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…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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.
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…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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 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.
Incarcerated people often must drink unhealthy water, a particularly cruel – but not unusual – form of punishment
Russell Rowe spent almost two and a half years in Washington DC’s central detention facility, where rusty water flowed from taps in sinks that were connected to toilets. He remembers dawdling at the nurse’s station when it was time to take his meds, in hopes she’d give him an extra, tiny “portion” cup of water, the cup that often holds or accompanies pills.
“I was just in a state of constant dehydration,” he said. “My whole body felt different. I just didn’t feel well.”
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
The starvation regime continues unabated as Israel continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip. One of the six provisional measures ordered by the International Court Justice entailed taking “immediate and effective measures” to protect the Palestinian populace in the Gaza Strip from risk of genocide by ensuring the supply of humanitarian assistance and basic services.
In its case against Israel, South Africa argued, citing various grounds, that Israel’s purposeful denial of humanitarian aid to Palestinians could fall within the UN Genocide Convention as “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
A month has elapsed since the ICJ order, after which Israel was meant to report back on compliance. But, as Amnesty International reports, Israel continues “to disregard its obligation as the occupying power to ensure the basic needs of Palestinians in Gaza are met.”
The organisation’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, gives a lashing summary of that conduct. “Not only has Israel created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, but it is also displaying callous indifference to the fate of Gaza’s population by creating conditions which the ICJ has said placed them at imminent risk of genocide.” Israel, Morayef continues to state, had “woefully failed to provide for Gazans’ basic needs” and had “been blocking and impeding the passage of sufficient aid into the Gaza strip, in particular to the north which is virtually inaccessible, in a clear show of contempt for the ICJ ruling and in flagrant violation of its obligation to prevent genocide.”
The humanitarian accounting on this score is grim. Since the ICJ order, the number of aid trucks entering Gaza has precipitously declined. Within three weeks, it had fallen by a third: an average of 146 a day were coming in three weeks prior; afterwards, the numbers had fallen to about 105. Prior to the October 7 assault by Hamas, approximately 500 trucks were entering the strip on a daily basis.
The criminally paltry aid to the besieged Palestinians is even too much for some Israeli protest groups which have formed with one single issue in mind: preventing any aid from being sent into Gaza. As a result, closures have taken place at Kerem Shalom due to protests and clashes with security forces.
Their support base may seem to be small and peppered by affiliates from the Israeli Religious Zionism party of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, but an Israeli Democracy Institute poll conducted in February found that 68% of Jewish respondents opposed the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza. Rachel Touitou of Tzav 9, a group formed in December with that express purpose in mind, stated her reasoning as such: “You cannot expect the country to fight its enemy and feed it at the same time.”
Hardly subtle, but usefully illustrative of the attitude best reflected by the blood curdling words of Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, who declared during the campaign that his country’s armed forces were “fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly” in depriving them of electricity, food and fuel.
In December 2023, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding, among other things, that the warring parties “allow and facilitate the use of all available routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings”. Direct routes were also to be prioritised. To date, Israel has refused to permit aid through other crossings.
In February, the Global Nutrition Cluster reported that “the nutrition situation of women and children in Gaza is worsening everywhere, but especially in Northern Gaza where 1 in 6 children are acutely malnourished and an estimated 3% face the most severe form of wasting and require immediate treatment.”
The organisation’s report makes ugly reading. Over 90% of children between 6 to 23 months along with pregnant and breastfeeding women face “severe food poverty”, with the food supplied being “of the lowest nutritional value and from two or fewer food groups.” At least 90% of children under the age of 5 are burdened with one or more infectious diseases, while 70% have suffered from diarrhoea over the previous two weeks. Safe and clean water, already a problem during the 16-year blockade, is now in even shorter supply, with 81% of households having access to less than one litre per person per day.
