Showing posts with label outbreak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outbreak. Show all posts
28 February 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related Content
To export ivory and rubber from what is now Cameroon, traders created routes that enabled the first cases of HIV to reach large population centers. This photograph is from a collection by Alice Seeley Harris and her husband, John Harris, who were missionaries in the Belgian Congo at the turn of the century. They documented the horrific abuses of the indigenous people of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II's regime. Anti-Slavery International/PANOS22 March 2009
Coming Soon: Mass Migrations Spurred by Climate Change
The first in a series of stories on Bangladesh and climate migration. Next week: The villages disappear.
By Lisa Friedman, ClimateWire in The New York Times, March 2, 2009
HARINAGAR, Bangladesh -- One by one, the men in Gaurpodomando's family walked out of this mud-caked village and never returned.
First, his uncles went. Both fishermen, they suffered as their catch declined year after year, before they crossed illegally into India to find work in construction. His brothers earned so little fishing that they braved tiger attacks in the nearby Sundarbans forest to forage for honey and timber. Finally, they left, too, and brought their father with them.
Now, Gaurpodomando, who said he is about 35 years old and who goes only by his first name, is the last man in his family still living in the waterlogged village along Bangladesh's Indian border.
His brothers still don't know about the angry tidal flood that burst through a dam and swallowed the family home and dozens of others in September. Those who live here say that between the disappearing fish, brackish flood waters destroying the rice fields and the ever-fiercer cyclones that seem to inhale entire villages, life is becoming almost unbearable.
But Gaurpodomando, who earns the equivalent of $1.50 a day standing hip-deep in the salty river casting a net to collect shrimp fry, said he is doing everything he can to hang onto his way of life.
"I do feel a little lonely and sad, but I don't really want to go to India," he said, squatting on the outdoor stoop of what was once the family kitchen but is now the only structure left to shelter him, his wife and their two children. His arms and bare feet are streaked with the slate-gray mud that covers the ground and seems never to dry.
'I don't want to leave this country'
"I don't want to leave this place," Gaurpodomando said. "I don't want to leave this country. I love this place."
One day soon, Gaurpodomando and an untold number of others in Bangladesh and around the world may no longer have a choice.
A growing body of evidence, including analyses from military experts in the United States and Europe, supports the estimate that by midcentury, climate change will make vast parts of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Analysts say it could trigger a migration the size of which the world has never before seen.
Some of the big questions remain unanswered: How many people will really move? Where will they go? How will they go? Will they return?
But experts estimate that as many as 250 million people -- a population almost that of the entire United States -- could be on the move by 2050. They will go because temperatures are rising and desertification has set in where rainfall is needed most. They will go because more potent monsoons are making flood-prone areas worse. They will go because of other water events caused by melting glaciers, rising seas and the slow and deadly seepage of saline water into their wells and fields.
The worst migration cases will be nations like the Maldives and small islands in the Pacific. Their inhabitants will go because their homelands will likely sink beneath the rising sea.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a minimum of 207 million people in Latin America, Asia and Africa will not have enough water inside a decade. In Asia, an extra 130 million people will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century. By 2100, crop revenues in Africa will drop 90 percent. And scientists see Bangladesh as ground zero.
The country's 150 million inhabitants live in the delta of three waterways about the size of Iowa, and the majority of the country sits less than 20 feet above sea level. According to the IPCC, rising sea levels will wipe out more cultivated land in Bangladesh than anywhere in the world. By 2050, rice production is expected to drop 10 percent and wheat production by 30 percent.
By the end of the century, more than a quarter of the country will be inundated.
About 15 million people in Bangladesh alone could be displaced. That's the equivalent of every person in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
A migration that will change the face of the world
But while more climate migrants will come from Bangladesh than from any other country, scientists say that from Mozambique to Tuvalu, from Egypt to Vietnam, climate migration will change the face of the world.
"This will be the largest migration in history. This is not migration as we've known it before," said Edward Cameron, a former senior adviser to the government of the Maldives. "We're talking about people migrating from sensitive places into other very sensitive places."
In some ways, large-scale migration is nothing new. Humans, after all, have been on the move since early man left East Africa. But these shifts will not be the migrations of pioneers or adventurers seeking opportunities in new lands. Rather, social scientists say, they will be the movement of people who are rushed, unwanted and unprepared, into unfamiliar and perhaps hostile new environments. Most of those who will be uprooted already are living on less than $1 per day.
The first shifts will start within countries. Scientists see families flocking from rural and coastal areas to cities where livelihoods are less tied to fickle weather patterns. It's a pattern that is already happening against a background of rapid global urbanization, in which the desperate rate of growth far outpaces jobs and infrastructure.
