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Category: water

  • UP court staffer Vikas Gupta spitting into glass of water: 2018 video shared with ‘thook jihad’ claims

    A video is viral on social media with the claim that a junior government office worker in Aligarh spat into a senior judicial officer’s glass of water. The video, which is around 80-second long, shows a man pouring out a glass of water, then proceeding to spit into it, unaware of the fact that he is being recorded. The viral video comes with a voice-over narration reporting that the incident took place at a judicial office in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, where a judge had become a victim of ‘thook jihad’.

    An X-verified user named Kalpana Srivastav, who runs the handle @Lawyer_Kalpana and describes herself as a criminal advocate practising in Delhi, shared the viral video with the claim that this instance of ‘thook jihad’ is as recent as July 2024, and has taken place at the Aligarh court. (Archive)

    Legal activist and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay shared the viral video with a caption in Hindi, calling for an abolition of the ‘Mughal school’, and urged the ruling government to implement ‘One country one education code’, insinuating that the person spitting into the glass of water was a Muslim. He later deleted the tweet but not before it had been reshared around 1,800 times. (Archive)

    X-verified user @ajaychauhan41 also shared the video claiming that it was an instance of ‘thook jihad’, a term invented by the Right Wing to defame Muslims. (Archive)

    @ajaychauhan41 has been found by Alt News sharing communal propaganda innumerable times in the past.

    Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala), another user who regularly amplifies communal disinformation on social media, shared the video claiming that the office peon was committing ‘thook jihad’ by spitting into the glass of water. (Archive)

    We noticed several other posts on X with the same claim. (Archives – 1, 2, 3, 4)

    Click to view slideshow.

    Fact Check 

    We ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video, which led us to a tweet from May 2018. It features the same clip that went viral on social media, but does not mention anything on the religion of the accused. (Archive)

    Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search on Google, and came across a news report from The Times of India dated May 29, 2018. The same video which is now viral is embedded in their report.

    The report states that the junior office worker was identified as Vikas Gupta, and the incident took place on May 22, 2018. Gupta was immediately suspended. The president of the class IV employees’ union is quoted in the report as saying that Gupta had not been doing well mentally, since he had been harassed at work over the last two months, and this could have possibly led to him spit in his senior officer’s glass of water.

    Moreover, Aligarh Police commented on one of the viral posts on July 26, 2024, urging the user not to share false information. They said that the incident was from 2018 and appropriate action had been take against the accused person. (Archive)

    In conclusion, a video that shows a man named Vikas Gupta spitting into a glass of water is falsely viral with the claim that the accused is a Muslim committing ‘thook jihad.’

    Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

    The post UP court staffer Vikas Gupta spitting into glass of water: 2018 video shared with ‘thook jihad’ claims appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Sudanese military arrests journalist after he criticized governor on water crisis, sources say

    New York, July 24, 2024—Sudanese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release freelance journalist Omar Mohamed Omar, who was arrested on July 17 by the General Intelligence Service of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and allow members of the press to work safely and freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

    “We are alarmed by reports that the military intelligence arrested journalist Omar Mohamed Omar last week. Arresting journalists for their work at a time of war is a clear indication of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to prevent coverage of the ongoing war,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s Interim MENA Program Coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Sudanese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Omar and allow journalists to report on the war in Sudan without fear of getting arrested.”

    General Intelligence Service officers arrested Omar, also known as Wad Abukar, from his home in al-Obeid, the capital of the North Kordofan state in the south of Sudan, according to the reports, a statement by the local press freedom group the Sudanese Journalists Network, and a local journalist, who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

    Omar’s arrest came after he criticized the governor of North Kordofan on his personal Facebook page for the lack of services and the worsening water crisis in the state due to the civil war that broke out between the SAF and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, according to those sources. Since the beginning of the war, journalists have been killed, arrested, harassed, and sexually assaulted.

    The Sudanese Journalists Network condemned Omar’s arrest, calling it a violation of human rights laws and international humanitarian law.

    CPJ’s emails to the SAF requesting comment on Omar’s arrest did not receive any replies.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Australian water tech goes global

    The CSIRO’s world-first ground to space water quality monitoring system will be trialled in California in a significant expansion for the national science agency mission. The $83 million AquaWatch mission – one of a handful of the CSIRO’s large scale scientific and collaborative research initiatives – uses Australian made ground and satellite sensors and big…

    The post Australian water tech goes global appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • Can Mexico’s Leftist President-Elect Solve the Nation’s Water Crisis?

    Claudia Sheinbaum won a commanding victory in last month’s Mexican presidential election, winning almost 60 percent of the vote and securing legislative majorities for her left-wing Morena party. A former climate scientist and mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum dominated the polls after emerging as the successor to the popular outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Can Claudia Sheinbaum solve Mexico’s water crisis?

    Claudia Sheinbaum won a commanding victory in last month’s Mexican presidential election, winning almost 60 percent of the vote and securing legislative majorities for her left-wing Morena party. A former climate scientist and mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum dominated the polls after emerging as the successor to the popular outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

    Even as Sheinbaum prepares to take office, the city she ran between 2018 and 2023 is making global headlines as it suffers through an historic water crisis. Millions of low-income residents across the city rely on intermittent deliveries of contaminated groundwater, and even wealthier neighborhoods have seen their taps shut off as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Not only that, but the city loses around 40 percent of its water supply to leaks in its underground pipes.

    Sheinbaum tried to tackle these problems as mayor, pursuing projects to capture rainwater, restore depleted aquifers, and replace and upgrade aging pipes. But water experts and public officials who worked with Sheinbaum say she lacked the resources to turn around a crisis that has been decades in the making. The new power she will have as president, plus a wave of new leadership in the local and regional governments of Mexico City, could usher in a sweeping change in how one of the world’s most populous countries manages its water and adapts to climate-fueled drought.

    “Water is her main concern,” said Armando Alonso Beltrán, the head of the water department for the state government in the Mexico City region and a friend of Sheinbaum’s. “It’s in her top priorities, and it always has been.”

    Enrique Lomnitz, an engineer whose company, Isla Urbana, has built rainfall harvesting systems across the city, agreed that Sheinbaum made significant progress as mayor, but said the city still has a long way to go.

    “She has a very good record, and she started a lot of paradigm-shifting programs that opened new possibilities for approaching the water crisis,” he told Grist. “But these are still very small things compared to the scale of the problem.”

    That’s because Mexico’s water crisis is really several different crises. The shortage that captured global headlines this spring came about due to an extreme drought caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon. When spring rains failed to arrive, several key reservoirs that supply water to the city emptied out, forcing city officials to implement rotating water shutoffs in the wealthy neighborhoods that are fortunate enough to have consistent running water.

    But these reservoirs only supply around 30 percent of Mexico City’s water, most of which goes to the wealthier neighborhoods in the city center. The rest of the metropolis draws water from underground aquifers that have been dwindling for decades, so much so that parts of the city have sunk by several feet. The water that does still come out of these aquifers is often contaminated with toxic chemicals.

    A man carries a barrel for water in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City. The city has experienced a worsening water crisis for decades as underground aquifers run dry.
    A man carries a barrel for water in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City, which has seen a water crisis worsen for decades as underground aquifers run dry. Gerardo Vieyra / NurPhoto via Getty Images

    The problem is not that there isn’t enough water to recharge these aquifers over time: Mexico City gets around 34 inches of rainfall a year, similar to Midwest states like Iowa. But the city has grown by millions of people in recent decades without investing in infrastructure to capture and distribute all that water. The critical forest that recharges the aquifer, known as the “Bosque del Agua” or “water forest,” has diminished over the past century due to logging and development. Meanwhile, the water authority has failed to maintain the residential water system, which has resulted in an astonishing amount of water being lost to leaks — more than 40 percent of the total water supply, one of the highest rates in the world.

    Sheinbaum faced all these problems as mayor of Mexico City. In 2019, less than a year into her tenure, she announced a major effort to control these leaks, deploying dozens of “leak response brigades” that would locate and plug holes in the water grid. It’s hard to gauge how successful she’s been, said Lomnitz, because fixing a leak in one part of the system can increase water pressure in another part of the system and thus cause more leaks. And as the city sinks thanks to aquifer subsidence, more leaks appear.

    “There’s like a Whac-a-Mole kind of thing happening,” said Lomnitz. “You fix the leaks here and they increase over there.” Despite Sheinbaum’s investment, the city is likely billions of dollars away from meaningful water savings from leak reduction.

    “There were mixed results, mostly positive, from her time as mayor,” said Alonso. “But it’s hard to tell the final results, because the drought came last year and there was less water.”

