Sunday, October 7, 2007

America's growing awareness as its role as "resource hog"

From: Russell McCulley

U.S. finally taking warming seriously: Gorbachev

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Much time has been lost in the fight to stop global warming, but the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has finally begun to take the problem seriously, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Friday.

He made his comments in New Orleans, which is recovering from Hurricane Katrina, the powerful 2005 storm that some experts have said was part of a trend toward stronger and more frequent hurricanes due to man-made warming.

"I'm sorry the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol," Gorbachev said, referring to the international accord to reduce emissions of gases that contribute to global warming.

"But I see that the U.S. position is changing, that the U.S. is making serious proposals that will be important in the future," he told Reuters through a translator.

"We have lost and we are still losing time," said the 76-year-old Gorbachev, who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. He heads environmental group Green Cross International and was in town for its international general assembly.

"We are facing a conflict between men and the rest of nature. We have come to a red line in that conflict," he later told reporters.

The Bush administration, which refused to join in the Kyoto Protocol, has been skeptical about the effect of human activity on global warming, but recently hosted an international meeting about it.

President George W. Bush called for a long-term goal to reduce warming, but did not endorse mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

A branch of Green Cross -- Global Green USA -- has been working on projects to rebuild New Orleans in an environmentally friendly way. Actor Brad Pitt, who has a house in New Orleans' French Quarter, has been involved in some of the work.

Green Cross, founded by Gorbachev in 1992, held its assembly in New Orleans to highlight the city's needs and the "green" possibilities there.

"It took just a couple of weeks to find billions of dollars -- hundreds of billions of dollars -- to fight the war," Gorbachev said, apparently referring to U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"But here, the urgency is tremendous, and I think that what will be happening to New Orleans will be a test, a benchmark, of what we are worth as human beings," Gorbachev said.

World moves into the ecological red

From: Jeremy Lovell, Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The world moved into "ecological overdraft" on Saturday, the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the red, the New Economics Foundation think-tank said.

Ecological Debt Day this year is three days earlier than in 2006 which itself was three days earlier than in 2005. NEF said the date had moved steadily backwards every year since humanity began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980s.

"As the world creeps closer to irreversible global warming and goes deeper into ecological debt, why on earth, say, would the UK export 20 tonnes of mineral water to Australia and then re-import 21 tonnes," said NEF director Andrew Simms.

"And why would that wasteful trade be more the rule than the exception," he added.

Not only was there a massive gulf between rich and poor but there were deep variations in environmental profligacy between the rich countries, NEF said.

If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in the United States it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them, NEF said, noting that the figure was 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan.

But if everyone emulated China, which is building a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it would take only 0.9 of a planet.

The NEF report comes as diplomatic momentum builds for UN environment ministers meeting in December on the Indonesian island of Bali to agree to start talks on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change that expires in 2012.

Governments have started to sit up and take heed as global public opinion begins calling for urgent action to tackle what has been described as the biggest threat facing humanity.

But there is still no meeting of minds between the world's biggest carbon polluter, the United States, and booming emitters like China and India; both sides insisting that the other make the first move.

But the NEF report "Chinadependence" noted that Britain among others was understating its carbon emissions because it in effect exported its smokestack industries to China in the 1990s and was now importing products it would have been making itself.

"As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues," said Simms. "First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States."

"Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China.

"Because of the way that data on carbon emissions gets collected at the international level, this has the effect of 'carbon laundering' economies like those of Britain and the U.S.," he added.

1.4 million in China flee deadly storm

CNN

More than 1.4 million people evacuated as storm hits China's coast
Five killed in Taiwan after Typhoon Krosa strikes Saturday
Typhoon weakens to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 66 mph

PHOTOS

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A storm drenched China's southeast on Sunday after killing five people on Taiwan and prompting the evacuation of 1.4 million people on the mainland, officials said. In Vietnam, the death toll from a separate storm rose to 55.