Mohammad Ayub Ali, 40, is part of that mosaic. He left the central Bangladesh town of Sherpur because the failing crops couldn't earn him a living. A ruinous flood in September was the final straw.
Now Ali drives an eye-catching pink and orange rickshaw through the capital city Dhaka's teeming streets, where he earns the equivalent of $15 per month. He lives in a one-room metal shack with his mother, wife and two children.
"It's not that great over here, but it's better than over there," he said. Nearly 3.5 million people in Dhaka -- about 40 percent of the population -- live in slums, like Ali. The World Bank estimates that by midcentury, half of all Bengalis will live in urban centers.
Moving from one area of resource scarcity to another
The next step in the migration pattern is across national borders. Military experts predict a downward spiral of violence and conflict as people desperate for food, water and jobs cross into neighboring countries where resources may be only slightly less scarce.
Wealthy nations like the United States and the European Union, meanwhile, could also be asked to take in millions of the world's displaced people even as they negotiate international disputes.
"Those people who are most vulnerable right now, and having a problem just surviving, and having the normal development challenges of clean water, fighting disease, getting an education -- those are the ones most affected," said Koko Warner, who heads the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation Section at the U.N. University.
In Bangladesh, the issues are magnified by the density of the population. Any climate-induced disaster "inevitably affects millions of people," researcher James Pender wrote in a recent sweeping report on Bangladesh. He estimated that by 2080, almost all the 51 million to 97 million people currently living in coastal zones may have to leave. The worst off won't even be able to do that.
"If those who are causing the greenhouse gas emissions are unable to control carbon emissions, the people in the vulnerable areas, many of the coastal areas, are going to be inundated," said Khawaja Minnatullah, a water specialist at the World Bank's Dhaka office.
"The vulnerable, the uneducated, the lowest of the communities will never be able to migrate to the U.S., to Canada, to Australia. There will be pressure on the not-so-vulnerable part of Bangladesh," he said.
In the village of Gabura in southwest Bangladesh, 20-year-old Amina lives with the fractured collarbone she suffered when a tidal flood smashed a wall of her home, crushing her. She and her husband have no money for a doctor, much less a move.
"Everyone that's living here, we're all poor people," she said, sitting in front of her partially repaired mud and thatch house. "We don't have anywhere to go."
Swelling overcrowded cities; scaring neighbors who have built a fence
But in Gabura and other parts of Bangladesh where the land can become the sea in the blink of an eye, climate migration has already begun.
Cities like Dhaka are bursting at the seams. Migration to bordering India appears to be occurring at a higher rate, as well, though government leaders are reluctant to acknowledge it. India, meanwhile, is wide awake to the possibility of migration from Bangladesh, and is building a fence much like the one along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants out.
There is a human tendency to deny mind-numbing futures like this one, and Bangladeshi experts are positioned on both sides of this verbal fence. Some insist that climate migration is a reality that needs to be addressed sooner than later.
Others say a large-scale migration out of the country will mean the world has failed to tackle global warming. It's a prospect they don't even want to acknowledge. "This idea of climate refugees take up too much of our time. It's an apocalyptic issue of the future," said Omar Rahman, dean of the Independent University, Bangladesh, in Dhaka.
Ainun Nishat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's representative for Bangladesh, said he is skeptical of migration predictions. Even if they are true, he argued, Bangladesh's needs are more immediate: infrastructure improvements, cyclone shelters, improved flood warning systems and a massive build-up of food security.
'It's not time to worry about it'
"Will people leave? Maybe in a hundred years, but that's not my priority now," Nishat said. "People are living in areas that go underwater once in a fortnight in the coastal belt. The point is, they're still there. They're not migrating today.
"It's not time to worry about it. My priority is the natural disaster that is happening now."
This year, the Western world will continue to grapple with the issue. U.S. President Barack Obama will try to convince Congress to pass a domestic cap-and-trade bill. Meanwhile, the European Union is struggling to implement a plan on reducing emissions. In China and India, which have the economic muscle to begin some actions, debates continue to rage over how much responsibility to bear for fast-rising emissions.
There is little news about this here in Harinagar, where men and women said they probably won't be able to wait for politicians to agree on a global solution. Like the proverbial grains of sand that slowly assemble to make up a beach, individual families are making their painful decisions, creating the possibility of more cruel things yet to come.
"The area is getting worse. I don't think it's going to get better," Gaurpodomando said. His wife, Chorna, her face loosely framed by a red floral headscarf, bounced the couple's 3-year-old daughter on her hip and said she, too, wants to stay, but she's also realistic about the family's prospects. Maybe, she said, they'll go to Khulna, a booming port city about two hours away by car.