    Making the city “spongy” enough to catch and store falling rain is even harder given Mexico City’s idiosyncratic history. The city lies on a former lakebed that early Spanish colonists drained in the seventeenth century, and as a result it is prone to frequent flooding. The city’s leaders have spent the equivalent of billions of dollars over the past hundred years to build tunnels that can drain this floodwater away from the metropolis, including a massive 38-mile tunnel project that opened in 2019.

    “Our issue has always been how to take out water from the city, and as we had this very rich aquifer and this amount of rain which is quite good, we never had this problem of scarcity,” said Loreta Castro Reguera, an architect who has worked on a number of water projects in Mexico City. The city also has a problem of “technological inertia” as it seeks to capture and harvest rainwater, added Castro Reguera: It uses the same tunnel system to flush out stormwater and sewage, which makes it almost impossible to treat and reroute rainwater for residential usage.  

    Since building a parallel pipe system for stormwater would be almost unthinkably expensive, the city’s best option is to start smaller, capturing rainwater at the household or neighborhood level. Sheinbaum started doing this as mayor through a number of innovative nature-based projects. For instance, the city transformed a former landfill near the city’s largest wastewater treatment plant into a restored wetland that filters and treats captured stormwater, yielding a new high-quality water supply. She also worked with Lomnitz’s Isla Urbana to install thousands of household catchment systems and boosted the budget for infrastructure repairs.

    Another model comes from Sheinbaum’s incoming successor as the mayor of Mexico City, fellow Morena member Clara Brugada, who has her own record tackling water issues. Brugada, who will take office later this year, has served for almost a decade as the mayor of Iztapalapa, a large impoverished borough in the eastern part of the city. Iztapalapa has struggled for decades with crime and water shortages, but Brugada took major steps to replace faulty infrastructure and created several community spaces known as “utopias” that combine green space with free public services and recreational areas.

    One of the banner projects in the borough was La Quebradora, a “hydraulic park” designed by Castro Reguera’s firm with support from the local government. The park captures stormwater to reduce flooding in nearby areas and funnels that water down into the aquifer, recharging groundwater and easing the local water shortage. 

    “The impulse needs to come from the government,” said Castro Reguera, describing the need for more projects like the one in Iztapalapa. “This might be a chance to put more of these projects in place.”

    Incoming Mexico City mayor Clara Brugada, left, stands with Mexico's president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum during an election celebration. Both politicians have received praise for tackling Mexico City's water crisis.
    Incoming Mexico City mayor Clara Brugada, left, stands with Mexico’s president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum during an election celebration. Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images

    Sheinbaum, however, will have to worry about water issues in areas far from Mexico City, because the country’s northern states are facing a very different water problem than the capital. In these states, which are much drier than the region around Mexico City, the problem is less poor management than it is a lack of supply. The vast majority of water in these areas goes to irrigate crops such as avocados and alfalfa, and another share supplies numerous mining operations, leaving very little leftover for residential use. 

    Sheinbaum and her predecessor López Obrador have tried to tackle this problem by curbing so-called water concessions, which grant farms and mines the exclusive right to tap rivers and aquifers. Before the election, López Obrador pushed a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the government to cut off water to mines during a drought, and Sheinbaum has signaled she too will support that measure. She has also reportedly called for a revamp of the national water law that would limit water use by farms, though this effort will likely face opposition from powerful agricultural interests. (Neither the president’s office nor the campaign offices of Sheinbaum and Brugada responded to Grist’s interview requests.)

    In these northern states as well as in Mexico City, the water crisis is as much a problem of governance as it is one of physical shortage. The country’s national water authority has faced accusations of bribery and corruption for years, and the local authority in Mexico City has faced criticism as well for a lack of transparency about water quality. These are the same utilities that Lomnitz says have underinvested in infrastructure for decades.

    But the conditions are ripe for a surge of investment. Sheinbaum holds the presidency, which will give her access to a much larger budget to invest in water storage and treatment projects. Brugada has promised to continue her focus on rainwater harvesting and environmental justice as the mayor of Mexico City. The new head of Mexico City’s regional government is also a member of the Morena party, and which means all the levels of government are aligned for the first time in decades.

    Victor Magaña Rueda, an environmental scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has studied climate impacts in Mexico City, told Grist that he believes Sheinbaum has the political will to turn around the trend of disinvestment and delay.

    “She has a very profound knowledge of what the water crisis in Mexico is,” said Magaña. “She is more interested in environmental problems I would say than our president right now. But the important thing is that she knows that we cannot go on in a situation like we lived in for the past few years.”

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Can Claudia Sheinbaum solve Mexico’s water crisis? on Jun 26, 2024.


    This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Chomsky and UN Forewarnings Revisited

    I recently attended a family affair in Upstate NY and was informed that climate change articles, like this one, are too negative, causing close relatives to shutdown and going so far as to ignore articles, too gloomy, too negative, do something more positive. My response: Analyzing the planet’s climate system by studying peer-reviewed scientific publications for over a decade, every year has gotten worse and worse, no letups, more negatives every year… there’s nothing positive about climate change to write about. And people need to know the truth about anthropogenic-led crashing of ecosystems.

    Furthermore, one of the key reasons why many Americans don’t accept climate change as an existential issue is because they have been shielded from the most impactful events of climate change, from the truth as experienced by the rest of the world; e.g., Europe’s five-year average temperature has been running 2.3°C above pre-industrial, a danger zone according t0 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to limit global warming to no more than 2.0° Celsius by 2100 to avoid significant and potentially catastrophic changes to the planet. Hmm. Ipso facto, 75% of Spain is at risk of desertification, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

    The USA, uniquely. happens to be located in a “global sweet spot” ideally within latitudes and longitudes that first attracted Europeans to a Garden of Eden setting, For example, during the mid-17th century in the words of William Wood of Boston, circa 1634 (Source: “Boston’s Flora and Fauna in the 1630s”, Boston Public Library):

    For the Country it is as well watered as any land under the Sun, every family, or every two families having a spring of sweet waters betwixt them, which is far different from the waters of England being not so, but of a fatter substance, and of a more jetty colour; it is thought there can be so better water in the world.

    The next commodity the land affords, is good store of Woods, & that not only such as may be needful for fuel, but likewise for the building of Ships, and houses, & Mils, and all manner of water-work about which Wood is necessary. The Timber of the Country grows straight and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty-foot high, before they spread forth their branches…. Of these swamps, some be ten, some twenty, some thirty miles long, being preserved by the wetness of the soils wherein they grow.

    Today, people in Asia and Europe and Central America do not complain about negtive climate articles, rather, they embrace it, believing that more exposure is necessary so people know how to bitch and moan and groan about the failure of political leaders to take heed of top-notch scientists’ warnings for decades that global warming, primarily caused by fossil fuels like CO2, eventually leads to ecosystem collapse and dangerous heatwaves and destructive droughts. Today, unrelenting heatwaves are rampant for all to see but could be only the beginning.

    Regarding the Chomsky and UN warnings, it was June 2022 when the UN issued GAR2022, UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction shortly thereafter followed by Noam Chomsky as keynote speaker for the American Solar Energy Society 51st annual conference at the University of New Mexico.

    The UN report, for the first time, brought into focus the challenge: “Escalating synergies of climate disasters, economic vulnerability, and ecosystem failures increasingly headed for a juggernaut of collapse.”

    On the heels of the UN report about an impending “juggernaut of collapse,” Chomsky’s opening statement at the American Solar Energy Society echoed the UN’s statement:

    We are at a unique moment in human history. Decisions that must be made right now will determine the course of future history if there is to be any human history, which is very much in doubt. There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.

    Today, there is compelling evidence that both the UN and Chomsky were dead-on correct. But Chomsky’s call for implementing measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment have been mostly ignored. Now, two short years later. killer heat is consuming the lifeblood of megacities in some regions of the planet.

    “Water sources are depleted around the world,” according to Victoria Beard, professor of city and regional planning, Cornell University: “Every year, more cities will face ‘Day Zero,’ with no water in their piped systems.” (Source: “This Mega-City is Running Out of Water: What Will 22 Million People do When the Taps Run Dry?” Phys.org, March 26, 2024.)

    For example: Mexico City (22M pop.) could run dry this summer. Bogotá (8M pop.) recently started water rationing. Residents of Johannesburg (6M pop.) line up for municipal truck deliveries. South Delhi (2.7M pop.) announced a rationing plan on May 29th. Several cities of southern Europe have rationing plans on the table. In March 2024 China announced its first-ever National-Level Regulations on Water Conservation, a disguised version of water rationing. Global warming is the key problem as severe droughts clobber reservoirs. And global warming is a product of energy creation from fossil fuel emissions such s CO2.