A giant wave whipped up by Typhoon Krosa hits the shore near the Nanfangaou harbor in eastern Taiwan.

more photos »

Krosa came ashore as a typhoon in China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, but weakened and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

It said no deaths or injuries were reported, but the storm wrecked houses and knocked out power in the port city of Wenzhou as torrential rains swept the region.

More than 1.4 million people were evacuated from coastal areas, including more than 500,000 tourists who were at beach resorts for the National Day holiday week, Xinhua said.

Some 75,000 fishing vessels in the two provinces were ordered back to port and trips by ferries and sightseeing boats were canceled, the agency said.

Krosa -- the Cambodian word for crane -- killed five people Saturday on Taiwan as it knocked out power to 2 million homes and soaked the island, according to Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center.

Two men were killed in suburban Taipei when a landslide buried their house, the center said. A man died after falling from his balcony in Hsinchu and a woman was electrocuted after falling from her motorcycle in Tainan. A man's body was also recovered from a hostel that was hit by a landslide in Ilan and another man was missing.

Early Sunday, China's coast guard rescued 27 sailors from a Hong Kong freighter that suffered mechanical failure after it was hit by the storm off Wenzhou, Xinhua said.

In Shanghai, where the Special Olympics is taking place, the city government canceled vacations for flood-control workers and was drafting plans to drain competition sites, the agency said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Typhoon Lekima, which hit Vietnam's central coast late Wednesday, rose to 55, with another 16 people missing, officials said Sunday.

The death toll in Vietnam's worst-hit central province of Nghe An rose to 22 after eight more bodies were discovered over the past two days, said provincial disaster official Pham Hong Thuong.

"Communication to many parts of the province is still cut off," Thuong said. "The death toll is likely to rise."

Lekima, named after a local fruit, also damaged about 77,000 homes, the government said.

Flooding cuts off thousands in Vietnam

NGHIA DAN, Vietnam (Reuters) - A typhoon followed by floods and landslides killed up to 30 people in Vietnam with many missing and some villages cut off and inundated by water, officials said on Saturday.

A dyke on the Buoi river in the northern province of Thanh Hoa broke, causing extensive flooding, a government report said.

On Friday, officials said that police and soldiers helped move about 22,000 people to higher ground away from a dam in the same province.

Floods and landslides hit Thanh Hoa and central Nghe An province hardest in the days after typhoon Lekima swept in from the sea on Wednesday night, dumping torrential rain and wind blowing the roofs off thousands of dwellings.

Up to 30 people have been killed either by the typhoon or flooding, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted the national rescue committee as saying.

Seven people were killed in the storm and 11 others in flooding, the national Dyke Management, Flood and Storm Control Committee said earlier.

"The flooding and rain are still very unpredictable, so all provinces and agencies should follow instructions," a government report said on Saturday.

A Reuters cameraman and photographer said from central Nghe An province that although water levels receded Saturday, at least three villages were isolated because of roads made impassable by landslides.

Officials said they were having difficulty providing emergency supplies to thousands of people.

The government said preliminary damages from the typhoon, the fifth of 2007, stood at 659 billion dong ($41 million).

The storm and floods destroyed about 100,000 homes mainly in central provinces and 15,000 ha of rice crops.

The three-month flood and storm season often ends this month in Vietnam, which faces up to 10 storms a year, causing millions of dollars in damage and killing hundreds of people.

(Additional reporting by Nguyen Van Vinh and Nguyen Huy Kham)

Typhoon hits Taiwan

From: Faith Hung and Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Typhoon Krosa slammed into Taiwan on Saturday, with strong winds and heavy rains cutting power and cancelling flights while mainland China braced for what it called a serious impact.

Authorities in China ordered the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian to call more than 27,000 fishing boats back to safe harbors, Xinhua said.

In Taiwan, disaster authorities said the storm shut down schools and businesses in the north of the country.

"The wind is tremendous here, and we've lost power," said Chuang Min-hsiang, of Taitung. "We're all at home doing work to protect ourselves from the typhoon."