Reduced to such conditions of monumental and raw desperation, hellish scenes of Palestinians swarming around aid convoys were bound to manifest. On February 29, Gaza City witnessed one such instance, along with a lethal response from Israeli troops. In the ensuing violence, some 112 people were killed, adding to a Palestinian death toll that has already passed 30,000. While admitting to opening fire on the crowd, the IDF did not miss a chance to paint their victims as disorderly savages, with “dozens” being “killed and injured from pushing, trampling and being run over by the trucks.” The acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Salha, in noting the admission of some 161 wounded patients, suggested that gun fire had played its relevant role, given that most of those admitted suffered from gunshot wounds.
If Israel’s intention had been to demonstrate some good will in averting any insinuation that genocide was taking place, let alone a systematic policy of collective punishment against the Palestinian population, little evidence of it has been shown. If anything, the suspicions voiced by South Africa and other critics aghast at the sheer ferocity of the campaign are starting to seem utter plausible in their horror.
The post Conscious and Unconscionable: The Starving of Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
We live in a world of dangerous, deadly extremes. Record-breaking heat waves, intense drought, stronger hurricanes, unprecedented flash flooding. No corner of the planet will be spared the wrath of human-caused climate change and the earth’s fresh water is already feeling the heat of this new reality. More than half of the world’s lakes and two-thirds of its rivers are drying up…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Residents of a resettlement village in northern Luang Namtha province say they haven’t had access to a critical water source over the last seven months after mud and debris clogged up several wells built by the developer of a nearby dam.
Tavanh village and its water system were built on high ground in 2016 to house villagers displaced by the China-backed Namtha 1 Dam – one of dozens of hydropower dams built in Laos in recent years.
“The system built by the dam developer is completely useless,” said a villager, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons.
Some residents of Tavanh have built their own system by installing pipes to pump water from a nearby creek and lake, but that costs at least 1 million kip ($50) and the creek runs dry for much of April and May, the villager said.
Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the country’s economy, the dam projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable financial and power-demand arrangements.
The developer of Namtha 1 Dam hired two subcontractors in 2015 to build 11 resettlement villages that included homes, health centers, offices, roads and schools.
More than 14,000 people moved to new villages because of the project. There are several hundred residents of Tavanh, which is about 10 km (6 miles) away from the Nam Tha River in the province’s Nalae district.
No action from authorities
During last year’s rainy season, the village’s wells flooded and then filled up with debris, dirt and mud, according to a second villager.
“The whole water system has broken down,” the second villager said. “It only worked for about a year. After that, it wasn’t so efficient and didn’t supply enough water.”
District authorities have promised to fix the system, but no action has been taken in the last seven months, several villagers said.
A district official told Radio Free Asia that he wasn’t aware of the problem.
“We didn’t know that the water system was damaged,” he said. “The village authorities have never informed us, never reported any problem to us. Our district authorities are going to check it out with the dam developer and villagers.”
The Namtha 1 Dam is a joint venture between China Southern Power Grid International Co. Ltd., which owns 80 percent of the project, and Electricite du Lao, with a 20 percent share.
It began operating in 2019. The dam sells most of its generated power to two special economic zones – the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province and the Boten SEZ in Luang Namtha, bordering China.
After 28 years of operation, ownership of the dam will transfer to the Lao government.
Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Palestinians in Gaza are resorting to drinking from polluted agricultural wells that are almost as salty as seawater, posing an immediate health risk. Special thanks to 10Tooba for their work and partnership on this visual.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Bill Eisenman has always fished. “Growing up, we ate whatever we caught — catfish, carp, freshwater drum,” he said. “That was the only real source of fish in our diet as a family, and we ate a lot of it.” Today, a branch of the Rouge River runs through Eisenman’s property in a suburb north of Detroit. But in recent years, he has been wary about a group of chemicals known as PFAS…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Before the genocide, Palestinians in Gaza struggled to access clean water, with 97% of Gaza’s freshwater resources contaminated due to the Israeli blockade and repeated bombardments. Many families in poverty were forced to spend a third or more of their income to purchase water from unregulated sources, with the hopes that it is safe. Now, this already dire situation is exponentially worse.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Legal experts said Vietnamese authorities are coming up with bogus charges against a famous lingerie model who was arrested after posting videos of herself performing risky motorcycle stunts.