Gaurpodomando said his brothers living outside of Kolkata "say it's good over there. They keep asking me to go, and they tell me there's good earning to be done there."
But Harinagar, where the thatched mud huts still look out over a lush countryside, and where a woman who lost everything in a recent flood will still offer a visiting stranger a plate of eggs, has been his family's home for at least three generations.
"I'll do whatever work I can find, but I might have to go outside," Gaurpodomando said. "We might have to leave this village."
Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Read more... Sphere: Related Content10 January 2009
Dozens of new cholera cases in Limpopo
Mail and Guardian Online, Jan 09 2009
Sixty-eight new cholera cases have been reported in Limpopo, the Department of Health said on Friday.
Eleven new cases were recorded in Musina and Madimbo, 46 in Dilokong and 11 in Botlokwa since Thursday, department spokesperson Phuti Seloba said.
"Our hot spots at the moment are Botlokwa and Dilokong. At present there were 1 634 cases of cholera in Limpopo that have been recorded since the outbreak," said Seloba.
He said the department expected to treat more cholera patients as Zimbabweans were moving back into South Africa in large numbers.
"Our anticipation is that our neighbours from Zimbabwe are coming back into the country in large numbers, so we will treat more people," Seloba said.
He said campaigning had intensified in terms of focusing more on awareness and embarking on door-to-door campaigns.
"We are reaching out to the general masses and rearranging our resources. In Musina and Madimbo there were 1 016 cases," said Seloba.
Before Christmas, Dilokong had 222 new cholera cases and Botlokwa stood at 248. - Sapa
Read more... Sphere: Related Content02 January 2009
What can we do to save our planet?
The Independent asked the world's leading climate scientists whether we should prepare a 'Plan B' to curb the worst effects of global warming. Their responses are fascinating – and sobering
The Independent, 2 January 2009
Jim Lovelock, author of the Gaia theory
I never thought that the Kyoto agreement would lead to any useful cut back in greenhouse gas emissions so I am neither more nor less optimistic now about prospect of curbing CO2 compared to 10 years ago. I am, however, less optimistic now about the ability of the Earth's climate system to cope with expected increases in atmospheric carbon levels compared with 10 years ago. I disagree that geoengineering the climate is a dangerous distraction and I disagree that on no account should it ever be considered. I strongly agree that we now need a "plan B" where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions. However, climate change is an Earth system problem and the UN is not a suitable body to host or organise it.
Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, London
I am not enthusiastic about geo-engineering, as to intervene on a massive scale in the Earth's climate system will certainly have unforeseen consequences, some of which could be as regrettable as the problem the intervention was designed to address in the first place. This is why Jim Lovelock and I have been encouraging thought and exploration of means to "help the Earth help itself"; i.e. by amplifying carbon sequestration processes that the Earth already practises – in the ocean and on land. I very much support the various tropical rainforest initiatives for this reason. My real concern is that the need to take action is now very urgent. Events in the Arctic suggest that we may already be passing through a significant "tipping point". The action taken in response to the credit crunch indicates the scale and speed of what is possible. Saving the ecosystem services upon which we all depend would seem to be at least as important as baling out the worldwide cartel of reckless and greedy bankers.
Professor John Shepherd, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, and chair of Royal Society working party on geoengineering
Possible geoengineering options need to be explored, but must not be allowed to detract from efforts to reduce CO2 emissions directly.
Professor Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
While a geoengineering solution is bound to be less than desirable, the probability of getting global agreement on emissions reductions before it is to late is very small.
Paul Crutzen, Nobel Laureate, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
I would agree with doing research to find out more about potential side effects. My answer to two of your [survey's] questions is 'don't know' as I cannot predict the future.
Professor John Latham, US National Centre for Atmospheric Research
Since CO2 levels seem certain to rise for a long time, we think it vital to examine geo-engineering schemes for stabilizing Earth's temperature for long enough to allow alternative, clean forms of energy to be developed. We are examining one scheme in collaborative research involving Universities of Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and (in USA) National Centre for Atmospheric Research, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: lead scientists at these institutions, Tom Choularton, Alan Gadian, Stephen Salter, John Latham, Phil Rasch, respectively.
Our idea is to increase the reflectivity of shallow oceanic clouds by seeding them with seawater particles to increase their droplet numbers: thereby producing global cooling. Provisional results (mainly modelling) suggest the technique could hold Earth's temperature constant for around 50 years, and that current values of Arctic ice cover could be maintained over this period. Much more work is required on technological questions and ramifications of possible deployment.
Professor Stephen Salter, school of engineering, University of Edinburgh
After many years trying to develop renewable energy I now believe that we are too late and so I am working on the engineering of John Latham's idea for enhancing cloud albedo.