    According to Chomsky, the “Energy System” is the provocateur of global warming, and it has enormous institutional breadth, including fossil fuel companies, banks, and other financial institutions and a large part of the legal community. Accordingly, the Energy System’s political base is the Republican Party, and it is the main driving force for global warming which, in turn, threatens megacities with “Day Zero” or dry reservoirs. This is becoming prevalent around the globe.

    The fact that the UN Global Assessment Report GAR2022 received little, or no media attention, explains how and why we are in deep trouble; the issue is simply ignored. Yet, it is the first-ever UN flagship global report with findings that current global policies are “accelerating the collapse of human civilization.” It should have been front page news. Importantly, the report does not suggest that collapse is a “done deal.” Rather, without radical change, it’s where the world is headed.

    Alas, where is the “radical change” that the UN report said is necessary to prevent collapse? Answer: There is no radical change ongoing, planned, or discussed. Radical change has never been mentioned by any world-recognized authorities.

    Celebrated weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, recently commented on global warming’s impact: “Thousands of records are being brutalized all over Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in world climatic history.” (Source: “Summer Heat Hits Asia Early, Killing Dozens as one Expert Calls it the ‘Most Extreme Event’ in Climate History”, CBS News, May 2, 2024.)

    “The most extreme event in world climatic history” is a very strong characterization of the impact of climate change and global warming. Dangerous heat waves are sweeping the world like a scythe harvesting wheat and more people are being killed than reported by authorities, especially in India. There’ll never be accurate counts of the dead for public release. Some megacities are currently at knife’s edge of loss of drinking water for millions of residents. They’re not prepared. Water is trucked for firefighting in some megacities and to neighborhoods where residents are parched. This could have been prevented, but it wasn’t.

    Of even more immediate concern, an Environmental Emergency has been declared for Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands by Mato Grosso do Sul, the Brazilian state containing most of Pantanal. The emergency has been declared as the number of fires surged by 980%, as of June 5th, well ahead of wildfire season which starts in July/August. This is one of the world’s largest wetlands (10 times Florida’s everglades) which has partially dried out due to ongoing severe drought. (Source: “Fires in Brazilian Wetlands Surge 980%, Extreme Drought Expected”, Reuters, June 7, 2024.)

    The Pantanal is the world’s largest freshwater wetland stretching over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia offering unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. It stores untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the world’s climate. It is one of the wonders of the world, but large areas are blazing afire because of severe drought; it’s global warming at work.

    What to do? There are experienced capable people, such as Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who believe that the failure of world leaders to listen to scientists for decades necessitates a changing of the guard. He’s organizing a worldwide movement.

    In summation, the United Nations claims “radical change” is needed, and as stated by Noam Chomsky: “There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.” But nobody is doing this on a radical change basis.

    Meantime, if megacities run dry, what will millions of city residents do? The risks have never been more pronounced.

    The post Chomsky and UN Forewarnings Revisited first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Circular Economy framework to be unveiled by end of year

    A national circular economy framework that outlines innovation priorities for guiding Australian industry toward the multi-billion opportunities of circular economy practices will be released by the end of the year. Aside from innovation, the framework will describe “priorities for an integrated and holistic circular economy transition across governments, industry, investors, and communities”, according to the…

    The post Circular Economy framework to be unveiled by end of year appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • The Great Arizona Water Grab

    For years, a Saudi-owned hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the Arizona desert and exporting the hay back to Saudi Arabia. 

    The farm’s water use has attracted national attention and criticism since Reveal’s Nate Halverson and Ike Sriskandarajah first broke this story more than eight years ago.

    Since then, the water crisis in the American West has only worsened as megafarms have taken hold there. And it’s not just foreign companies fueling the problem: Halverson uncovers that pension fund managers in Arizona knowingly invested in a local land deal that resulted in draining down the groundwater of nearby communities. So even as local and state politicians have fought to stop these deals, their retirement fund has been fueling them.

    Since we first aired this story in July, our reporting has spurred Arizona’s governor and attorney general into action. 

    On this week’s Reveal, learn about water use in the West, who’s profiting and who’s getting left behind.

    For more of Halverson’s reporting into a global scramble for food and water, watch “The Grab.” By Center for Investigative Reporting Studios and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, the film will be in theaters and available to stream starting June 14.

    This is an update of an episode that originally aired in July 2023.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Where’s the Water?

    “Whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” a popular adage from the chronicles of the American West that’s starting to come back into vogue.

    The world’s megacities are on a knife’s edge of water stress.

    Climate change is clobbering water resources and testing the nerves of the world, especially megacities; e.g., Mexico City (pop. 22 million) could run dry this summer. Nearly 90% of greater Mexico City is in severe drought.  The country has been in widespread drought since 2021-22. Subsidence is causing the city to sink 20 inches per year because of rapid groundwater extraction supplanting low reservoirs. The Metro is sinking unevenly. The rails are wobbly. The massive city could go dry this year.

    Bogotá, a city of 8 million located in a humid patch of the northern Andes Mountains surrounded by cloud forests, has instituted water rationing as of April 15, 2024. The Chingaza Reservoir System is 15% full and if rains do not return soon, it’ll run out of water in two months. The mayor recommended eliminating daily personal showers, with several other suggestions.

    Human-caused climate change is enemy number one, and it all starts at the Arctic, influencing the entire Northern Hemisphere, too hot for too long melting reflective ice, upsetting an age-old interchange with jet streams at 30,000 feet that drive weather patterns. Like a drunken sailor, the jet streams don’t know which way to go and neither do weather systems. Result, rains for Mexico City reservoirs are horribly weak, if at all, following years of unprecedented drought.

    The United Nations General Assembly, NY was briefed last year by leading scientists: “Conflict, Climate and Cooperation.” It’s been 4,500 years since an actual war has broken out over water rights. It took place between two Mesopotamian city-states in what is now called Iraq.

    Like 4,500 years ago, tensions over water are on the rise and climate change is largely to blame as fossil fuels lurk in the background. Major cities of the world are at risk of drying out and climate change is the problem, too hot for too long with drought on a rampage, festering big time trouble of Day Zero, as taps go dry. Leading candidates: Mexico City, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Jakarta, São Paulo, Beijing, Cairo, Bangalore, Tokyo, London, Bogotá, Moscow, Istanbul (Sources:  Euronews and World Resources Institute Aqueduct).

    Global warming is impacting a very sensitive touch-and-go relationship between major cities and diminishing water resources. Extreme heat shrinks reservoirs combined with decades of neglect as water infrastructure crumbles and climate change shifts precipitation patterns making once wet regions drier than ever.

    The 2024 World Water Development Report claims that nearly one-half of the world’s population experiences “at least temporary severe water scarcity.” Meanwhile, tensions over water are exacerbating conflicts worldwide. (Source: Press Release: Water Crises Threaten World Peace, UNESCO, March 2024.) More to the point, 2.2 billion people don’t have access to “safely managed drinking water.” This is a guaranteed formula for trouble as desperate people take desperate measures… to survive.

    Recent water wars have spilled bloodshed in India, Kenya, and Yemen. And on the Iran-Afghanistan border, conflict rages over water from the Helmand River.

    Based upon studies by the Pacific Institute, over the past 18 months there have been 344 instances of water-related conflicts in the world. According to Peter Gleick of Pacific Institute: “We also see a worrying increase in violence associate with water security worsened by drought – climate disruptions, growing populations, and competition for water.” (Source: “Water Increasingly at the Center of Conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East”, LA Times, December 28, 2023.)

    Climate change is creating a war path, forcing major urban centers to change lifestyles, living with less, and butting heads with a worldwide neoliberal capitalistic economic system that promotes endless growth at any and all costs.

    By ignoring the dreadful influence of fossil fuels spewing CO2 whilst powering endless growth that rips apart predictable climate systems of the ages, which has now turned viciously unpredictable, the end may be in sight.

    The ineptitude of world leadership to properly judge and deal with human-generated global warming, despite decades of warnings by top notch scientists, and their blatant kowtowing to the fossil fuel interests, is leading down a very difficult pathway. As a result, there are rumblings about how to change direction, for example, The Climate Revolution broadcast on the Climate Emergency Forum featuring Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who suggests a changing of the guard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc8KS89lG8Y&t=276s

    The post Where’s the Water? first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Scientists Discover Way to Destroy Harmful “Forever Chemicals” in Water Supply

    PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” for a reason. Originally added to a wide variety of products ranging from firefighting foam to nonstick food packaging, the chemical bonds that make up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, accumulate quickly and break down slowly over time, making the pollutants extremely persistent in the environment — and our drinking water supply.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Despite Governor’s Tough Talk, Michigan Bottlers Still Extract Water for Free

    When Gretchen Whitmer campaigned for Michigan governor in 2018, she took aim at Michigan’s bottled water industry — and the state policy that gave it unfettered access to free water. Nestle was extracting hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater a year, which it bottled and sold under the Ice Mountain brand. The only cost: a $200 yearly fee per site. The company asked the state for a 60%

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • China sends glacial water from Tibet to the Maldives, raising concerns

    China gifted 3,000 metric tons of Tibet’s glacial water to the island nation of the Maldives in two separate batches in March and May — the same months it unveiled and implemented water conservation regulations at home.