Ho Chi Minh City police arrested Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh – also known as the “Underwear Queen” – on Oct. 19 after she posted video clips of herself lying down on a motorcycle, kneeling on the seat, driving hands-free and placing both legs on one side of the vehicle, Vietnamese media reported.
The posts went viral, and police charged Trinh with “disturbing public order.”
But according to Vietnam’s Penal Code, that charge must apply to behavior in a public, physical space, not on the internet, said lawyer Nguyen Van Mieg.
“It [must] affect other people such as causing traffic jams or affect the activities of agencies and the state,” he said.
“Just posting a video online and being convicted of ‘disturbing public order’ is an ambiguous and unimaginable act of the Vietnamese government,” he said. “Legally, it contradicts the content of the law itself, not to mention the details.”
Police also began legal proceedings against Tran Xuan Dong, 36, who taught Trinh to drive a motorbike, for using counterfeit documents and causing social disorder, Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre News reported on Oct. 20. They have prohibited him from leaving his home.
As a one-party communist state, Vietnam tightly restricts freedom of expression, religious freedom, and civil society activism, and requires international social media platforms to comply with Vietnamese online content regulations, including the prohibitions on illegal content under the Cybersecurity Law.
Another lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, told RFA, agreed that the charges were bogus – and that it reflected authorities’ desire to control information.
“The location considered to be where Ms. Ngoc Trinh committed the crime, was not on the street, where she drove a large motorbike and committed many dangerous acts, but in cyberspace,” he said.
Security agencies “will stretch their punitive hands farther and deeper to suppress all voices, especially voices that are attracting the attention of the masses,” Manh said.
If Trinh’s case is successfully prosecuted, “it will lead to the consequence that anyone who posts a clip online that does not target anyone, nor does it offend anyone, can still be labeled a ‘public order disrupter,’” he said.
“Now, they have begun to turn to the crime of ‘disturbing public order’ in cyberspace,” he said.
“It shows a shift by the police with the aim of stifling people’s voices on social networking sites.”
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Diem Thi for RFA Vietnamese.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
PRICHARD, Alabama —— On a hot afternoon in September, Angela Robinson Adams walked to her backyard, where the recent rain showers created “her own swimming pool.” Adams’ yard rarely floods, but the streets in her Alabama Village neighborhood often do. She had little water pressure in her home, so she called the Prichard Water Works and Sewer Board, the local utility that distributes water to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As Arizona struggles to adapt to a water shortage that has dried out farms and scuttled development plans, one company has emerged as a central villain. The agricultural company Fondomonte, which is owned by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, has attracted tremendous criticism over the past several years for sucking up the state’s groundwater to grow alfalfa and then exporting that alfalfa to feed cows…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This content originally appeared on The Laura Flanders Show and was authored by The Laura Flanders Show.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Capitalism gathered resources — land, labor, and capital to start an industrial revolution that brought prosperity and elevated standards of living to much of the earth’s inhabitants. Once in motion, it generated additional capital that gathered more labor and more resources in a perpetual cycle of increased production that constantly benefitted populations. The achievements did not occur smoothly, sputtering from periodic recessions that eventually solicited government policies to recharge the system.
Soviet-style socialism did not patiently wait for capitalism to provide capital formation, industrial development, allocation of resources, and prosperity for its population. The Soviets struggled to house, clothe, and feed, in a short time, a deprived population that had barely survived World War II, which led to mismanagement, demotivation, shoddy construction, and misallocation of resources. By not following Karl Marx’s observations, which praised capitalist development and urged its necessity before socialist constructions, the Soviet system doomed itself to failure.
Capitalism has neared a peak, mostly using capital to generate more capital, unable to comprehend the challenges faced by its actions, going as far as it can go without intensifying the major problems it has created. Slowly and inexorably, the socio-economic system refutes a counter-productive capitalism, that is taking more than it is giving, that is destroying more than it is creating, and that has become more irresponsible than responsible. In the coming decades, cooperation will be preferred to competition, sharing preferred to taking, responsibility to all preferred to irresponsibility to one, socialization preferred to capitalization.
