The Threats (Part II)

(The Human Touch Contd...)

What they have done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her
and did her,
Stuck her with knives in the side of the
dawn,
And tied her with fences and dragged her
down.
(Sang Jim Morrison, American singer in his 1967 song ‘When the Music’s Over’)

-According to Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), in the year 2000, a total renewable water resource of Egypt was 58.3 cubic km. Its irrigation requirement was 28.43 cubic km or 53% of its renewable resources then. But the amount of water it withdrew was 53.85 cubic km which stands at 92% as a percentage of its renewable water resources.

- In April 2007, the National Geographic News reported early arrival of spring to the western slope of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Recent studies suggest less of a temperature difference between winter and summer. Summer, fall, and winter have all started 1.7 days earlier this year. All these are signs of the world getting warmer at a faster pace.

-At the 2008 Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, from 15–19 December in San Francisco, scientists warned that, in California, extreme events such as heat-waves now occurring once every 100 years could be happening every year within a century.

-On February 3, 2009 National Geographic News reported volcanic smoke and gas from two new holes on Alaska's Redoubt Volcano—one of them (left) about the size of a football field. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) confirms increasing volcanic unrest at Redoubt Volcano.

-- The Guardian reported on February 18, 2009 that IPCC’s computer models had calculated an average loss of 2.5% in sea ice extent per decade from 1953 to 2006. But in reality the Arctic sea ice had declined at a rate of about 7.8% per decade. New researches reveal that melt-water pooling on the Arctic sea ice is causing it to melt at a faster pace.

-India’s agricultural production has been consistently on the decline in recent years and is growing at less than a quarter the pace of the Indian economy. Annual per capita food grain production declined from 207 kilograms (455 pounds) in 1995 to 186 kilograms in 2006. The rate of agricultural growth has fallen from 5% in the mid-1980s to less than 2% (average) in the past half-decade. Despite building of huge dams it continues to be hostage to the vagaries of the monsoon. Not a happy sign for a country of every seventh human being.

-Climate change does not simply floods or droughts. It can cause epic devastation involving super cyclones, extreme weather, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond our imagination. It can pose existential threat to our coastal regions and ruin our agriculture by causing moisture -salinity imbalance in the soil. Projections show extinction of more than 5000 useful plant and animal species mainly due to the loss of suitable habitats.

- The Technical Paper on Climate Change of Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) shows substantial spatial and intensity variation in precipitation just in a matter of decades due to global warming. It is projected to increase the risks of flooding and drought in many areas, and in turn decreased food security. The quantity and even quality of water will be affected as a result of this. Already about 25% of the contemporary African population experiences water stress. By 2025, water availability in nine countries, mainly in eastern and southern Africa, is projected to be less than 1,000 cubic metre/person/yr. By 2020s there is an increased risk of winter flood in northern Europe and of flash flood in all of Europe.

- The same report says precipitation decline and droughts in deltas of Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and China have caused drying of wetlands and severe degradation of ecosystems. The recurrent droughts from 1999 to 2001, the construction of upstream reservoirs and improper use of groundwater have led to drying of the Momoge Wetland located in the Songnen Plain in north-eastern China.

The Nature says the warming caused by greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, is the main reason behind these changes. But the most worrying perhaps has been the surge in atmospheric concentrations of methane, a gas with a warming potential twenty-three times that of carbon dioxide. The extensive release of gaseous methane from formerly frozen deposits off the Siberian coast is of serious concern given this background.