Professor David Archer, Chicago University
Carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere will continue to affect climate for many millennia. Relying on geoengineering schemes such as sulphate aerosols would be analogous to putting the planet on life support. If future humanity failed to pay its 'climate bill' – a bill that we left them, thank you very much – they would bear the full brunt of climate change within a very short time.
Victor Smetacek, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany
The Earth's carbon cycle, pushed way off balance by humankind, is teetering dangerously. The excess CO2 already in the atmosphere, equivalent to 200 billion tonnes of carbon - a third of the entire land vegetation - will stay for millennia and continue to shrink planetary ice stores: ways need to be devised and implemented to remove as much as possible, even while emissions add to the burden. Not considering CO2 removal now is tantamount to not bailing out water pouring into a sinking ship until the leak is stopped. In addition to sequestration on land, scientists need to explore the potential of the vast ocean volume and sea floor to take up more of the burden. This undertaking should be entrusted to peer-controlled, international academia and governmental research institutes, activated by massive R&D funds raised from carbon taxes, in lieu of the profit-oriented, carbon credit scheme favouring wanton commercialisation.
Professor Martin Parry, Imperial College London
The required cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are now so large and urgent that it seems unlikely we can avoid a global 2C warming. To achieve this would require cuts of 6% per year starting in 2010, and enabling a global cut of 80% by 2050. There is now a real danger of allowing temperature to rise beyond our capacity to adapt. Consequently, there need to be 3 parallel strategies: i) reduce emissions as much and as soon as possible, ii) prepare now for adaptation to at least 3 degrees warming, and iii) see what geo-engineering can do to close the 'damage gap' that otherwise risks being left between emissions reduction and adaptation.
Professor Corinne Le Quéré, University of East Anglia and British Antarctic Survey
I think that geoengineering options have little if any potential on the time scale in which actions are needed to stabilise atmospheric CO2 and climate (20-30 years). To stabilise climate, we need to focus on options that can be implemented right away. Geoengineering options could be useful to address the long-term stabilisation of CO2 in the atmosphere over a time scale of one century, or to reduce atmospheric CO2 back to its pre-industrial level if we find that such a measure is needed. Thus I am not against research on this topic, but I don't think it should be viewed as a substitute for immediate action. Rather it should viewed as an additional measure to be used if the climate starts to dangerously deviate from a semi-stable trajectory.
Petr Chylek, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Geoengineering should concentrate on preventing the Greenland ice sheet from melting, not on the whole climate change. This would cut the resources needed by a factor of about 10 to 100.
Professor Stephen Schneider, Stanford University
My disagreement with item 4 [need for a plan B] is because it is too vaguely worded. I do agree with research and development, and that should include social scientific research on how any such actions might be managed by international agreements. But it can't be agreements among only a few superpowers, but essentially the whole UN establishment, since the climate is a global commons. Until such a broad-based treaty is negotiated and accepted, I think any implementation of geoengineering by private parties or a few governments should be illegal – with severe sanctions for violations.
Professor James Shulmeister, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
There is NO prospect of getting cuts in emissions of the scale needed to have a large impact on the problem. We need all the cuts we can get but we also need to engineer ourselves out of the problem. However, geoengineering on its own is NOT the solution.
Ray Weiss, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Nearly all geoengineering proposals I have read have appeared to me to be naïve or short-sighted in one way or another. It is hard to manage something that is not very well understood, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work on the problem. I balked at that use of the word "need", but an intelligent "Plan B" would certainly be welcome.
Caspar Ammann, National Centre for Atmospheric Research
I believe that there is no clear geoengineering option around this far that appears viable, both from an implementation and effect perspective. All options produce not enough "winners" to encourage actual benefits from a very expensive action. Much preferred would be concentrating these resources into reducing emissions (capturing carbon in particular) and increasing efficiency. While geoengineering should be studied and not banned from discussion, any related solution would have to overcome the scientific and also moral thresholds to demonstrate benefits.
Frank Zeman, Director, Centre for Metropolitan Sustainability, New York Institute of Technology
Geoengineering is not an option because it is a self perpetuating problem. That is, geoengineering cannot be done in lieu of driving CO2 emissions to zero as the result is a perpetual cycle with ever higher atmospheric CO2 levels. It may be considered as an option to alleviate climate disruptions after CO2 emissions have begun trending towards zero for short term relief.
Kevin Walsh, University of Melbourne
The fundamental problem with geoengineering is that we are already undertaking our own geoengineering experiment, namely global warming due to man-made greenhouse gas production. This current experiment has already thrown up some nasty surprises. Why should we try another experiment when it could cause additional unintended consequences? Why not try to fix the fundamental problem instead?