The anticipated changes do not arrive from ideological, economic, social, or political considerations; they arrive from the realization that the earth is on fire and only a strong-willed and collective community can dampen the conflagration. They come from realizing that private and civic initiatives cannot and will not resolve the forecasted problems, each will protect what they have and deny the challenges — greenhouse gas emissions that heat the atmosphere and petition a handover from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources; climate change that modifies coastlines and arable lands; robotics and artificial intelligence that change the factory floor, its administration, and the composition of the workforce; possibility of nuclear war in an atmosphere of intense international hostility and growing arms races; pandemics from new disease microbes that replicate quickly, defy conventional medicine, and spread beyond borders; security enhancements due to internal conflicts and external hostilities; political, economic and social polarizations that have stimulated populist movements; and population migrations that cause cultural conflicts and reassignment of resources.
These challenges have subsidiary challenges that each creates – reallocation of food sources and possible shortages in food supply; economic upheavals due to bankruptcies of resource and transportation industries and nations dependent upon fossil fuels; re-orientation of the workforce to prevent severe unemployment; forced arms controls to prevent global wars; sharing of resources to lessen predicted large scale migrations; international supervision and collective research to prevent the spread of disease; and more equal distribution of income to assure all have basics for survival in a quickly changing economic landscape.
Despite public awareness and concern for all the challenges, inertia is apparent. By default, escaping human extinction will require government intervention in all aspects of the socio-economic system.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The alarm has sounded. “Higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide (CO2) in particular, are causing extra heat to be trapped and average global temperatures to rise. For most of the past 800,000 years the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere was roughly between 200 and 280 parts per million.” In 2022, the global CO2 concentration was recorded at 417.2 ppm.
Containing carbon emissions demands regulation of all energy sources and severe changes in the air, sea, and ground transportations that use the energy sources. The latter change can be partially fulfilled by a shift to electric vehicles, which, due to elevated costs, will require government subsidies. Substitutes for the engines that drive air and sea transportation are not easily available and these transportation systems may face restrictions. Severe reductions in international transport and other industries that use fossil fuels for locomotion may occur.
Failure to limit carbon emissions leads to climate change.
Climate Change
NASA confirms climate change. “While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.” Predictions of heavier rainfall in some areas, droughts in other areas, loss of sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, sea level rise, and more intense heat waves are already happening.
Linked to addressing the effects of climate warming is the addressing of severe economic problems due to population, agriculture, and labor shifts, and a possible economic decline. The latter might result from lower and changing demand for products in companies engaged in fossil fuel extraction, petroleum refining, fossil energy transport, pipelines, and associated equipment manufacture. Fisheries, tourism, airlines, shipping, animal husbandry, recreation, investment, and plastics industries will also be affected. In directing investments so they factor climate change into their capital distribution, investment powerhouse, Black Rock, has already considered a makeover of the economic system.
Earth and its inhabitants have proved adaptable, surviving catastrophes and climate changes in previous epochs. The predicted rapidity of this climate change and the scientific analysis that attributes it to carbon emissions make it unlikely that, without more centralized planning and regimentation, the earth will be sufficiently prepared to ameliorate the climate shifts.
Food Supply
A UN Report states that “In the next 30 years, food supply and food security will be severely threatened if little or no action is taken to address climate change and the food system’s vulnerability to climate change.” Shifts in arable lands, increases in desert lands, a dwindling fish supply, and possible limits to meat production, due to less grasslands and restrictions on methane gas release from herds, will re-orient the food supply. Warmer water temperatures will cause changes in habitat ranges of many fish and shellfish species. Unless food production and distribution are carefully monitored and controlled, famines will occur. Sustainable farming will become a rule.
