Development Blogs.com

The Oxford Analytica released following report on “The effect of a growing food emergency on security in the Horn of Africa”. SIGNIFICANCE: Poverty, drought and food insecurity are well known in the Horn of Africa. This latest emergency occurs at a time of global increases in the price of food and fuel and when regional conflicts threaten to destabilise the region. ANALYSIS: The sharp increase in food and energy prices globally has hurt the poorest and most food insecure regions of the world particularly hard. According to the US Agency for International Development’s latest estimates, as many as 16.3 million people in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti) are in need of emergency assistance or face food insecurity. Hunger and security. This latest food...

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I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] [moreark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for...

Major new research from Queensland, Australia "has found a direct link between land-clearing and climate change" [ark | moreark] . Areas throughout southern Queensland that had been cleared of native vegetation were found to have lost 12 percent of their summer rainfall and to have experienced an average 2C rise in temperatures. The study found that land clearing was just as significant in terms of climate change [search] as greenhouse gas production.Should these findings hold up and be found to be generalized throughtout Australia and other areas globally where remaining natural vegetation is being cleared, it would suggest a major revision in climate change policy-making is due. It is not enough to just focus upon greenhouse gases, but maintaining natural vegetation through...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they may be...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they may be...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they may be...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they...

I have resisted as long as I could pointing out the fact that Western forest fires are precisely in line with long-standing predictions regarding regional impacts of climate change [ark] expected in West/Southwestern United States. Ecological truth must be spoken often and loudly. Of course there are other exacerbating factors that interact with global heating including poorly planned urban sprawl [search], fire suppression in wildlands [search] evolved to burn, and over use of ecosystem water [search]. But these all are exacerbated by, and pale in comparison to, well known overwhelming implications of regional climatic shifts: "The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years... and they may be...

For the first time, a state regulatory agency in Kansas "has turned down a permit for a large coal-fired power plant [ark] solely because of the global warming gases it would emit." [moreark | more2ark2] This sets a magnificent precedent regarding the absolute climate necessity to not build any further coal plants that emit their emissions into the atmosphere. The continuing use of coal, much less its expansion, is the greatest destroyer of the Earth's climate [search], and it is leading to human caused climate disasters. Avoiding and limiting damages such as massive droughts devastating the Southeastern and Western United States [ark], including the possible complete collapse of Atlanta's water supply in 90 days, must be linked to decisions such as whether to build more coal plants,...

Australia, already suffering some of the most evident impacts of climate change anywhere [search] and ravaged by a monumental climate change enhanced drought [search], has this week been further buffeted by scientific predictions regarding climate change [more | more2 | news search] from its own government scientists that border upon apocalyptic. The first comprehensive climate projections since 2001 from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, presented dire new evidence that Australia faces a sharp rise in temperatures, danger from bushfires, and severe drought if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed. Sydney's temperature is predicted to rise by an average 4.3C by 2070, drought months are expected to...

Australia, already suffering some of the most evident impacts of climate change anywhere [search] and ravaged by a monumental climate change enhanced drought [search], has this week been further buffeted by scientific predictions regarding climate change [more | more2 | news search] from its own government scientists that border upon apocalyptic. The first comprehensive climate projections since 2001 from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, presented dire new evidence that Australia faces a sharp rise in temperatures, danger from bushfires, and severe drought if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed. Sydney's temperature is predicted to rise by an average 4.3C by 2070, drought months are expected to increase by...

All of the predicted catastrophic consequences of climate change are happening already, though not yet ramped up to their full potential for death and destruction. We are already witnessing the world's first climate change war in Darfur, Sudan [more | more2]; and the first continental scale emergency in Australia's "big dry" drought. It has been suggested that the real root of the Darfur conflict is ferocious drought and famine that since mid-1980s transformed Sudan and the whole Horn of Africa, diminishing rainfall in northern Darfur by 40 percent and turning farmers and pastoralists into competitors for land and water. "Those who were prepared to kill, rape and pillage were drawn from the ranks of the desperate, ripped from their traditional way of life by a catastrophic change in the...