Category Archives: Food & Water Issues

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13 March 2018, E&E News, Models assume we’ll cover Earth in trees. That’s a problem. The farmland of central Illinois might rarely be at the forefront of controversial climate action — but its moment arrived last spring when a Decatur-based ethanol plant … Continue reading →

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2 November 2017, The Conversation, Extreme weather leads to public health crises – so health and climate experts must work together. This year has seen a number of extreme weather events around the globe, from hurricanes in the Americas to devastating flooding in South Asia. The loss of lives, homes and livelihoods are made worse by subsequent disease outbreaks: after the South Asian floods, more than 12,000 cases of watery diarrhoea were reported in Bangladesh. Presumably, many more cases are unreported. As our climate changes, severe weather events (especially intense rainfall) will become the “new normal”. The connection between climate and disease is well established, even in less extreme situations.This makes it vital that our meteorologists, climate scientists and health systems work closely together. Particularly, health professionals should make better use of weather forecasts to proactively manage disease risk. Climate outlooks – with a longer-term perspective than weather forecasts – can also help with long-range tactical and strategic planning. The link between climate change and disease. Climate change projections consistently indicate increased climate variability. A more variable climate creates conditions for the spread and control of infectious disease. In particular, changes in the intensity and duration of rain can help spread pathogens through water. Both floods and droughts can increase waterborne infections, either when clean and dirty water mix during floods, or through inadequate storage and concentration of toxic organisms when water is scarce. Read More here

 

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28 August 2017, NewSecurityBeat, Flooding in Bangladesh: Calling Out Climate Change From the High Ground. Floods have taken the lives of more than 100 people in northern Bangladesh over the last two weeks. Fully one third of the country has been flooded and some 600,000 people have been displaced in the riverine nation as a result of monsoons in India and Nepal. At international climate forums, Bangladeshi diplomats consistently decry such disasters as part of their urgent calls for action to mitigate changing weather patterns worldwide. But here in the country’s Rangpur-Kurigam region, both authorities and citizens have been reluctant to attribute these deadly disasters to the effects of climate change. Views From the Flood Zone As part of a team of social scientists from American University (Washington, DC,) and North South University (Dhaka, Bangladesh), we have been traveling the country to find out why.  Authorities, already taxed by emergency relief expenditures to help citizens recover from July’s floods, do not seem eager to acknowledge yet another crisis (especially when Bangladesh’s government and its Supreme Court are embroiled in a battle for authority).  The government may also be trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that much of the flooding has come from the opening of a dam upstream on the Teesta River in India, as the two nations currently enjoy strong bilateral relations. In addition, government officials may be hesitant to label the current crisis with an abstract, diffuse concept that is more of a long-term issue, said North South University researcher Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman. Government officials are extremely willing to “call out” natural disasters like cyclones, monsoons, floods and drought, he said; governments can provide short-term relief for concrete, short-term problems like disasters, and, if they are organized, they can improve their stock among voters.  But climate change is an amorphous, distant, and foreboding challenge. Read More here

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21 July 2017, Climate Home, Indian farmers mourn dead after debt crisis turns violent. Six protesters were killed in the Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh in June. Meet the bereaved families driven to despair by erratic weather and a tough market. Abhishek Patidar was 17 years old when he died. A farmer’s son, he had planned on becoming a doctor. “Abhishek studied in the 11th grade,” said his mother Alka Patidar, proudly. Her eldest son had only finished 8th grade before he started working the family farm. Abhishek, the youngest of four children, looks like his mother. His eyes follow the same curvature; his skin is the same shade of tan. Abhishek was killed at a protest on 6 June, 2017, when Indian police opened fire on the crowd. India’s farmers are in crisis. Their frustrations, simmering quietly after the harvest, became palpable in a 10-day long protest in June. Thousands of farmers in the Mandsaur district of central India’s Madhya Pradesh had turned up in the towns of Piplia Mandi and Bahi Phanta to demand fair prices for a season’s worth of work. Abhishek went along with several other young men from his village. The protests started out peacefully, but turned ugly a few days in, when a scuffle broke out between better-off business owners in the area and debt-ridden farmers. On the sixth day, the violence climaxed when police, trying to control the crowd, fired their weapons. Five protesters were killed on the spot and a sixth man later died of injuries sustained in the clash. Read More here