Water Resource
The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018 concludes,
The global demand for water has been increasing at a rate of about 1% per year over the past decades as a function of population growth, economic development and changing consumption patterns, among other factors, and it will continue to grow significantly over the foreseeable future….At the same time, the global water cycle is intensifying due to climate change, with wetter regions generally becoming wetter and drier regions becoming even drier. Other global changes (e.g., urbanization, de-forestation, intensification of agriculture) add to these challenges. At present, an estimated 3.6 billion people (nearly half the global population) live in areas that are potentially water-scarce at least one month per year, and this population could increase to some 4.8–5.7 billion by 2050.
Will private industry be able to regulate and equitably distribute available water resources? Only governments, acting in concert with one another and with international agencies will determine who gets what, when, and where.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) plus Robotics
Robotics clears the factory floor of workers and AI, by replacing much administration, clears the offices of managers who solve problems, clarify work schedules, and prepare and manage budgets.
New software and manufacturing industries will emerge, but will the tools of the new industrial age be used to satisfy the wants and needs of the populace or mainly the profits of entrepreneurs? Will the self-operating machines be able to generate income for all those who have left the factories; will there be sufficient income in the system to purchase all goods in the expanded market? Will supply exceed demand and profits become a mirage? Will AI and extensive Robotics be suitable companions to the workers of a new and less profit-oriented system, where wages can be coupons for a more equitably distributed national income? Arrangement between humans and the new machines reorders democracy and the social order; reorders society into Democratic Socialism.
Population Migrations
Already a major problem that has reached crisis proportions, a 2018 World Bank Group report has climate change enhancing the problem. The report “estimates that the impacts of climate change in three of the world’s most densely populated developing regions—sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America—could result in the displacement and internal migration of more than 140 million people before 2050.” A mass movement of that scale will need cooperative government actions and international agreements to prevent political and economic strife and enable continued development in the affected regions.
Nuclear war
Nations that rely on fossil fuel exports to maintain their economic system — Middle East, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and others — and nations destabilized by the effects of climate change — water scarcity, agriculture losses, food depletion — that cannot effectively compete and re-orient themselves in the changing world may become aggressive and seek opportunities by engaging in warfare, which could lead to use of weapons of mass destruction. A byproduct of the switch to renewable fuels and climate change — nations unable to compete or adapt in the new economic environment — behooves a means to accommodate those who might resort to military operations to survive. Arms controls and peaceful cooperation will replace arms races and aggressive behaviors.
Disease and Pestilence
The spread of the COVID-19 virus serves as a warning for future pandemics. Local actions can contain the pandemic but cannot prevent its spread. Centralized programs that mobilize agencies, institutions, and the public are necessary to coordinate activities and defeat the pandemic. National health plans, which enable every citizen to have adequate medical coverage, will ensure that everyone will be able to seek medical assistance quickly and halt the spread of diseases. Trends to increased isolation, remaining home, and ordering goods and foods online have changed lifestyles and affected commercial activities of retail stores, restaurants, entertainment, sports arenas, local transportation, and suburban malls. With more work from home, rather than from offices, rapid changes in urban environment, industry composition, and employment have appeared and necessitated government assistance to prevent business collapses and severe unemployment.
The COVID-19 virus pandemic is only the first of other forecasted toxic leaps from animals to humans. The planet has responded well to lifestyle changes and the socio-economic effects induced by the pandemic. The next wave or waves may be more toxic and create more demands on the governing institutions to supply relief to trapped populations.
Security Enhancements
Upheavals, scarcities, and economic shifts create masses of marginal and alienated peoples. Those who are not empathetic to the plights of others become their enemies. Terrorism and mass shootings from those who are mentally ill, feel estranged from society, and have been coopted by extremists will grow. Tighter law enforcement, increased surveillance, and privacy invasions will follow. Protection of others will replace self-protection. The placating phrase, “Big brother is watching for you,” will replace the chilling phrase, “Big brother is watching every part of you.” This will be a positive rearrangement of the surveillance that Google and a myriad of Internet-based companies, who acquire vast information about the birth, life, and habits of American citizens, perform daily. Store cameras, street cameras, doorbell cameras, garage cameras, office-building cameras, and public place cameras will be replaced by one big camera, an eye for moral and social obedience.
