived national, regional and state-by-state drought maps and conditions, go to http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu.

'Exceptional drought' record for United States set in July

By Ben Raines, Press-Register
25 August 2011

MOBILE, Alabama – Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer.

The Press-Register collected samples of the oil about a mile from the well site on Tuesday and provided them to Ed Overton and Scott Miles, chemists with Louisiana State University.

The pair did much of the chemical work used by federal officials to fingerprint the BP oil, known as MC252.

“After examining the data, I think it’s a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I’ve seen,” Overton wrote in an email to the newspaper. “My guess is that it is probably coming from the broken riser pipe or sunken platform. … However, it should be confirmed, just to make sure there is no leak from the plugged well.”

In an emailed statement, BP officials wrote that the company had a vessel stationed at the site all day Thursday but never saw any oil.

During BP’s inspection, the wind was blowing up to 10 mph, and waves were up to 2 feet high. Scientists said that even a light chop would likely have obscured the small sheens emerging every few seconds.

By contrast, the wind was still and seas were flat and glassy Tuesday when the newspaper located the oil.

“There is still no evidence that the oil came from the Macondo well,” BP officials wrote in the emailed statement.

Late Thursday night, BP officials sent word that an ROV survey of the well found no leaks. […]

Scientists: Oil fouling Gulf matches Deepwater Horizon well

By arevamirpal::laprimavera
26 August 2011

The rest was either blown off to the ocean or landed somewhere else in Japan.

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Studies (NIES) had their paper published in the electronic version of Geophysical Research Letters published by the American Geophysical Union on August 11, and they announced the result of their research in Japan on August 25.

The paper was submitted on June 27, and they kept quiet until the research was published. The researchers at this government institute therefore knew all along how bad the contamination was all over southern Tohoku and all of Kanto and part of Chubu.

Abstract of the paper titled "Atmospheric behavior, deposition, and budget of radioactive materials from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011" by Yu Morino, Toshimasa Ohara and Masato Nishizawa, Regional Environment Research Center, National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2, Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan:

To understand the atmospheric behavior of radioactive materials emitted from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the nuclear accident that accompanied the great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011, we simulated the transport and deposition of iodine-131 and cesium-137 using a chemical transport model. The model roughly reproduced the observed temporal and spatial variations of deposition rates over 15 Japanese prefectures (60–400 km from the plant), including Tokyo, although there were some discrepancies between the simulated and observed rates. These discrepancies were likely due to uncertainties in the simulation of emission, transport, and deposition processes in the model. A budget analysis indicated that approximately 13% of iodine-131 and 22% of cesium-137 were deposited over land in Japan, and the rest was deposited over the ocean or transported out of the model domain (700 × 700 km2). Radioactivity budgets are sensitive to temporal emission patterns. Accurate estimation of emissions to the air is important for estimation of the atmospheric behavior of radionuclides and their subsequent behavior in land water, soil, vegetation, and the ocean. […]

13% of Radioactive Iodine, 22% of Radioactive Cesium from Fukushima I Nuke Plant Landed in Central/Northern Japan

By John Burnett
26 August 2011

The unfolding calamity that is the Texas drought has thrown nature out of balance. Many of the wild things that live in this state are suffering.

Sections of major rivers — like the Brazos, the Guadalupe, the Blanco, Llano and Pedernales — have dried up. In many places, there aren't even mud holes anymore.

"The drought is hammering Texas," says Cindy Loeffler, the water resources branch chief at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. "Usually we don't see impacts to fish and wildlife, they're adapted to hot, dry conditions in Texas. But this year, we're seeing impacts."

Starting at the coast, the lack of rain means low flowing rivers are not putting enough fresh water into coastal estuaries and bays. The resulting hyper salinity has allowed disease and predators to decimate this year's oyster crop.

Moving inland, the brutal heat has dried up puddles, ponds and artesian springs. So the mosquitoes that normally thrive in the Texas summer are noticeably absent in many areas. Though people are glad the mosquitoes are gone, bats depend on them.

"Here in Austin we have the largest urban colony of bats," Loeffler says. "They have been having to work overtime to find enough to eat. They've been coming out earlier in the evening and they're out later in the morning."

Across town at the Wildlife Rescue shelter, people are bringing in distressed creatures all day. Susan Edwards, manager of Wildlife Rescue, stands next to a dozen sickly baby squirrels.

"The mothers don't even have enough water to make milk," Edwards says. "So they're pushing their babies outa the nest sooner, and they have to give their children up to death, because they cannot survive themself."

There are reports the same thing is happening to deer – does abandoning their fawns to save themselves. […]

Texas Drought Takes Its Toll On Wildlife

By Yoko Kubota, with additional reporting by Yuko Takeo; Editing by Ed Lane
25 August 2011

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly six months after the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan faces the task of cleaning up a sprawling area of radioactivity that could cost tens of billions of dollars, and thousands may not be able to return home for years, if ever.

Fuel core meltdowns at the facility in March, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami, released radioactive material into the air which mixed with rain and snow and covered dozens of towns as well as farmland and woods, mainly along the northeast coast of Honshu.

Tokyo has been slow to provide a plan for rehabilitation, leading some residents near the plant, who have been exposed to high levels of radioactive cesium in homes and food, to start their own cleanup instead of waiting for the government to act.

"I was worried about the radiation exposure impact on children and felt that I had to do something to reduce the radiation levels," said Hideaki Takita, a 37-year-old resident of Koriyama city, about 60 km west of the plant, who has been cleaning houses.

Takita and other volunteers use their weekends to scrape off layers of dirt in yards, wash walls and windows and bury or store the radioactive waste in the corners of properties in an effort to reduce radiation levels in the air. […]

Still, the tasks Japan faces are daunting.

The accident at the Fukushima plant, about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, is likely to have released about 15 percent of the radiation that went into the air in the 1986 Chernobyl accident, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. […]

"The technology for decommissioning and cleaning up plants has been studied for a while, but we hardly have any experience in decontaminating materials that were released into the environment," said Tetsuo Iguchi, a Nagoya University professor.

"Fukushima is mountainous and such large-scale and highly concentrated contamination has not taken place on earth before in an area like this. How things will go is unpredictable."

The area in need of cleanup could be 1,000 to 4,000 square km, about 0.3 to 1 percent of Japan's total land area, and cost several trillion to more than 10 trillion yen ($130 billion), double what it took to build six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi plant, some experts say. […]

Another major headache is where to store the radioactive waste like dirt and water generated from cleanup work. […]

The amount of radioactive waste from decontamination is likely to be tens of millions of tons and the government in the long run plans to build an underground disposal facility to store this, though when and where is unclear. […]

Japan faces costly, unprecedented radiation cleanup