Climate Change Does Have A Face, We Just Need To Open Our Eyes

The Huffington Post - Tim Costello

Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a development issue. 

Science tells us that the world is warming to dangerous levels, but we fail to imagine it, we fail to give it a face. Getty Images

As floods consume Paris, in Ethiopia the wind is again blowing dust into the sky. El Nino has dealt the country a vicious blow, with more than 10 million people now requiring food assistance.
It is not only in Ethiopia. The strongest El Nino in more than 50 years, triggering severe droughts and floods, has cut a devastating swathe through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, Lesotho, Tanzania, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN predicts that food will start running out on a large scale by next month (July), while the World Food Programme predicts that by Christmas, 50 million people in southern Africa will need food support, with tens of millions more people facing food and water shortages in Asia, Latin America and the Pacific regions. Millions of children face malnutrition and disease.
Whether El Nino and its counterpart La Nina, which now looms on the horizon, become more severe with climate change is an unsettled question, but this "super" El Nino has shown again the extent to which the world's poorest people are the most vulnerable to climate variations -- and poor children most of all.

Precious Lameck, 13, pictured in his family's dried up garden. Charles Kabena

The ever growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events is providing a glimpse of what climate change could mean.
In this election season, climate change has floated on the periphery of the national debate, like a boat drifting over bleached coral on the Great Barrier Reef.
In Paris last December, the world's nations pledged to keep global temperatures "well below" 2.0C above pre-industrial times -- the level scientists regard as dangerous and irreversible -- and to "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5 degrees celcius.
Australia has only pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (19-22 percent below 2000 levels). Is it enough? The federal government calls it a "fair contribution", but the Climate Change Authority said Australia should be aiming to reduce emissions by 40 to 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2030.
Australia's 2030 reduction targets are below those of most of the developed world, including the UK with its target of 80 percent by 2050, Germany (40 percent by 2020 and up to 95 percent by 2050), and even the US, which has a slightly more ambitious target of 26-28 percent by 2025.
There is also the question of coal. The issue of new coal mines must be on the table for discussion.
Science tells us that the world is warming to dangerous levels, but we fail to imagine it, we fail to give it a face.
Yet for those of us who work in the humanitarian sector, climate change does have a face. It is a child in a barren landscape with no food to eat, or huddled in a flimsy shelter during a violent storm.

Over 23 million people across East Africa are facing a critical shortage of water and food, a situation made worse by climate change. Getty Images

Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a development issue. Its effects are felt first and hardest by the world's poor, those least responsible but most vulnerable. Already, the UN's refugee agency estimates that as many as 23 million people are displaced by climate or weather-related catastrophes every year.
In its November 2015 report, Unless We Act Now: The Impact of Climate Change on Children, UNICEF states: "Nearly 530 million children live in extremely high flood occurrence zones, over 300 million of them in countries where half or more of the population lives on less than $3.10 per day. Nearly 160 million children live in areas of high or extremely high drought severity, including almost 50 million in countries where half or more of the population lives on less than $3.10 per day."
Preparing communities to adapt to climate change and extreme climatic events has become a key focus of aid agencies' work.
In Ethiopia, a 10-year World Vision program to regenerate trees, called Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration, has been so successful that a community at Humbo that previously needed food aid to survive has begun selling grain to the World Food Programme.
Involving the careful regeneration of trees and shrubs, the regrown trees, integrated into crops and grazing pastures, help restore soil structure and fertility, inhibit erosion and soil moisture evaporation, rehabilitate springs and the water table, and increase biodiversity.
We have also started a pilot project in Ethiopia trialling the impact of "clean stoves" to reduce the 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year from open fires, while in South East Asia and the Pacific region, including Vietnam, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, we are working with communities on Disaster Risk Reduction strategies, to better prepare them for increasingly frequent and violent tropical storms and other natural disasters.
As we do so often, we are dealing with the present, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

Links

• These Maps Make A Pretty Powerful Argument For Fighting Climate Change
• Empowering Community Forests in the Fight Against Climate Change
• 5 Iconic Places You Should Visit Before Climate Change Ruins Them

Study: Climate Change Makes Our Food More Poisonous

Deutsche Welle - Charlotta Lomas

Extreme weather is increasing toxins in our food - which can be fatal. As temperatures keep rising, it seems the problem will only get worse. DW interviews a chief scientist at UNEP. 
 Extreme weather is increasing the levels of toxins in our food, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
With global temperatures set to rise by more 3 degrees Celsius, scientists warn the problem will only get worse. DW spoke with UNEP chief scientist Jacqueline McGlade* out of Nairobi.