Political and Social Polarization
Modern democracies have given people freedom and hope, more of the air to breathe. In the process, groups have taken advantage of the freedoms and increased their concentration of wealth and power, which has led to oligarchies. Those who feel dominated, unable to express their longings, and feel they have been unfairly sidetracked from prosperity have sought refuge by gathering together in nationalist organizations and populist politics. The coming socialization poses a solution by implementing workplace democracy in which workers have a stake in corporate management and are able to receive a more equitable share of income and wealth. Grassroots politics will take hold; governance from ground up, rather than from top down, will prevail.
Conclusions
Natural disaster problems have always sought government intervention. A study found that climate-related disasters in ancient Mesopotamia “forced greater cooperation and a more widespread distribution of power across social sectors.” The convergence of several perils at one time strikes a new chord in domestic and international relations — cooperation before competition, survival of all before the survival of the fittest, limited material wealth before unlimited natural catastrophes.
From a constant badgering of the soul that associates socialism with central authority and mind control, a resistance to socialized governance has arisen. The words are internalized and their utterance brings a visceral response of scorn and doubt. Central authority? Isn’t the United States dollar the central and primary reserve authority for the global economy, which facilitates the United States borrowing money and arbitrarily imposing painful financial sanctions on Russia, Iran, and any adversary of the U.S. Don’t the U.S. and Western nations control SWIFT, the centralized Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, “a secure financial messaging service used to execute international transactions among banks,” and gives the U.S. economic and political clout? Mind control? Isn’t that what nationalist governments, such as the United States, do in their education system and the media giants do as purveyors of misinformation? Those caught in the grip of misinformation can choose between a path that may offend them but allows them to survive or a path that leads them to water up to their chins, figuratively and literally.
The MAGA contingent, that exclaims “Better Dead than Red” needs to transpose to “Better Pink than Sink,” the new slogan for the Democratic and Socialist communities, pushed to leadership in order to prevent Capitalism’s latest offering — human extinction.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
One of the most notable changes in modern times is the rapid urbanization of our planet, which began in the 19th century. While in 1950, 29 percent of the global population lived in cities, that figure is estimated now at around 50 percent, and by 2030 it will reach 61 percent. It is estimated that, More
The post Africa’s Water and Sanitation Crisis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Cesar Chelala.
Jungfraujoch’s foreboding temperatures this September at the top of the world in Switzerland at 2.25 miles altitude alarmed glaciologists.
If anybody has lingering doubts about global warming’s strength of power to directly impact Earth’s ecosystems, think again. Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, experienced record high temperatures during its winter, as record high temperatures were also recorded at the top of the world in the Swiss Alps, where it’s always icy cold. As it happened, both the top and the bottom of the world hit record high temperatures, simultaneously, give or take a few days. There’s no known record of this ever happening before.
It’s proof positive that global warming is powerfully impacting the entire planet, simultaneously, and it’s happening horrifyingly fast! Too fast to justify petty, phony claims amongst some Americans, with a voice, that global warming’s nothing more than “natural events, the climate always changes, not to worry, blah, blah, blah!” Oh, please, grow up!
But maybe people should be in the streets demonstrating to pull out all the stops to prevent the inevitable, which is self-advertised in full living descriptive color as both ends of the planet go off course in ballistic fashion within several days of each other. The upshot is global warming (heat) has become Top Dog of the Earth System, pushing aside Goldilocks’ not-too-hot-not-too-cold tenure over the past several thousand years of the Holocene Era. The problem: Goldilocks was a sweetheart. But global warming is a mean-spirited bully, without heart.
Jungfraujoch is the tallest SwissMetNet station in Switzerland at 11,715 feet. Temperatures above 0° Celsius (32°F) for eight straight days in the month of September shocked glaciologists. That had never happened before in its 90-year history of official recordings.