Tony Del Genio, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York
At this stage it would be unfortunate to consider geoengineering to limit climate change due to increasing greenhouse gases. Simply offsetting the global radiative imbalance does not offset the consequences. The spatial patterns of geoengineering forcing and greenhouse gas forcing will not match, causing regional weather and climate changes that may not be beneficial. At this stage such solutions should not be implemented. That having been said, if society does not within a decade address the climate problem seriously and we approach a tipping point of irreversible climate change, then we need to have a last resort geoengineering strategy in hand. Thus research on geoengineering impacts, as evaluated by climate models, should be undertaken in the interim to better characterize its benefits and problems. Implementation should be only a last resort, akin to actions currently being undertaken by governments to address the financial crisis that were unthinkable months ago.
Eric Wolff, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge
The challenge of keeping greenhouse gas concentrations to reasonable levels is so big now (because we have left it so late to act) that we have to explore everything – including energy choices many of us find unpalatable, and the possibility of geoengineering solutions. However, many of the proposed geoengineering schemes are dangerous, either because we don't know what other effects they will have, or because they assume that we will be able to service the solution forever. Furthermore the potential of many of them has been greatly oversold. I don't think a geoengineering "strategy" will help, but sensible, sceptical research on the saner ideas should be pursued.
Professor Lewis Rothstein, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography
It would be negligent if a geoengineering strategy were not established, so long as the research were fully scrutinized as is the case for any issue of scientific discovery. The argument that the earth system is too complex to predict the outcome of any geoengineering of our environment misses the central issue of the relationship between complexity and uncertainty, and actionable science. We have little choice but to trust the combined wisdom of the climate sciences community to help determine that uncertainty, what it would take observationally and computationally to narrow that uncertainty, and what mitigation activities are appropriate given that level of uncertainty and the consequences of inactivity. One is never 100% certain; because there is uncertainty does not mean that the results are wrong.
Mat Collins, Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter
Ideas like injecting large amounts of aerosol into the stratosphere and the like may have unforeseen circumstances – this risk is just too high. While we, as climate scientists, agree on the fundamentals of climate change (i.e. the world is warming and greenhouse gases are to blame) we are still working out the detail. It is unlikely that there would be enough of a scientific consensus on the consequences and side-effects of any geoengineering options for us to be confident of their viability for many years, possibly decades. The exception is carbon capture and storage, which looks like a winner to me.
Andrew Yool, US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
Just as we shouldn't rule geoengineering out of hand, we shouldn't uncritically accept it as a component of efforts to combat climate change. Schemes should be assessed for efficacy, side-effects and verifiability both in small-scale field trials and by modelling studies before they are applied in large-scale operations. Modelling is particularly important since it allows us to both estimate global-scale and long-term efficacy/consequences, and to explore "what-if" questions such as "what are the consequences if we need to suddenly stop geoengineering?" Although verifiability is infrequently addressed, it's important for commercial reasons that success is properly attributed to schemes. Geoengineering is potentially extremely lucrative and, in marine biology at least, has already attracted questionable schemes, so it's crucial that unsuccessful ones are identified to avoid wasted effort. More generally, on biodiversity grounds, we should be wary of co-opting even more of the Earth's biological productivity just to clean up after ourselves.
Richard Lampitt, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
There are several options available but at present the crucial issue is to gain the scientific insights so that appropriate decisions can be made in a rational manner. The efficacy of the various schemes needs to be assessed along with a careful analysis of the unintended consequences which might also occur. A cost-benefit-risk analysis must then be completed before the issue of commercial deployment is considered.
Roger Gifford, CSIRO Plant Industry, Australia
It is not a question of whether the climate system copes with increased greenhouse gas levels. It will cope by changing. The question is whether human organisation and well-being will cope from the manner in which climate responds.
Geo-engineering needs defining. It can include enhancing terrestrial C stocks by land fertilisation and land use change, as well as enhancing marine C stocks by ocean fertilisation, geosequestration by pumping liquid CO2 below ground, or global-scale purposeful atmospheric modification by releasing aerosols, or radiation modification by orbiting sunshades. It is my view that just as we cannot be sure exactly how the earth system will respond to continued global modification of atmospheric content of greenhouse gases, we also cannot be sure how it will respond to global modification of the aerosol content and radiation balance. Because the earth system is not amenable to controlled replicated experiments, we will never be sure enough to justify any such major global-scale attempts at amelioration to justify any one group of people imposing such change on everybody.