Deutsche Welle: What were the main findings of the report?
Jacqueline McGlade: The United Nations "Environment Frontiers Report" this year identifies emerging issues that include what we call the "poison chalice": toxin accumulation in crops in response to climate change.
One of the major findings is that as nature forces plants to adapt to drought or flood conditions, they turn on - or accumulate - different toxins that make them unpalatable or even poisonous to people and livestock.

How exactly does extreme weather increase the levels of toxins in our food?

Jacqueline McGlade says farmers must pay attention to early signals that toxins may be present in crops

Under normal growing conditions, plants really do produce a whole range of proteins and all kinds of beneficial nutrients. But when we have extreme weather such as drought conditions or floods, it makes the plant respond in different ways.
Crops such as barley, maize or millet - the big crops that we would know all over the world - start to slow down, or even prevent, the conversion of certain chemicals. Nitrate is one of them. When it accumulates in the plant itself, and then we consume it, or animals consume it, that acute nitrate level causes poisoning.
There's another chemical which sounds very dangerous, "prussic acid" or hydrogen cyanide. That's the one that we're most concerned about. It can accumulate in cassava, flax, maize, sorghum - many of the things that people in the poorer part of the world rely on.
And at the other extreme, in more damp and flooding conditions you see fungal growth. We've seen burning of large amounts of stored maize and seeds in towns and cities in East Africa, because fungi spread and you can see them - they're like a black mold sitting the seeds themselves. Of course, if that's not picked up and it's put into the milling, it goes in the flour, which means it makes its way into the bread that we eat.

What are the dangers of toxic crops?
They can cause nervous disorders. They can really make it difficult for people to breathe - it's like asphyxiation [suffocation]. If animals or human beings are pregnant, that can cause miscarriage.

Drought can increase levels of toxins in crops - and subsistence farmers are particularly at risk

There's a lot of evidence that acute exposure particularly to aflatoxins - these fungal toxins - but also prussic acid, can be lethal. And we have many instances here, certainly in East Africa, where that has occurred.
We're also worried there's an exposure issue - which means if you continue to have access and eat the crops that are contaminated, it can lead to cancer, it can stunt fetal growth, infant growth, it suppresses immunity. There's a whole raft of things in the population at large when they're exposed to these.
Nitrate is another case altogether can it can be seen to affect very, very quickly the human condition through neurological collapse, so it's very dramatic when people are exposed to nitrate poisoning.

Which parts of the world are already seeing these toxins accumulate in crops?
We can look at a map of the world of drought conditions and you can pretty much guarantee that somewhere in those areas you going to find it. So in sub-Saharan Africa, but increasingly in northern and southern parts of Africa. We see definite trends in Latin America and Brazil.
Really, all over the world now. The difference when you're in the developing world is it's very difficult to find the institutions to detect those toxins. They are occurring in Europe, they are occurring in North America, but there, the industry itself is able to have early warning and detection systems.

Who is this actually affecting?
The poorest farmers - subsistence farmers, and certainly those who are very tied to one crop. And what is even sadder, is that in areas such as Kenya and eastern Africa, there are other plants which people who are not even farmers rely on for daily subsistence. Plants from the edge of the road - cowpea is an example. These are not major crops, people rely on them to survive, and these same plants are also showing the same accumulation of toxins.

If crops haven't been washed away by a flood, fungal toxins can thrive in the damp conditions, posing a hidden health risk

Should we as consumers be worried?
We think probably about 4.5 billion people in developing countries are already exposed to this uncontrolled and unmonitored amounts of aflatoxins [fungal toxins]. We do need to be vigilant, we need to be aware that the food chain has to be protected. As consumers it's important that we are aware of and put pressure on the food chain suppliers.

And with global temperatures set to rise by more than 3 degrees Celsius, is the problem likely to get worse?
Absolutely. Here the consequences for human health need to be put at the forefront. Of course we need to grow crops - and here is where the industry needs to work with farmers to try to find drought-resistant forms that do not accumulate the different aspects of nitrates and prussic acid. Similarly, resistant forms to different kinds of mycotoxins - these fungi that spread.
As we look forward and see the effects of climate change, we can really start to see the upper end of this: 70 percent of agriculture production is going to be affected by either too much rain or too little rain. So we need to be aware: this exposes potentially billions to toxins.

*Jacqueline McGlade is chief scientist of UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment.