The Jungfraujoch environment, according to its web page: “Icy air sweeps your face, snow crunches underfoot, and the panorama almost takes your breath away: on one side the view of the Swiss Mittelland towards the Vosges, on the other the Aletsch Glacier, lined with four thousand metre peaks. Standing on the Jungfraujoch 3,454 metres above sea level, you can feel it with your first step: this is a different world.”
Glaciologists say this new zero-degree record at extreme altitude is an ominous sign. Of serious concern, Switzerland has ~1,500 ice giants that don’t fancy a lot of heat. Those ice giants have faithfully served as the world’s most trustworthy water towers ever since humans first huddled in caves during the Stone Age a couple million years ago. Now, those wondrous glaciers are at risk of meltdown within only one century after a couple million years of steady work.
Not only did Jungfraujoch register 8-straight days over zero, but at the higher altitude of 5,298 metres Swiss MeteoSwiss reported record temperatures over the zero-degree limit.
“The zero-degree limit is a key meteorological indicator particularly in mountainous regions, as it ‘affects vegetation, the snow line and the water cycle and so has considerable impact on the habitats of humans, animals, and plants alike.” (Source: “Climate Records tumble as Switzerland Swelters in Heatwave”, Swissinfo.ch, August 22, 2023)
Swiss glaciers have lost one-third of ice volume in only 20 years. The next twenty could be crucial. According to Daniel Farinotti, glaciologist at ETH Zurich: “With a zero-degree isotherm far above 5,000 metres, all glaciers in the Alps are exposed to melt — up to their highest altitudes. Such events are rare and detrimental to the glacier’s health… if such conditions persist in the longer-term, glaciers are set to be lost irreversibly.” (Ibid.)
“Since the pre-industrial era, the temperature in Switzerland has increased by almost 2° Celsius, well above the global average. At this rate, half of the 1,500 Alpine glaciers – including the majestic Aletsch glacier, a UNESCO heritage site — will disappear in the next 30 years. And if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all glaciers in Switzerland and Europe risk melting almost completely by the end of the century.” (Source: “Why Melting Glaciers Affect Us All”, Swissinfo.ch, October 11, 2022)
All of which is a good primer on what to expect if the world average hits 1.5°C and then 2°C, both of which look doable based upon the rapidity of greenhouse gas emissions, for example, CO2 and methane both setting new world records in July 2023.
And it’s also instructive to note, the world is not uniform; e.g., according to Copernicus Climate Change Service: “Extreme Heat, Widespread Drought Typify European Climate in 2022”, April 20, 2023: “The C35 data show that the average temperature for Europe for the latest 5-year period was around 2.2°C above the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). In 2022 all hell broke out through0ut the EU with water deliveries by truck to 100 thirsty communities in France/Italy and major riverway barges sputtering in mud. It was an “end of the world” type of experience that they muddled through. Of special concern, 75% of Spain’s land risks desertification because of global warming’s severe drought.
Glaciers worldwide are being hit, getting thinner and thinner in the Himalayas and the Andes where hundreds of millions of people depend upon glaciers for hydro power, irrigation, and drinking water. The situation in Europe is horribly problematic as the water flow of major commercial rivers like the Rhône, Rhine, Danube, and Po decrease, especially in summer months because of severe drought that hammered the EU. This has already, at times, seriously impaired commercial barge traffic in Europe, and lo and behold, nuclear power plants are targets of global warming. France’s 56 nuclear reactors were impacted within the past two years. Marine life as well as nuclear reactors depend upon a constant flow of cold water for existence. However, when global warming makes life in an ecosystem nearly impossible, marine life moves, reactors cannot.
A new report on Himalayan glacier loss shows a melt rate 65% faster from 2010 t0 2020 than in the prior decade, 2000-10. That’s big-time acceleration for enormous chunks of ice. That finding adds to “a growing body of evidence that the consequences of climate change are speeding up, and that some changes will be irreversible.” (Source: “Snow and Ice in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Are Fast Disappearing, with Grave Implications for People and Nature”, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, icimod.org, 2023)
The Hindu Kush Himalaya provides freshwater for 2 billion people. At current melt rates, almost all of the glacial volume will be gone this century.