Professor Meric Srokosz, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
The problem with talking about geo-engineering solutions to climate change is that realistically they are never going to solve the problem. They might be part (probably a small part) of the solution but fundamentally we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The other issue is the risk (largely unknown) of the impact of the geo-engineering solutions. In trying to "fix" one problem you may create a worse one (law of unintended consequences).While I am happy with the thought that we should investigate geoengineering solutions to better understand their feasibility, costs and associated risks, there is a danger that people will think that they do not need to change their behaviour because there is a technological "fix" round the corner. This is a socio-political (or psychological) rather than science / engineering issue.
Kevin Trenberth, US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
Who makes the decision on behalf of all humanity and other residents of planet earth to change the climate deliberately?
Climate change is not necessarily bad. The climate has always varied to some degree, and changes have occurred over decades and millennia. Humans and other creatures have evolved and adapted to the changes, or perished. It is a part of evolution. Changes projected with increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may have some aspects that could be regarded as bad: increased heat waves and wild fires in summer, increased and more intense droughts, heavier rains and risk of flooding, stronger storms and hurricanes, decreases in air quality, increases in bugs and disease, and so on, are all likely threats. But in some areas climates improve, high latitude continents become more equable, growing seasons are longer, and so on.
There are winners and losers and it is possible to adapt to such changes – at least if the changes occur slowly enough to allow this to happen. In other words, a key issue is the rate of change, perhaps more so than the nature of the change? This obviously also depends of how long such changes continue for. In that sense, it is the "change" part of climate change that might be argued as being bad.
But given that there is no universal condemnation of the climate change, how can anyone justify deliberately acting to change the climate to benefit some group, and perhaps even a majority? It is argued here that the ethical questions arising from this loom so large that some forms of geo-engineering are simply unacceptable. The forms that are acceptable include those that reduce emissions and mitigate the rates of change, or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Forms that propose to block the sun in some fashion, perhaps to emulate a volcanic eruption, change the hydrological cycle and weather patterns in ways that would be simply unacceptable, even if they were doable. The cost of any such proposals and their viability are other major issues, but, in my view, they are overwhelmed by the ethical considerations.
Nick Brooks, visiting research fellow, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
It is almost certain that we will fail to stop the globe warming by more than 2C, and probably more than 3C. All potential options for addressing climate change risks should therefore be considered. However, it would be foolish to focus on geoengineering options as a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Geoengineering solutions do not help us avoid changes in the behaviour of the global climate system, but simply replace one kind of interference with another. While geoengineering may help reduce warming at the global level, it may still cause changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation, particularly if it is targeted at certain regions or certain internal climatic mechanisms. Geoengineering also raises difficult ethical issues. For example, a geoengineering solution may reduce warming while resulting in regional changes in climate that adversely affect some parts of the world. Countries likely to suffer most from global warming may lobby for engineering solutions with adverse impacts on other countries. In the end, agreement over engineering solutions may be as difficult to achieve as agreement of emissions reduction targets. Mitigation of climate change through large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions remains the most reliable way of confronting anthropogenic climate change.
Tao Wang, Tyndall Centre and Sussex Energy Group
The definition around geoengineering is very ambiguous at this moment so it is difficult to have an overall assessment to the various options that were discussed. Large scale geoengineering only aims at carbon reduction are very dangerous as it could introduce irreversible and catastrophic consequences to the natural system that we won't be able to foresee. It is also against the precautionary principle.
This would offer a false shelter to encourage people carry on with business as usual and weaken the will of commitment for sharp carbon emission reduction that we really need.It risks making the climate change agenda override others such as sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, water resource scarcity management, etc.
David Schnare, director of the Centre for Environmental Stewardship, Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy
Geoengineering is inevitable if we observe unimpeachable evidence of catastrophic climate change, since it has been determined that it is very likely to be effective and is virtually costless in comparison with either the cost of suffering catastrophic climate impacts of the cost of massive carbon reduction efforts. In light of that, we should begin field testing of obvious candidates.The largest amount of research effort, however, should go into planetary scale carbon sequestration, to include both air capture and ocean water extraction - both now promising research opportunities.
Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
I believe much research testing ecological and biogeochemical consequences must take place in pilot small-scale studies as well as measurements of the actual carbon sequestration under different manipulations before society can embark on large initiatives.
Steve Siems, Monash University
I believe it is a dangerous distraction filled with many potential hazards. But I hate to say never under the circumstances. If it is a plan B, we need to try Plan A over and over and over again before even contemplating Plan B.
Anand Gnanadesikan, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Categorically rejecting geoengineering corresponds to holding that we must maintain a particular climate (that of the early 20th century). Such a preservationist view is emotionally attractive but isn't particularly scientifically justifiable- climates have changed a lot in the past. On the other hand, commercial boosters of geoengineering schemes often fail to build in the uncertainties in how the impacts of such schemes would be measured, whether they would trigger negative consequences or indeed whether they would work at all given feedbacks in the climate system. We need a more rational way of choosing between our options.