Links

• Environmentalists plan fierce battle against Bayer-Monsanto merger
• US climate policy: Why young Americans are done waiting for change
• Food for thought on hunger
• UNEP Frontiers 2016 Report: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern

Climate Change Censorship: Australia and UNESCO

GlobalResearch - Dr. Binoy Kampmark*

Censoring climate change and its reporting is a big business, notably among fossil fuel obsessives and those in denial. It continues to fulfil a role in the policies of Australia’s Turnbull government.  Even after the demise of Tony Abbott last year, his successor continues to scrub his own environmental credentials from his profile.  As he does so, an assortment of weasel words have found their way into the political argot: “innovation”, “growth” and a host of other empty treats.

Despite lauding various efforts to pursue “clean energy” (PM Malcolm Turnbull decided to reverse the previous leader’s decision to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation), environmental politics in Australia remains a dirty business.
Turnbull demonstrated as much in March by announcements that he would remove funds from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and replace it with a new, slogan rich “Clean Energy Innovation Fund”.  Turnbull is particularly keen on copyrighting innovation, a substitute, he finds, for actual de-funding strategies for the essentially redundant environment portfolio.
As Giles Parkinson noted in March, “the move to de-fund ARENA and create a ‘new’ fund using money already allocated to the CEFC is nothing but a sleight of hand, and an elaborate ruse by Turnbull to save more than $1.3 billion and get his new pet word ‘innovation’ included in a financing scheme.”[1]
This is only one portion of Turnbull’s strategy. Another is a no mean effort at censorship in an attempt to minimise the effects of climate change on Australia’s environment.  The current prime minister is, after all, a businessman, and while he lauds efforts of Australian “innovation” in solar energy, ironically much of it being done in other countries, he is also happy to remove references to climate change when needed.
Guardian Australia scored something of a coup on this tendency in obtaining the UNESCO report on tourism and climate change at the end of last month.  Titled “World heritage and tourism in a changing climate,” it was modified to incorporate Australian objections.
The draft report, to that end, looks somewhat different to its final form.  One had just to ask the lead author of the report, Adam Markham of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who expressed profound shock at “the reasons the Australian government gave for why they pressured UNESCO to drop the Australian sites.”[2]
Portions removed in the final report include reference to the dangers posed to the Great Barrier Reef.  “The biggest long-term threat to the GBR today, and to its ecosystems services, biodiversity, heritage values and tourism economy is climate change, including rising sea temperatures, accelerating rates of sea-level rise, changing weather patterns and ocean acidification.”[3]
The section concluded that “without a comprehensive response more in keeping with the scale of the threat, the [reef]’s extraordinary biodiversity and natural beauty may lose its world heritage values.”
In addition to this excision came two other sections.  The Tasmanian wilderness, for one, receives no mention as being under threat, despite the appalling fires in early 2016.
David Bowman, professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania noted the “root cause” behind the fire season as being “the record-breaking dry spring and the largely rain-free and consistently warm summer, which has left fuels and peat soils bone dry.”[4]  Far from seeing the Tasmanian fires in isolation, their severity had to be considered as part of “a global pattern of increasing destructive fires driven by extreme fire weather.”
Dr. Michael-Shawn Fletcher of the University of Melbourne would similarly observe in February that the frequency of bushfires in Tasmania had become exceptional.  “My conviction,” he gloomily noted, “is that the current trend is evidence of anthropogenic forces.”[5]
The response from the Tasmanian Liberal premier, one that Turnbull has aped, was to deny that there was any serious problem.  The fire, he claimed in February, burned some 1.2 per cent of the world heritage zone.  While “not insignificant […] it could have been much worse.”[6]
Environmental groups disagreed in what became a public relations war of images on forest destruction. “It’s damn ordinary,” shot back the premier, “that you’ve got environmental activists almost gleefully capitalising on images, naturally caused, which could inflict significant damage on our brand, our reputation.”[7]
The deleted section on Tasmania in the UNESCO report is cognisant of the “2013 assessment of climate change threat [which] identified the same habitats as at high risk from greater fire frequency and drier conditions, with likely catastrophic implications for fauna.”  The calamitous fires of January 2016 bore out those “dire predictions”.
Warnings about Kakadu national park similarly vanished in the penultimate report. “Climate change threatens Aboriginal traditional use by altering the ecosystems of the vast wetlands of Kakadu and raising temperatures to a level likely to lead to more intense fire regimes.”
Brands, reputations, labels, and management.  Do not kick up a fuss and damage reputations.  Those are the guiding words and principles in the Turnbull environmental protocol.  Rather than providing genuine policy, these constitute the fundamentals of managing decline.  And, in that universe, if profit can be made along the way, so much the better.

*Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne: bkampmark@gmail.com

Links

• Targeting Climate Change Scientists: The CSIRO Folly in Australia
• Fossils of the Day: Saudi Arabia, Australia and “The Spoilers” at the COP21 Paris Climate Summit