Sometimes it's wise to take your mind to a
foolish state. This can bring a pure form of happiness, as only children and
grown up fools can build a paradise in their minds...
Good Morning!
Happy April Fool Day!!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
I am waiting for the IPCC's 5th Report with both hope and skepticism!
Dear Friends/Co-sailors,
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s)
fifth report on impacts of climate change will be released today. While we are eagerly waiting for the report
to come, I thought of posting the following two links in my ‘today’s pick’ section
for an understanding of some aspects of it.
This report from the Guardian titled ‘IPCC report: climate
change felt 'on all continents and across the oceans' reports that leaked text
of the blockbuster report says changes in climate have already caused impacts
on natural and human systems.
It also reports that the IPCC report would say, "In
recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human
systems on all continents and across the oceans." Some parts of the world could soon be at a
tipping point. For others, that tipping point has already arrived. "Both
warm water coral reef and Arctic ecosystems are already experiencing
irreversible regime shifts," the approved version of the report will say.
Titled ‘Climate change and health: IPCC reports emerging
risks, emerging consensus’, this report highlights the health risks of climate
change as have been reported by three contributors to the health chapter.
This chapter, they say, discusses three impact categories in
particular:
-
under-nutrition and impaired child development
due to reduced food yields
-
injuries, hospitalisations and deaths due to
intense heat waves, fires and other weather disasters and
-
shifts in the seasonal duration and spatial
range of infectious diseases.
But, as the link rightly points out, very vital point that
misses from the discussion is the threat climate change poses to Earth’s
life-support system – from declines in regional food yields, freshwater
shortage, damage to settlements from extreme weather events and loss of
habitable, especially coastal, land. The list goes on: changes in infectious
disease patterns and the mental health consequences of trauma, loss,
displacement and resource conflict.
We have to wait for the report to come. My apprehensions are that the report would once
again talk about several impacts of climate change but cannot go beyond the
conventional approaches of narrowing down them into spheres which are
comfortable for the abusive rich countries to handle and get away with their
responsibilities.
Let’s wait and watch!
Thanks and regards,
Ranjan Panda
Good Morning Thought - 31st March 2014
Speak a good word or remain silent...
(Prophet Muhammad)
Good Morning!
A warmer globe would lead to warmer tampers, worsening global security!
Dear Friends/Co-sailors,
In today’s pick section of my blog I am sharing this very
interesting aspect of climate change as reported in the usnews.com. Written by Seth Borenstein, AP Science
Writer, this piece reports about a UN climate panel report due to be released
this Monday. Top scientists, as the report
says, are saying that climate change will complicate and worsen existing global
security problems, such as civil wars, strife between nations and refugees.
I have been following some of the security related issues
due to climate change, especially those of climate refugees. Hope this report will throw some new lights
and be resourceful.
I also hope you would find this piece useful.
Thanks and regards,
Ranjan Panda
=========
Warmer temperatures can lead warmer tempers, worsening
global security, UN report to say
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — In an authoritative report due out
Monday a United Nations climate panel for the first time is connecting hotter
global temperatures to hotter global tempers. Top scientists are saying that
climate change will complicate and worsen existing global security problems,
such as civil wars, strife between nations and refugees.
They're not saying it will cause violence, but will be an
added factor making things even more dangerous. Fights over resources, like
water and energy, hunger and extreme weather will all go into the mix to
destabilize the world a bit more, says the report by the Nobel Peace
Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The summary of the
report is being finalized this weekend by the panel in Yokohama.
That's a big change from seven years ago, the last time the
IPCC addressed how warming affected Earth, said report lead author Chris Field
of the Carnegie Institution of Science in California. The summary that
political leaders read in early 2007 didn't mention security issues will, he
said, because of advances in research.
"There's enough smoke there that we really need to pay
attention to this," said Ohio University security and environment
professor Geoff Dabelko, one of the lead authors of the report's chapter on
security and climate change.
For the past seven years, research in social science has
found more links between climate and conflict, study authors say, with the full
report referencing hundreds of studies on climate change and conflict.
The U.S. Defense Department earlier this month in its
once-every-four-years strategic review, called climate change a "threat
multiplier" to go with poverty, political instability and social tensions
worldwide. Warming will trigger new problems but also provide countries new
opportunities for resources and shipping routes in places such as the melting
Arctic, the Pentagon report says.
After the climate panel's 2007 report, U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote that along with other causes, the conflict
in the Darfur region of western Sudan "began as an ecological crisis,
arising at least in part from climate change. " While the IPCC report this
year downplays global warming's role in that particular strife, saying other
issues were far more influential, the report's drafts do add that there is
"justifiable common concern" that climate change increases the risk
of fighting in similar circumstances.
"Climate change will not directly cause conflict — but
it will exacerbate issues of poor governance, resource inequality and social
unrest," retired U.S. Navy Adm. David Titley, now a Pennsylvania State
University professor of meteorology, wrote in an email. "The Arab Spring
and Syria are two recent examples."
But Titley, who wasn't part of the IPCC report, says
"if you are already living in a place affected by violent conflict — I
suspect climate change becomes the least of your worries."
That illustrates the tricky calculus of climate and
conflict, experts say. It's hard to point at violence and draw a direct climate
link — to say how much blame goes to warming and how much is from more
traditional factors like poverty and ethnic differences. Then looking into
future is even more difficult.
"If you think it's hard to predict rainfall in one spot
100 years from now, it's even harder to predict social stability," said
Jeff Severinghaus, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution for
Oceanography who isn't part of this climate panel. "Obviously that's going
to be controversial. The most important thing is that it's going to be talked
about."
Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/03/30/un-science-report-warming-worsens-security-woes
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Sunday Thought - 30th March 2014!
In defence of truth, you don't have to
argue to defeat anyone...
Good Morning!
Have a Wonderful Sunday!!
We are with Earth Hour. For us, each hour is Earth Hour...
At my home, we have made it a practice to
switch off power for at least two hours each day. During summers, the
electricity company does that for us for more than twice that time...
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