    The Water Conservation Regulations set limits on water usage within administrative regions and prioritizes water conversation work in Tibet and other parts of China. 

    They were issued by China’s State Council on March 20, a week before it sent the first delivery of 1,500 metric tons of water in jugs to the Maldives, which is experiencing a scarcity of fresh water. 

    The regulations then went into effect on May 1, weeks before China donated the second batch of water jugs. 

    China finalized the deal with the Maldives during a November 2023 visit by Yan Jinhai, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to the low-lying archipelago threatened by rising sea levels.

    The Maldives has forged strong bilateral relations with China and is a beneficiary of the Belt and Road Initiative, under which it has borrowed more than US$1 billion from Chinese banks in the past decade, according to Western think tanks. 

    Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu signed 20 agreements, including one for financial and military assistance, with Beijing during his inaugural state visit to China in January 2024.  

    The Maldives thanked the people of Tibet for their “generous donation,” which it expects will greatly support its island communities. Its freshwater resources are affected by erratic rainfall patterns and rising sea levels.

    Water shortages in Tibet

    But Tibetans inside Tibet said they face water shortages themselves because Chinese authorities have implemented systematic water conservation and management campaigns across various Tibetan villages and towns for over a decade.

    This has occurred while authorities have restricted the availability of water and set limits on water usage at the local level.

    Maldivian security personnel load a water tank onto a military vehicle to fill it with treated water in Malé, capital of the Maldives, Dec. 5, 2014. The capital is located on a low-lying island in the Indian Ocean that has no natural water source and depends entirely on treated seawater. (Sinan Hussain/AP)
    Maldivian security personnel load a water tank onto a military vehicle to fill it with treated water in Malé, capital of the Maldives, Dec. 5, 2014. The capital is located on a low-lying island in the Indian Ocean that has no natural water source and depends entirely on treated seawater. (Sinan Hussain/AP)

    “I have heard that China is donating bottled water from Tibet to other parts of the world for free for political gain,” said one source from the Tibet Autonomous Region, where Chinese authorities have carried out water conservation campaigns for over a decade. 

    “However, in Tibet, the local Tibetans do not have enough drinking water,” he said. “At times there isn’t enough water to even brush our teeth.”

    On March 27, the same day the Maldives said it received the first batch of water, the Water Conservancy Bureau of Ngari Prefecture, or Ali in Chinese, the birthplace of key South Asian rivers, began a series of year-long events for the general public to promote water conservation.

    In Nyingtri city, or Linzhi in Chinese, authorities have implemented the strictest water resources management system over the past several years and boast of its effectiveness. 

    “The water used to wash rice and vegetables can be used to mop the floor and water the flowers. … Nowadays, water-saving behaviors like this have become a conscious action of many citizens,” said a 2023 announcement by the city government.

    Meanwhile, Tibetans who have grown up on their ancestral land in Gangkar township in Dingri county, called Tingri in Chinese, are being forced to relocate to make way for the expansion of China’s water bottling facilities and industry, two sources said. 

    “Gangkar is known for its fertile pastureland and significant water resources from glaciers with 15 water springs in the region, which the local Tibetans have always relied on for their livelihoods,” said the first source. 

    Chinese authorities plan to move about 430 residents to take control of the water resources from the land, he said.

    Weaponizing water

    China’s move signals it is engaging in “water politics” and playing the long game for geopolitical gains in South Asia, experts said. 

    The Chinese government has projects underway to extract clean, clear and mineral-rich water to support the expansion of its premium mineral bottled water industry, they said.

    H.E. Yan Jinhai (L), chairman of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, pays a courtesy call to Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu in Malé, capital of the Maldives, Nov. 21, 2023. (President’s Office/Republic of Maldives)
    H.E. Yan Jinhai (L), chairman of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, pays a courtesy call to Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu in Malé, capital of the Maldives, Nov. 21, 2023. (President’s Office/Republic of Maldives)

    Beijing also wants to control water flows to lower riparian states such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, to further its own aspiration of regional dominance, experts said.

    “The imperative to address the threat of China weaponizing water in Tibet cannot be overstated,” wrote scholars Neeraj Singh Manhas and Rahul Lad in a March report titled “China’s Weaponization of Water in Tibet A Lesson for the Lower Riparian States” in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs.

    With approximately 87,000 dams built, China poses a historic threat, having already dammed most internal rivers, they add, while calling for proactive measures to implement enduring policies to protect these vital Tibet’s water resources.

    Tibet is at the forefront of China’s “water wars” in the region, said Anushka Saxena, a research analyst at the Takshashila Institution, a public policy think tank in India. 

    Tibet’s eight major transboundary river systems have the capacity to turn China into “Asia’s water hegemon,” given that their water can be used for both domestic economic and foreign policy-related interests, as well as can be weaponized to cause harm to lower riparian states, she said.

    “In that light, China’s moves vis-à-vis export of water to Maldives cannot be isolated from the larger approach China is adopting to using Tibet’s water resources,” she added.

    Additional reporting by Dorjee Damdul for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lobsang, Tenzin Pema and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Drought, lack of rain have left Lao farmers with severe water shortage

    Across Laos, a drop in the average amount of rainfall over the last five years is seriously affecting agricultural and electricity production, government officials told Radio Free Asia.

    Farmers haven’t been able to plant rice or vegetables after a heat wave in April and May further hardened the ground and lowered water levels for rivers and streams down to just a trickle, several provincial officials said.

    “We can do nothing,” a Department of Agriculture and Forestry official in southern Champassak province said. “We can’t plow. All we can do is wait. Wait for water or rainfall.”

    This trend has been in place for several years – an ominous sign on World Environment Day, which is also Lao National Environment Day, which falls on Wednesday. Rivers and smaller streams have been too dry and the weather has been too hot to begin the rainy season planting.

    Also, the rainfall shortage has left Laos’ dam reservoirs at just 30 percent water capacity, causing electricity production to drop 10 percent from last year, according to an official from the state-owned power company, Electricite du Laos.

    ENG_LAO_CLIMATE CHANGE_05302024.2.jpg
    The effects of deforestation are seen in Laos in this undated photo posted to social media April 25, 2024. (Laophattana News via Facebook)

    “Every month, we have a meeting to discuss the water situation in the country – more specifically, about the amount of water we need and the amount of water that is available,” said a Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons.

    “However, until now, we haven’t found any solution to the shortage,” he said.

    The deforestation challenge

    Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone said at a Cabinet meeting last month that his government is stepping up its monitoring of climate change and its impacts. 

    On Monday, he called on Laotians to stop cutting down trees, saying that illegal logging and deforestation have led to increased forest fires, degraded soil and flooding.

    The prime minister restated the government’s goal of increasing nationwide forest coverage from 40% to 70%.

    “Deforestation, land degradation, land clearance and forest fire have been intensifying in our country,” he said. “Together we can stop destroying forests to restore soil and fight against drought and floods.” 

    Because trees and soil can absorb carbon, forest restoration is believed to be an important way to counter climate change. But revitalized forests can also play a role in reducing heat and regulating rainfall patterns, according to the World Resources Institute.

    The Lao government has issued several directives banning illegal logging and the illegal export of wood, including a strongly worded decree in 2015. But deforestation has continued, including by farmers who use slash-and-burn tactics to clear land to grow rice or cassava.

    In practice, it’s very difficult for government officials to tell people that they can’t use nearby land to make a living, a Lao environmentalist said.

    “Stopping deforestation is a big challenge,” he said. “Most Laotians are poor farmers who rely on the forest for survival.”

    The data

    More deforestation could mean a continuation of Laos’ declining rainfall rate. Before 2019, Laos usually received an average of 3,000 millimeters (118 inches) of rainfall a year, according to the World Bank.

    But in 2019, only 1,460 millimeters (57 inches) fell. In 2020, it was 1,834 millimeters (72 inches), and in 2021 and 2022, there were 1,755 millimeters (69 inches) and 2,038 millimeters (80 inches) of rainfall, according to the World Bank

    The trend continued into 2023 and the first five months of this year, according to the Champassak provincial official

    “It’s rained only once in this area this year, “ he said. “If you look at rice fields right now, you’ll see only weeds, but no water.”

    Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Laos.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US-Backed Canadian Mine in Guatemala Threatens Water Supply for Millions

    Asunción Mita is a town of roughly 40,000 people in the hills of southeastern Guatemala, near the border with El Salvador. It’s dusty and hot in the dry season — located in the Central American dry corridor, which is particularly vulnerable to climate disasters. And it has become the center of a battle over the future of mining in Guatemala. In January, the outgoing Guatemalan government gave the…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Mississippi Sat on Federal Funds That Could Have Stopped Jackson’s Water Crisis

    Late in the summer of 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency sent the Mississippi state government a routine report assessing its use of federal funding for water infrastructure. The agency concluded with the words “no findings” — that is, the EPA found no issue with how Mississippi was spending its money. The very next day, on August 29, as many as 180,000 residents in the Jackson area lost…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • As Reservoirs Go Dry, Mexico City and Bogotá Face Impending Water Crises

    In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Widespread Myanmar water shortage kills scores of people

    Nearly 50 villages in western Myanmar are facing shortages of water, residents told RFA on Tuesday, after the hot season brought record high temperatures across the region.

    Ponds and small lakes across Rakhine State are drying up, leaving residents with limited water for drinking and cooking. The United Nations has warned that tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict face the risk of disease as a result of the lack of water.

    Villages across Ponnagyun township have faced severe drought since April, as the hot season reached its most intense period, said one resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. “There are two or three ponds in the village. But this year, the daytime temperature rose so high that the ponds went dry,” he said. “Some people don’t even bathe regularly and sometimes even lack drinking water. There are some aid groups donating water but it’s not enough because most of the villages need it.”

    Ponnagyun faces a water shortage every year but this year has been the worst, he said, adding that some residents were suffering from diarrhea from drinking dirty  water.

    Nearly a quarter of the households in Ah Htet Myat Hle village’s camp for internally displaced people are facing a water shortage, a camp administrator said. Water-borne illnesses killed three people in the camp in April, with similar symptoms killing nearly 80 in other  camps across the state in the same month, aid workers have said.

    Camp official Aung Myint told RFA that hundreds of people were facing various  symptoms from drinking unclean water.

    “We are already having a lot of trouble in the camp. Hundreds of people are suffering from diarrhea. My child is also suffering from it, too,” he said. “Three people from the camp have died from disease. It is caused mainly due to unclean drinking water, rising heat and the toilets.”

    Mass displacement and disruption in Rakhine State from fighting between junta forces and ethnic minority insurgents from the Arakan Army, has forced thousands of people from their homes and deprived them of their livelihoods. Those forced into camps, mostly members of the persecuted Rohingya minority, lack access to doctors and sanitation. 

    RFA tried to contact Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, but he did not respond.

    Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Georgian Police Fire Water Cannons, Tear Gas To Disperse Protesters Over Foreign Agent Bill


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Prisoners in Cambodia suffer amid searing heat and water shortages

    Soaring temperatures during the hot season in Cambodia has led to water shortages in prisons and is causing inmates’ health to suffer, family members and activists say.

    Kak Komphea, a former leader of the now-banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party in Prey Sar Prison on incitement charges, is crammed in a 4-square-meter room with more than 10 other prisoners at, according to his wife, Prum Chantha.

    He’s allowed only about 15 liters of unclean water per day – about a bucketful – for bathing, she said. “The prisoners are already living in difficult circumstances. This has tortured his body,” she said. “Even though it isn’t physical abuse, it is the same.” 

    Another arrested opposition party official – Toch Theung of the Candlelight Party – has been suffering from heat-related illness and was recently under medical treatment at Pursat Provincial Prison for more than a week, according to his wife, Hanh Sovanna.

    Cambodia’s hot season lasts from February to April, when temperatures can rise to as high as 40 degrees Celsius (102 F). 

    The Ministry of Health issued an advisory on April 7 urging people to drink at least 2 liters of water a day – and avoid drinking alcohol and coffee, which can cause dehydration.

    .

    KHM_Prisons_Water2.1.JPG
    Cambodian garment workers stand on a back truck as they wear scarfs and caps to protect themselves from hot sun during return home after a day’s working at garment factory outside Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Heng Sinith/AP)

    The Ministry of Interior followed that up with instructions to prisons throughout the country to follow the Ministry of Health’s guidelines, according to Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna. Each prison will strive to supply enough water during the hot weather, he told RFA Khmer.

    Water shortages found

    Human rights group Licadho said its investigators have found a lack of water at several prisons throughout the country, said Am Sam Ath. 

    If the government doesn’t address the shortage issue soon, the number of health problems among prisoners will rise, he said

    Opposition activist and union leader Rong Chhun, who has been imprisoned several times, said the government lacks the will to address water shortages in prisons.

    Interior Minister Sar Sokha acknowledged at a ministry meeting last October that the country’s prisons have become overcrowded. The total number of inmates has increased to more than 40,000 nationwide, he said.

    KHM_Prisons_Water2.2.JPG
    Thach Setha, Vice President of the Candlelight Party, shows handcuffs from inside a car as he is transported from the Supreme Court to Prey Sar Prison on June 19, 2023. (VOA)

    Another well-known prisoner, Ny Nak, is also dealing with health problems related to hot conditions and overcrowding at Trapeang Phlong Prison in Tboung Khmum province, according to his wife, Sok Syneth.

    In September, Ny Nak was badly beaten by about eight assailants on the streets of Phnom Penh just hours after he panned a Ministry of Agriculture report on rice prices. 

    He was arrested in January just after he posted a comment on Facebook that mocked a Ministry of Commerce statement about registering 10,000 new companies in 2024.

    His wife, Sok Syneth, has asked court officials to transfer her husband to Prey Sar, where family members and lawyers can more easily monitor his health.

    According to the law, when a person commits a crime, he or she should be imprisoned in the capital or province where crimes are committed, said Yi Soksan, a senior official at Adhoc, the country’s oldest human rights group.

    Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • How the Jackson Water Crisis Turned Into a Struggle Against Privatization

    In the summer of 2022, heavy rainfall damaged a water treatment plant in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, precipitating a high-profile public health crisis. The Republican Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency, as thousands of residents were told to boil their water before drinking it. For some, the pressure in their taps was so low that they couldn’t flush their toilets and were…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • How the Jackson Water Crisis Turned Into a Struggle Against Privatization

    In the summer of 2022, heavy rainfall damaged a water treatment plant in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, precipitating a high-profile public health crisis. The Republican Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency, as thousands of residents were told to boil their water before drinking it. For some, the pressure in their taps was so low that they couldn’t flush their toilets and were…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • 10 Years Later, Flint Residents Are Still Waiting for Lead Pipes to Be Replaced

    Ten years after government mistakes and cost-cutting measures caused a drinking water disaster that afflicted daily life in Flint, Michigan, and exposed thousands of schoolchildren to harmful levels of lead, residents are still waiting for a resolution as environmentalists warn that the U.S. faces a spiraling water safety and affordability crisis. In March, a federal judge held city and state…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • A water crisis in Mississippi turns into a fight against privatization

    In the summer of 2022, heavy rainfall damaged a water treatment plant in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, precipitating a high-profile public health crisis. The Republican Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency, as thousands of residents were told to boil their water before drinking it. For some, the pressure in their taps was so low that they couldn’t flush their toilets and were forced to rely on bottled water for weeks. 

    Many of the city’s 150,000 residents were wary that their local government could get clean water running through their pipes again. State officials had a history of undermining efforts to repair Jackson’s beleaguered infrastructure, and the city council, for its part, didn’t have the money to make the fixes on its own. So when the federal government stepped in that fall, allocating funding and appointing an engineer to manage the city’s water system, there was reason to believe change may finally be near. 

    But as the months wore on, hope turned to frustration. The federally appointed engineer, Ted Henifin, began taking steps to run the city’s water system through a private company, despite Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s objections. Advocates’ repeated requests for data and other information about Jackson’s drinking water went unanswered, according to a local activist, Makani Themba, and despite Henifin’s assurances before a federal judge that the water was safe to drink, brown liquid still poured out of some taps. Faced with these conditions, a group of advocates sent the Environmental Protection Agency a letter last July asking to be involved in the overhaul of the city’s water system. 

    “Jackson residents have weathered many storms, literally and figuratively, over the last several years,” they wrote in the letter. “We have a right and responsibility to be fully engaged in the redevelopment of our water and sewer system.” The letter was followed by an emergency petition to the EPA containing similar requests for transparency and involvement. 

    Earlier this month, a federal judge granted the advocates their request, making two community organizations, the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign and the People’s Advocacy Group, parties to an EPA lawsuit against the city of Jackson for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act. A seat at the table of the legal proceedings, the advocates hope, will allow the city’s residents to have a say in rebuilding their infrastructure and also ward off privatization. The saga in Jackson reflects a wider problem affecting public utilities across the country, with cash-strapped local governments turning to corporations to make badly needed repairs to water treatment plants, distribution pipes, and storage systems, a course that often limits transparency and boxes locals out of the decision-making. 