Gabriele Hegerl, University of Edinburgh
My personal opinion is all options need to be considered carefully. No geoengineering solution I am aware of (maybe apart from carbon capture and storage) is free from risks and side effects. An example is the idea of injecting aerosols into the stratosphere – these, in combination with greenhouse gases, may impact rainfall in a way we cannot reliably predict at present. Given the poorly understood risks it is too early for a geoengineering strategy, but careful research into the benefits and risks of individual geoengineering options may be a good idea.
Andrew Gettelman, US National Centre for Atmospheric Research
Geoengineering is a distraction. It is also dangerous. Agreeing that we should consider geo-engineering is tacit admission that we really do need to do something more significant about carbon emissions. It is also tacit admission that if you trust simulations of geo-engineering effects you also should trust simulations of future climate impacts.
However, there may be cases where we might consider it in the context of a general CO2 reduction strategy to avoid severe impacts temporarily (e.g.: prevent loss of the Greenland ice sheet and catastrophic sea level rise).
I do not think geo-engineering will be necessary. I do not think that it should be 'part' of a mitigation strategy except in extreme cases. That means: getting 'carbon credit' for geo-engineering should not be part of a CO2 reduction strategy. I do not see a problem in continuing research into geo-engineering. It complements research into other aspects of the climate system and how it might change.
Steven Sherwood, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
At the present time, I do not know of any geoengineering strategy that I feel would ever be worth implementing. For example, the most popular idea (creation of stratospheric aerosols) would render us susceptible to a devastating climate whiplash if the program were ever halted. However, as a matter of principle I believe that such strategies should be carefully studied, their merits and defects weighed and discussed, and better alternatives sought. International agreements on how to decide on geoengineering need to be put in place before such actions are seriously contemplated, rather than after."
Neil Wells, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Ten years ago I was confident that we could globally control carbon dioxide. Since then I have seen evidence that the climate models are under-estimating the change in sea ice in the Arctic – changing faster than Hadley Centre's HADCM3 model predicted a few years ago.
Secondly, that it is one thing to persuade one country of the need to do something, but persuading the world is going to far more difficult.
Anthony Patt, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Geoengineering only solves some of the problems of climate change (e.g. arctic sea ice loss), but not others (e.g. ocean acidification, reduced diurnal and annual temperature cycle), and so it can never replace complete decarbonisation, but only complement it. With that in mind, it is an option to be considered, in parallel with other adaptation options.
With respect to a treaty to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we must be open to the possibility that international negotiations will likely fail to stipulate the necessary emissions cuts. At the same time, subsidized investments in particular technologies (off-shore wind, concentrating solar power, combined with electrification of transport) could, if pursued aggressively by the US and EU over the next 10 – 15 years, push the costs for these technologies down to levels below that of coal, gas, and oil, making a global treaty unnecessary. (Indeed, this is why I am more optimistic now than 10 years ago about achieving the necessary emissions reductions).
Steven Ghan, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Any geoengineering solution should focus on removing CO2. Any other solution is bound to introduce changes in the distribution of radiative heating that would change the climate in undesirable and perhaps unexpected ways.
LuAnne Thompson, School of Oceanography, University of Washington
We are rolling the dice in a very dangerous way by assuming that we can introduce modification to alleviate problems that human kind has introduced to our environment. While in total, we have good predictions for the globally averaged changes expected from the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we still have great difficulty in predicted local and regional changes. Determining whether a geoengineering solution would introduce mitigating changes in the weather is hubris. In addition, geoengineering solutions do nothing for the increasing pH in the ocean caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide by sea-water. If we choose to go the route of geoengineering, we are destining our children with a vastly changed ocean ecosystem. This will inevitably lead to a collapse of the remaining wild fisheries. In addition, the ocean's ecosystem takes up carbon dioxide. By destroying the ocean's ecosystem we will likely be introducing an addition source of carbon dioxide that would also need to be mitigated. Geoengineering is just not acceptable. The costs are far too high.
Boris Kelly-Gerreyn, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Geoengineering offers very limited hope in avoiding dangerous climate change. The main focus of effort must be to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, now. No other option gives us a realistic hope. Hence, it is crucial that public attention is not diverted from the urgent action necessary to achieve a contraction of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for many 100s of years, this reduction must tackle our cumulative emissions (emissions today add to those of yesterday and to those of tomorrow) rather than some distant CO2 reductions target date. Hence, emission reduction pathways must enter any global agreement. Technological fixes like geoengineering require many years of research to understand their effectiveness in tackling the most important issue the human race has ever had to face, years that delay what must be really done.