Peak Water
Researchers say the mountain glacier systems will reach a point by 2050 when the glaciers have shrunk so much that the meltwater starts dwindling. It’s called a turning point “peak water.”
Meanwhile, melting glaciers spur natural disasters of epic proportions, cascading disasters of flooding and huge landslides like sudden shocks to the system, like earthquake events. Furthermore, there is already evidence of loss of biodiversity habitat, especially butterflies have gone extinct in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Frogs and other amphibians are on the short list to go next. Scientists expect a quarter of plants and animals to be “wiped out” over the coming decades with the Indian segment of the Himalayan mountains hit extremely hard. (Source: Sunita Chaudhary, ecosystems researcher, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development).
As previously mentioned, Antarctica has joined the “it’s never happened before” party. The ice continent, as large as the U.S. and Mexico combined, is the coldest continent on Earth with a mean annual interior temperature of -71F. However, in the dead of winter, the Antarctic Peninsula, an 800-mile extension of the Antarctic continent, temperatures hit 32°F (Source: “It’s Even Hot in Antarctica, Where it’s Winter”, Vox, July 13, 2023). Which happened shortly before zero C at Jungfraujoch, as the top of the world and the bottom of the world coincided in extreme once-in-a-lifetime events, which researchers believe may become a trend, thereby losing the once-in-a-lifetime status, with the ramifications best not discussed herein. They’re too extensive and exhausting!
By now, it has become obvious that Earth’s climate system is askew, out of balance, and rapidly changing the face of the planet. Some knowledgeable people believe the best course of action is to learn to adapt to this rapidly changing environment because it does not appear that fossil fuel emissions are going anywhere but up, up, up, like they have for decades, higher every year, but for various legit reasons, do not count on CO2 capture/sequestration (CCS) or direct air capture (DAC) to bail us out of a worldwide heat jam, in part, because the scale is way beyond humongous, meaning the problem is as big as the planet is large, and that’s really, really big. Meanwhile, emissions continue to feed into more destructive global warming events, testing the mettle of humans, as fossil fuel emissions (the heart and soul of global warming) increasingly choke a planet that’s already sputtering.
COP28
All of which is supposed to be discussed amongst the nations of the world at the upcoming COP28 (UN Climate Change Conference) to be held in Dubai, November 30 – December 12, 2023, but there are serious reservations about the venue and the host and the participants as expressed in a letter sent by Freedom Forward and signed by 200 organizations: “200+ Organizations Call on Governments to Address UAE Human Rights Abuses Ahead of COP28 Climate Negotiations” with the subtitle: Letter to COP28 participating Governments Regarding United Arab Emirates (UAE) Human Rights Violations and Climate Concerns, September 13, 2023.
The opening paragraph: “We write as a global network of organizations with grave human rights concerns regarding the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) host of the 2023 Cop28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process.”
Meanwhile, the history of UN meetings to fix the planet is not encouraging: For example, in 2015, 193 countries agreed to UN Sustainable Development Goals, aka: Global Goals. As of August 2023, after 8 years of dalliance, not one of the goals looks set to be achieved. (Nature, 9/12/2023).
As a result of the failure of sustainable development goals and for that matter, any and all such goals, a new research report indicates that Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity.” To come back to a safe space, two key actions are required: (1) stop fossil fuel burning (2) end destructive farming. (Source: “Earth Beyond Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries”, Science Advances, September 13, 2023)
Alas, like the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Paris ’15 climate goals to achieve net zero have mostly bombed.
COP28/Dubai is weeks away. They expect a record turnout of up to 80,000 participants, claiming: “COP28 is poised to shape the course of international climate action.” Hmm.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
With the death toll from the Maui wildfires at 111 and as many as 1,000 still missing, we speak with Hawaiian law professor Kapuaʻala Sproat about the conditions that made the fires more destructive and what’s yet to come for residents looking to rebuild their lives. Decades of neocolonialism in Hawaii have redirected precious water resources toward golf courses, resorts and other corporate…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.