    “This isn’t a uniquely Jackson problem,” said Brooke Floyd, co-director of the Jackson People’s Assembly at the People’s Advocacy Institute. “We need ways for all these cities that need infrastructure repairs to get clean water to their communities.”

    The roots of Jackson’s water crisis lie in decades of disinvestment and neglect. Like many other mid-sized cities around the country, such as Pittsburgh and St. Louis, Jackson declined after white, middle-class residents relocated to the suburbs, taking tax dollars away from infrastructure in increasing need of repair. Between 1980 and 2020, Jackson’s population dropped by around 25 percent. Today, the city is more than 80 percent Black, up from 50 percent in the 1980s. A quarter of Jackson’s residents live below the poverty line, with most households earning less than $40,000 a year, compared with $49,000 for the state overall.

    Over the decades, antagonism between the Republican state government and the Democratic and Black-led local government created additional obstacles to updating Jackson’s water and sewage infrastructure. A Title VI civil rights complaint that the NAACP filed with the EPA in September 2022 accused Governor Reeves and the state legislature of “systematically depriving Jackson the funds that it needs to operate and maintain its water facilities in a safe and reliable manner.” The biggest problem, the NAACP argued, was that the state had rejected the city’s proposal for a one percent sales tax to pay for infrastructure updates and by directing funds from the EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund away from the capital city. 

    “Despite Jackson’s status as the most populous city in Mississippi, State agencies awarded federal funds” from the EPA program three times in the past 25 years, the complaint read. “Meanwhile, the State has funneled funds to majority-white areas in Mississippi despite their less acute needs.”

    In the absence of adequate resources from the state and local government, Jacksonians have learned to fend for themselves, Floyd told Grist. At the height of the water crisis in 2022, federal dollars helped fund the distribution of bottled water to thousands of residents, but when the money dried up, people organized to secure drinking water for households still reckoning with smelly, off-color fluid running from their taps. When Henifin began posting boil-water notices on a smartphone application that some found hard to use, one resident set up a separate community text service. Floyd said that for some residents, these problems are still ongoing today. 

    “There’s this sense of, we have to provide for each other because no one is coming,” Floyd said. “We know that the state is not going to help us.”

    Henifin has told a federal judge that he’s made a number of moves to improve Jackson’s water quality. The private company that he set up, JXN Water, has hired contractors to update the main water plant’s corrosion control and conducted testing for lead and bacteria like E. Coli. But residents and advocates point out that while the water coming out of the system might be clean, the city hosts more than 150 miles of decrepit pipes that can leach toxic chemicals into the water supply. Advocates want the city to replace them and conduct testing in neighborhoods instead of just near the treatment facility, changes that the city has federal money to make. In December 2022, the federal government allocated $600 million to Jackson for repairs to its water system.

    But the worry is that this money will be spent on other things. Henifin is the one who handles the federal funds. By court order, he has the authority to enter into contracts, make payments, and change the rates and fees charged to consumers. 

    Themba, the local activist, said that Henifin has not responded to residents’ demands for additional testing and access to monitoring data that already exists. Because JXN Water is a private company, it’s not subject to public disclosure laws requiring this information to be shared with the public. (Henifin did not respond to Grist’s requests for comment.) 

    Themba points to Pittsburgh as an example of a place where residents fought privatization of their water system and secured a more democratic public utility. In 2012, faced with a lack of state and federal funding, the city turned over its water system to Veolia, an international waste and water management giant based in France. Over the following years, the publicly traded company  elected for cost-cutting measures that caused lead to enter the water supply of tens of thousands of residents. A local campaign ensued, and advocates eventually won a commitment from the city government to return the water system to city controlCK? and give the  public a voice in the system’s management.

    “What we’ve learned from all over the country is that privatization doesn’t work for the community,” Themba said. “We want what works.”

    The court order that designated Henifin as Jackson’s water manager in 2022 does not outline what will happen once his four-year contract expires in 2026. Last month, the Mississippi Senate passed a bill that would put Jackson’s water in the hands of the state after Henifin steps down, a move that the manager recently said he supports and that Jackson’s city mayor strongly opposes. That bill soon failed in the House without a vote. Now that they are part of the lawsuit, advocates hope they’ll have a chance to influence the outcome, before it’s too late. 

    “Jackson residents have felt left out of the equation for so long,” Floyd said. “If we lose this, that’s a big deal.”

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A water crisis in Mississippi turns into a fight against privatization on Apr 26, 2024.


    This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lylla Younes.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Water festival attacks kill 3 during Myanmar coup leader’s holiday

    Missile attacks on two universities in a holiday town in Myanmar killed three and injured eight, residents told Radio Free Asia on Monday. 

    During coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s Thingyn – or water festival – visit to Mandalay division’s Pyinoolwin city on Sunday, an unknown group fired more than 15 missiles at two military universities. The blasts, which hit the Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy, also damaged a department of a nearby hospital and Aung Myay Zaya monastery. 

    The missiles injured five civilians when they landed on Pyinoolwin Hospital’s orthopedics department, said one Pyinoolwin resident, declining to be named for security reasons. 

    “The two monks who died were people who wore robes during the Thingyn period. They died when the explosion happened near them,” he said, describing civilians who temporarily become monks to observe Myanmar’s new year water festival. “The last man who died on the spot was in Ward No. 8. Another three people were injured in this neighborhood alone.”

    Following the attack, tourists who came for the holiday and some permanent residents fled the city, he added. 

    From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday evening, about 40 shots and explosions could be heard, said one Pyinoolwin resident who was near the site of the attack. 

    “After the sound of the missiles, Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy troops cut the power. The military and social aid vehicles were busy,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “I knew they fell in the area of the Defense Services Academy.”

    Staff at Pyinoolwin Hospital are preparing to move patients to Mandalay Hospital, while junta soldiers are conducting security checks around the city, residents said. 

    No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but residents told RFA that they were likely carried out from a hill behind the university campuses. 

    The junta has not issued any statements about the attacks. RFA called Mandalay division’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay for more information on the attacks, but he did not respond.  

    Residents told RFA they believe the attack was carried out because of Min Aung Hlaing’s visit. On Sunday, a bomb exploded near a pavilion in Mandalay city, injuring 12 people. 

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam warns that drought and saline intrusion could lead to water shortage

    Facing drought and saltwater intrusions in southern Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called on authorities to ensure people have sufficient drinking water, a government dispatch said Monday. 

    Through mid-May, the Mekong Delta region could experience three waves of saltwater intrusion – when ocean water seeps into sources of freshwater – and so far in 2024, the problem has been much worse than normal, the dispatch said.

    The government’s communique came after TV footage showed residents of an apartment complex in Thu Duc, a subcity of Ho Chi Minh City, lined up around the block on April 3, buckets in hand, to get water from a truck. 

    The facilities’ 4,000 residents had received a notice that their water would be turned off for maintenance, but experts told Radio Free Asia that water supply issues like these could be caused by a drought in the region and saltwater intrusion.

    Experts acknowledged the problem, but were not alarmed, saying that there would be very little effect on agriculture, and issues with water supply to homes would not be too serious.

    The management board for the Ehome Phu Huu Residential Complex said on April 4 that water had been restored to the apartment building. RFA Vietnamese contacted the board on April 5, and the person who answered the phone confirmed that water was running but was not able to answer questions about why the water had been shut off.

    ENG_VTN_WaterScarcity_04082024.2.JPG
    Residents of Ehomes Phu Huu apartment complex, Phu Huu ward, Thu Duc city, Ho Chi Minh City use buckets and basins to collect water from tankers due to water outages April 3, 2024. (laodong.vn)

    The Thu Duc Water Supply Company, which provides water to many areas of the city, had announced several suspensions of service on its website, saying that shutting off the water was to “maintain or construct water pipelines” or to “coordinate with the construction of other projects.”

    Calls by RFA to the company went unanswered.

    Water cuts have been a recurring problem in the city, a resident who wished to remain anonymous due to security reasons, told RFA.

    “The situation has been worsening recently. Water cuts often start at 5:30 a.m., and sometimes by 11:00 p.m. we haven’t seen the water back or have only a few drops,” he said. “Having water cuts is terrible. We don’t even have water to wash our hands, not to mention other things.”

    Saltwater intrusion

    The recurring water cuts are likely the result of saltwater intrusion, Ho Long Phi, the former Director of the Center for Water Management and Climate Change at the National University in Ho Chi Minh City, told RFA.

    “According to my assessment, saltwater is intruding further and further inland, affecting water supply plants and, therefore, shortening water supply times,” he said, adding that the effect is most pronounced in the Mekong River Delta in the country’s south, and the Dong Nai River are which flows through Ho Chi Minh City.