Alan Robock, Rutgers University, New Jersey
We need to do research on geoengineering to find out its costs, efficacy, and problems. We need to study how to engineer delivery systems and the timing, amount, and location of sulfur injection into the stratosphere. Only then will we be able to evaluate whether it is a good idea or not to engage in temporary geoengineering.
Based on what I know right now, geoengineering is not a good idea. Its possibility will reduce public will toward mitigation. There are still governance issues and how it could affect the Asian monsoon and ozone, make skies less blue, but give us red sunsets, and provide less solar radiation for solar power, especially systems requiring direct solar radiation. In addition, it may be perceived that geoengineering technology could be used for military purposes. I am also concerned about commercial control of the technology.
Frank Schwing, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, US Department of Commerce
I am more optimistic about global reduction efforts because the new Obama Administration in the US is poised to be a world leader in this effort, and because the public groundswell for such an effort is growing rapidly. Regarding geoengineering, we clearly will need some concerted and effective efforts to engineer our way to reduced greenhouse gas levels. However, I am concerned that the public, and governments, will see such efforts as a panacea, thereby eliminating the need for public action to reduce emissions.
Albert Kallio, Frozen Isthmuses' Protection Campaign of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans
There is much unnecessary fears in geo-engineering. It is true that it is no proper substitute for cutting down emissions and then reversing the damage, especially by re-planting forest cover that has been mowed down over the last few decades.
In principle, the carbon trading, mitigation, adaptation, and geo-engineering are at parity with each other. None of these schemes will work unless the infinite rise of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are curbed. The extension of road is short with geo-engineering.
Many geo-engineering schemes such as space shades may work, but they are uneconomic. Others represent vaguely understood technologies that probably fail to deliver or will remain as elusive solutions to as the fusion energy. The chemical acidification from CO2 cannot be helped by chemicals without even more pollution.
Cleanest efforts being mechanical procedures such as redirection of Siberian rivers, breaking and scattering sea ice, and various other forms.
©independent.co.uk
Read more... Sphere: Related Content29 December 2008
Ebola death toll up in DR Congo
BBC News, 29 December 2008
Eleven people have now died in an outbreak of Ebola in central Democratic Republic of Congo, say aid workers.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said one woman died on Sunday, while another man succumbed in Mweka on Christmas Day.
MSF is treating 24 other suspected Ebola cases at isolation units in the villages of Kaluamba and Kampungu.
It is monitoring 102 people who may have had contact with the virus. The latest outbreak in Western Kasai province emerged in late November.
MSF said there is fear and confusion among local civilians and health staff as rumours circulate of suspected cases or deaths from the disease.
It is the first Ebola outbreak in Africa since February and the fourth in DR Congo since 1976
The highly infectious bleeding fever kills 80% of those it infects and there is no known cure.
© MMVIII
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Cholera deaths soar in Zimbabwe
BBC News, 29 December 2008
The UN has warned the total number of cases could reach 60,000
The latest figures from the UN and Zimbabwe's health ministry reveal that two-thirds of the victims of the cholera outbreak have died this month.
The death toll at the end of last week stood at 1,564, with 29,131 suspected cases since August, the UN said.
Figures from the health ministry on 1 December put cholera deaths at 484.
The UN has warned it could take six months to control the outbreak that has been fuelled by the collapse of the health, sanitation and water services.
No food
According to the World Health Organization, cases have been reported in all 10 of Zimbabwe's provinces.
"The overall Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has risen to 5.7% - far above the 1% which is normal in large outbreaks - and in some rural areas it has reached as high as 50%," the WHO said in a statement.
Last Tuesday, Unicef put the number of cholera deaths at 1,174.
Aid agencies say so many clinics and hospitals have closed that large sections of the population have no access to medical care.
The suburb of Budiriro in Harare's capital, has been worst hit by the outbreak, followed by Beitbridge on the border with South Africa.
South Africa has recorded 1,279 cases and 12 deaths - the bulk of these in the border region, the WHO says.
Over the weekend, Save the Children said some five million people in Zimbabwe - or about 50% of the country's population - were now in need of food aid.
President Robert Mugabe has been facing intensified criticism over the dire economic and humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe.
He signed a power-sharing deal with his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, in September, intended to rescue the collapsing economy but progress has since stalled over who should control key ministries.
Mr Tsvangirai has threatened to pull out of power-sharing talks unless abductions of his supporters stop.
According to his Movement for Democratic Change, about 40 human rights activists and opposition supporters have been abducted in the past two months.
Meanwhile, the US envoy to Africa, Jendayi Frazer, has warned that last week's military coup in Guinea should serve as a warning of what could happen in Zimbabwe, if Mr Mugabe is allowed to cling to power and die in office.
© MMVIII
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