    He said the problem is not serious enough to bring about water shortages yet, but it does affect the capacity of water supply plants.

    ENG_VTN_WaterScarcity_04082024.3.JPG
    Residents of Ehomes Phu Huu apartment complex, Phu Huu ward, Thu Duc city, Ho Chi Minh City use buckets and basins to collect water from tankers due to water outages April 3, 2024. (laodong.vn)

    The shortage may also be because the drought has dried out some of the places where water is pumped out of the ground, Le Anh Tuan, the Deputy Director of the Climate Change Institute at Can Tho University, told RFA. Can Tho is the largest city in the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam.

    He said that because these places are drying out, supply plants in Ho Chi Minh City and other places must transport water from elsewhere, which cuts into that location’s supplies.

    Additionally coastal areas have to get water from elsewhere as theirs has become too salty, he said, adding that in some cases, the water coming from the tap is salty.

    ENG_VTN_WaterScarcity_04082024.4.JPG
    Residents of Ehomes Phu Huu apartment complex, Phu Huu ward, Thu Duc city, Ho Chi Minh City use buckets and basins to collect water from tankers due to water outages April 3, 2024. (laodong.vn)

    Tuan said that the current drought was not as serious as the one in 2016.

    He said that people in the region will have to endure shortages for the next four to six weeks until the rainy season begins.

    “Agricultural activities have almost finished, therefore, the damage to agriculture is not significant,” he said. “What concerns me the most is the damage to water supply infrastructure.”

    “Consequently, residents (in these rural areas) rely on on-site groundwater, which is neither cost-effective nor environmentally sustainable.”

    Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese Service.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam apartment residents queue for water as drought continues | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Thousands Have Lived without Love, but Not One without Water


    Diego Rivera (Mexico), El Agua, Origen de la Vida (‘Water, Origin of Life’), 1951.

    By November 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water. ‘Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water’, said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. ‘Israel’, he noted, ‘must stop using water as a weapon of war’. Before Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza, 97 percent of the water in Gaza’s only coastal aquifer was already unsafe for human consumption based on World Health Organisation standards. Over the course of its many attacks, Israel has all but destroyed Gaza’s water purification system and prevented the entry of materials and chemicals needed for repair.

    In early October 2023, Israeli officials indicated that they would use their control over Gaza’s water systems as a means to perpetrate a genocide. As Israeli Major General Ghassan Alian, the head of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said on 10 October, ‘Human beasts are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza. No electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell’. On 19 March, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine Jamie McGoldrick noted that Gaza needed ‘spare parts for water and sanitation systems’ as well as ‘chemicals to treat water’, since the ‘lack of these critical items is one of the key drivers of the malnutrition crisis’. ‘Malnutrition crisis’ is one way to talk about a famine.


    Faeq Hassan (Iraq), The Water Carriers, 1957.

    The assault on Gaza – whose entire population is ‘currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity’, according to Oxfam and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification – has sharpened the contradictions that strike the world’s people with force. A UN report released on World Water Day (22 March) shows that, as of 2022, 2.2 billion people have no access to safely managed drinking water, that four out of five people in rural areas lack basic drinking water, and that 3.5 billion people do not have sanitation systems. As a consequence, every day, over a thousand children under the age of five die from diseases linked to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene. These children are among the 1.4 million people who die every year due to these deficiencies. The UN report notes that, since women and girls are the primary collectors of water, they spend more of their time finding water when water systems deteriorate due to inadequate or non-existent infrastructure or droughts exacerbated by climate change. This has resulted in higher dropout rates for girls in school.


    Newsha Tavakolian (Iran), Untitled, 2010–2011.

    A 2023 study by UN Women describes the perils of the water crisis for women and girls:

    Inequalities in access to safe drinking water and sanitation do not affect everyone equally. The greater need for privacy during menstruation, for example, means women and girls and other people who menstruate may access shared sanitation facilities less frequently than people who do not, which increases the likelihood of urinary and reproductive tract infections. Where safe and secure facilities are not available, choices to use facilities are often limited to dawn and dusk, which exposes at-risk groups to violence.

    The lack of access to public toilets is by itself a serious danger to women in cities across the world, such as Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there is one public toilet for every 200,000 people.


    Aboudia (Côte d’Ivoire), Les trois amis II (‘The Three Friends II’), 2018.

    Access to drinking water is being further constricted by the climate catastrophe. For instance, a warming ocean means glacier melt, which lifts the sea levels and allows salt water to contaminate underground aquifers more easily. Meanwhile, with less snowfall, there is less water in reservoirs, which means less water to drink and use for agriculture. Already, as the UN Water report shows, we are seeing increased droughts that now impact at least 1.4 billion people directly.

    According to the United Nations, half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, while one quarter faces ‘extremely high’ levels of water stress. ‘Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of these phenomena, with acute risks for social stability’, the UN notes. The issue of social stability is key, since droughts have been forcing tens of millions of people into flight and starvation.


    Ibrahim Hussein (Malaysia), The Game, 1964.

    Climate change is certainly a major driver of the water crisis, but so is the rules-based international order. Capitalist governments must not be allowed to point to an ahistorical notion of climate change as an excuse to shirk their responsibility in creating the water crisis. For instance, over the past several decades, governments across the world have neglected to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities. Consequently, 42% of household wastewater is not treated properly, which damages ecosystems and aquifers. Even more damning is the fact that only 11% of domestic and industrial wastewater is being reused.

    Increased investment in wastewater treatment would reduce the amount of pollution that enters water sources and allow for better harnessing of the freshwater available to us on the planet. There are several sensible policies that could be adopted to immediately address the water crisis, such as those proposed by UN Water to protect coastal mangroves and wetlands; harvest rainwater; reuse wastewater; and protect groundwater. But these are precisely the kinds of policies that are opposed by capitalist firms, whose profit line is improved by the destruction of nature.

    In March 2018, we launched our second dossier, Cities Without Water. It is worthwhile to reflect on what we showed then, six years ago:

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Technical Paper VI (IPCC, June 2008) is on climate change and water. The scientific consensus in this document is that the changes in weather patterns – induced by carbon-intensive capitalism – have a negative effect on the water cycle. Areas where there will be higher rainfall might not see more groundwater due to the velocity of the rain, which will create a rapid movement of water to the oceans. Such high velocity rainfall neither refills aquifers (natural water sources), nor does it allow water to be stored by humans. The scientists also predict higher rates of drought in regions such as the Mediterranean and Southern Africa. It is this technical report that put forward the number that over a billion people will suffer from water scarcity.

    For the past decade, the United Nations Environmental Programme has warned about the growth of water-intensive lifestyles and of water pollution. Both of these – lifestyles and pollution – are consequences of the spread of capitalist social relations and capitalist productive mechanisms across the planet. In terms of lifestyle use, the average resident in the United States consumes between 300 and 600 litres of water per day. This is a misleading figure. It does not mean that individuals consume such high amounts of water. Much of this water is used by water-intensive agriculture and by water-intensive industrial production, including energy production. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends per person usage of 20 litres of water per day for basic hygiene and food preparation. The gap between the two is not accidental. It is about a water-intensive lifestyle – use of washing machines and dishwashers, washing of cars and watering of gardens, as well as the use of water by factories and factory farms.

    Water pollution is a serious problem. In Esquel, Argentina, the people saw that the contaminants from corporate gold mining were ruining their drinking water. ‘Water is worth more than gold’ (El agua vale más que el oro), they said. Ruthless techniques of extraction by mining corporations (by use of cyanide) and of cultivation by agribusiness (by use of fertilisers and pesticides) have ruined reservoirs of clean water. Their blue gold, say the people of Esquel, is more important than real gold. They held a public assembly in 2003 that asserted their right to their water against the interests of the private corporations.

    It is worth pointing out that the amount of water it would take to support 4.7 billion people at the WHO daily minimum would be 9.5 billion litres – the exact amount used every day to water the world’s golf courses. The water used by 60,000 villages in Thailand, for instance, is used to water one golf course in Thailand. These are the priorities of our current system.

    In other words, watering golf courses is more important than providing piped water to the thousand children under the age of five who die every day due to water deprivation. Those are the values of the capitalist system.

    The post Thousands Have Lived without Love, but Not One without Water first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Residents Finally Get to Participate in Negotiations Over Jackson’s Water Crisis

    Jackson, Mississippi, residents will now have a formal seat in negotiations that could determine the future of clean water access. The change comes from a “motion to intervene” in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) case against the city of Jackson. Filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign and the People’s Advocacy Institute…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Could A Taliban Canal Project Start Water War In Central Asia?


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere

    CO2 is bursting into the atmosphere like never before, up and away, like it has wings.

    According to climate scientists, we’re fast approaching white-knuckle time. This reinforces the outlook for 2024 as expressed by WMO: “Every major global climate record was broken last year and 2024 could be worse.” (Celeste Saulo, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization)

    Making matters more nerve-wracking yet, Carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere is setting new all-time records, soaring above expectations and well above previous readings at Mauna Lua Observatory, Hawaii:

    March 18, 2024, CO2 measured 426.02 ppm.
    March 15, 2023. CO2 measured 420.24 ppm.

    That’s +5.78 ppm in only one year. An increase of this magnitude has not been seen before. On a seasonal basis, the month of May is ordinarily the peak reading for the year. That’s still weeks away. The climate system as it relates to greenhouse gas emissions appears to have gone bonkers, out in left field.

    The historical annual rate of CO2:

    1960s +0.8 ppm
    1980s +1.6 ppm
    2000s +2.0 ppm
    2010s +2.4 ppm

    Today’s +5.78 ppm is way above the trend.

    Current daily readings:

    March 15 427.93
    March 16 426.36
    March 17 423.96
    March 18 426.02

    It should be noted that the month of February 2024 @ 424.55 ppm was +4.25 ppm versus February 2023 @ 420.30 ppm. Once again, way above past increases. According to CO2-Earth: “The measured CO2 levels in the atmosphere serve as the single best, real-time signal of whether the world as a whole is on track to a safe future.”

    Ergo, a safe future appears to be dangling.

    CO2 levels may be signaling serious trouble of unanticipated global warming bursting loose, depending upon how much more CO2 is generated by fossil fuels from industry, cars, planes, and trains as well as how the planet’s climate system continues to adjust and react to decades of harsh pounding by Homo sapiens. Nature is under attack in sensitive areas, like rainforests, permafrost (25% of the Northern Hemisphere), boreal forests, Antarctica, Greenland, the Arctic, and oceans with emissions causing too much heat to handle. And today’s CO2 says it’s getting worse.

    What will the world’s leaders do in the face of a trembling global climate system?

    Maybe hold another UN climate conference, like COP28 in Dubai last year, headlined by another fossil fuel nation/state with a Middle East oil and gas executive as president of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to figure out how to handle massive excessive fossil fuel CO2 emissions choking the planet. That would really rub it into the noses of climate scientists who’d probably refuse to attend one of the second biggest shams in human history, following in the footsteps of COP28. Frankly, that kind of kindergarten approach to handling a serious issue like climate change should motivate people across the planet to rise up in opposition to one more “big fix” designed to continue enriching a teeny-weeny miniscule segment of world population.

    Only recently in January 2024 Mauna Lau Observatory Hawaii anticipated a “relatively large” surge in annual average CO2 concentrations for 2024, estimating an increase of approximately 2.84 ppm more than 2023. But current trends put that into question as too low.

    Global warming feeds off increasing levels of greenhouse gases, like methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor but mostly carbon dioxide (CO2). Along those lines, there are 10 primary greenhouse gases, and it’s scientifically proven that CO2 accounts for about 76% of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are labeled as such because of the greenhouse effect trapping solar radiation, which functions like any typical greenhouse but without glass to trap heat. Molecules, such as CO2, simulate glass and thus retain heat.

    The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat is trapped. This equation is very straight-forward. But what if CO2 increases rapidly well beyond its historic pattern, which is already well beyond any historical trend in modern history? That’s happening and climate scientists in the know are deeply concerned.

    As a consequence, since it’s a national election year, according to an Arctic News article d/d March 16, 2024: “The accelerating growth in carbon dioxide indicates that politicians have failed and are failing to take adequate action.”

    In other words, politicians are failing to fight human-generated global warming. Many of the big promises by nations of the world at Paris ’15 to decrease emissions are nearly kaput. Politicians of the world have failed the planet and should be fired because once greenhouse gas emissions push global warming towards, and eventually to, warp speed, meaning runaway global warming, like what now appears to be in early stages, then it’s too late to remove them from office and do something constructive with replacement politicians that understand science, like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D – RI), famous for his Time to Wake Up speeches to the Senate.

    Already, before this current spike up in CO2, professional sources were anticipating trouble ahead. According to a very respected 2024 forecast, Professor Richard Betts, the Met Office in Britain:

    This year’s estimated rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is well above all three 1.5°C-compatible scenarios highlighted in the IPCC report… Even when we compensate for the temporary effects of El Niño, we find that human-induced emissions would still cause the CO2 rise in 2024 to be on the absolute limits of compliance with the 1.5°C pathways. (Eric Ralls, “Met Office: 2024 CO2 Levels Will Surpass the Point of No Return”, Earth.com, January 22, 2024.)

    Meanwhile, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service confirmed that February 2023 to January 2024 saw warming of 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 19th century benchmark. (“World Sees First 12 Months Above 1.5C Warming Level: Climate Monitor”, PHYS.ORG, February 8, 2024.)

    As it happens, the world climate system is turning into a Hollywood blockbuster horror film with CO2, the villain of the movie set, now spiking up as drought clobbers what is usually the wettest (northern) part of the Amazon and wildfires rip across Canada from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces and ravage parts of Siberia. But it’s even worse than that as Zombie Fires, meaning fires that continue burning below surface during winter months, continue smoldering in British Columbia and Alberta into winter months. (“Canada Wildfires Never Stopped, They Just Went Underground as Zombie Fires Smolder on Through the Winter“, CBS News, February 23, 2024.)

    “A lot of people talk about fire season and the end of the fire season,’ referring to the period generally thought of as being from May to September, ‘but the fires did not stop burning in 2023. The fires dug underground and have been burning pretty much all winter.” (Ibid.)

    Global warming set the stage for those wildfires and set the stage for the most vicious drought in Amazon rainforest history. NASA’s GRACE satellite system shows an Amazon in tenuous condition in an unprecedented state of breakdown. GRACE has detected large areas of the Amazon classified as “Deep Red Zones” with severely constrained water levels. That’s global warming hard at work.

    As for one example of many, back in October 2023: “The level of the Rio Negro is dropping by 1 meter (3 feet) every three days, something that has never been recorded before.” (“Amazon Drought Cuts River Traffic, Leaves Communities Without Water and Supplies“, Mongabay, October 2023.).

    It’s almost impossible to grasp the damage happening to world ecosystems because it happens on the fringe of civil society, such as Siberian and Alaskan permafrost leaking methane, Antarctica ice shelves deteriorating, Greenland rain at its summit for the first time ever as the entire ice structure goes off the charts with a summertime melt rate increasing from 30,000,000 tons per day to 720,000,000 tons per day in the time span of only one year. Honestly, this is beyond words!

    However, people are now starting to see the damage first-hand, like major European rivers (Rhine, Danube, etc.) partially drying up with commercial barges stuck in mud in the summer of ’22 as hundreds of French/Italian communities survived the summer of ‘22 on emergency truck-delivered water, speaking of which Johannesburg (pop. 5.6M) made CBS News headlines March 21, 2024: South Africa Water Crisis Sees Taps Run Dry across Johannesburg. And France imported electrical power for the first time in 40 years as low river flow inhibited nuclear power generation, normally 70% of France’s electrical energy. That hits home.

    A few years ago, not that far back in time, people would have freaked out over the threats currently wrought by global warming, but as time passes, people get accustomed to hearing about disaster scenarios like a Hollywood film but on TV in the comfort of their homes, and they shrug and move on with life as long as it’s not in their neighborhood.

    Elsewhere, beyond the weird noises of nature heard in the Amazon rainforest, in everyday life people wake up every morning in cities like LA and NYC and Atlanta and Dallas, London, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro (record heat 62.3°C or 144.14°F on March 18), and they go about daily routines, the same ole, same ole, hop into a new EV, motor the freeway to an underground parking garage, up an elevator 20 floors to air-conditioned offices for 8 hours and then reverse the process. These people do not live where climate change damages ecosystems.

    Urban ecosystems mainly consist of concrete, asphalt, glass, steel, some wood, chemical-laden textiles, and a sprinkling of flora. What’s to harm? Urban residents are missing, and ignorant of, the deterioration of the planet’s most important ecosystems that sustain life, period! This is called “recognition deficit” and down the road the consequences will be deadly.

    The recognition deficit of the dangers of global warming glosses over reality. Life seems the same in NYC today as yesterday but ecosystems that are distant, out of sight, are on the ropes and some near collapse. A very harsh impact is lurking in the background. One day it’ll be profound and too late recognized.

    What to do? This is the year of political electioneering. Don’t endorse political candidates that don’t understand and support climate science. This is something that everybody can do with impact, and it could be powerful.

    Get off the couch and go door-to-door, or email, or pick up the phone to call friends to support candidates who believe in climate science. You can help prevent Hot House Earth, hopefully.

    The post CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.