Three people were hurt, the National Fire Agency said.

A service staff member at Taipei's Kaohsiung airport said more than 10 international flights were cancelled on Saturday.

EVA Airways, Taiwan's No. 2 international carrier, cancelled most of its afternoon flights, according to TV reports.

Northern Taiwan's main port in Keelung was closed at 6 a.m.

British typhoon tracking system Tropical Storm Risk (http://tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/) called Krosa a category 4 typhoon.

Krosa was 160 km (100 miles) off the coast of Taiwan at 0200 GMT on Saturday (10 p.m. EDT on Friday) after picking up strength throughout the week, and was packing sustained winds of 184 kph (114 mph) and gusts of up to 227 kph (140 mph), Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau reported.

Tropical Storm Risk said Krosa was expected to weaken to a category 3 storm by early Sunday morning and a category 2 storm by Sunday, when it was expected to hit Zhejiang province of China, before heading northeast toward Fukuoka.

Xinhua news agency reported that tours during its week-long holidays were cancelled in Zhejiang's coastal area and all holiday-makers evacuated from the islands.

Zhejiang officials warned that Krosa was likely to make landfall there as early as Sunday morning, and parts of the province were already enduring torrential rain on Saturday night.

Likewise, neighboring Fujian province cancelled coastal tours and sent tourists to safer areas.

Shanghai, which will host a Formula One car race on Sunday, also braced for harsh weather, possibly later that day.

Typhoons regularly hit China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan from August through the end of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific or the South China Sea before weakening over land.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing)

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Bird deaths stir oversight for U.S. wind power

From: Leonard Anderson, Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The growing U.S. wind power industry is drawing increased scrutiny from states and the federal government over the problem of spinning wind turbines killing birds.

The California Energy Commission last week adopted voluntary guidelines to reduce wind energy effects on wildlife, and Washington state, Montana and Texas among other states are reviewing measures.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the Department of the Interior, also is developing voluntary procedures for wind projects, a spokeswoman said.

Wind power, which is expected to increase by 26 percent in power generating capacity this year, is mostly unregulated in the United States except by county boards, city councils and local planning commissions.

Wind energy accounts for less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity supply -- enough power to serve 3 million households.

A study issued by the National Academy of Sciences in May said the percentage of birds and bats killed by collisions with wind towers and spinning turbine blades was small compared with kills from vehicles and buildings.

No one knows the actual number of birds killed by wind turbines, but estimates range from 30,000 to 60,000 a year, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

The wildlife group, in testimony to Congress in May, estimated that adding more wind power over the next 20 years to help meet a goal of 20 percent renewable energy supplies by 2030 could kill 900,000 to 1.8 million birds a year.

The California measures aim to help wind developers site and build emissions-free energy while protecting wildlife, said Julia Levin, global warming climate change director for the National Audubon Society.

"Without guidelines, controversies and conflicts between wind developers and wildlife groups will only get worse and slow down projects and make it harder to get financing," Levin said in an interview.

FEDERAL & STATE LAWS

The California steps tell counties and cities what is needed to comply with the state's Environmental Quality Act and how to meet other laws, including state and federal wildlife measures, the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and endangered species laws.

The California Energy Commission and the state's Department of Fish and Game began work on the guidelines after the CEC published a report on bird deaths at one of the biggest wind farms in the nation.

The study estimated that as many as 4,700 birds from 40 different species, including 1,300 protected raptors, were killed annually by turbine blades at the Altamont Pass wind center about 50 miles east of San Francisco.

Altamont Pass is along a Pacific Coast migratory path for raptors and near a nesting area for golden eagles, hawks, falcons and owls.

The yearly death toll included more than 100 golden eagles plus red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls, kestrels and meadowlarks, according to the Audubon Society.

FPL Energy, the largest U.S. wind energy company, and other developers at Altamont Pass are working to cut bird deaths in half by 2009 and joining with the Audubon Society and local government to come up with a long-term environmental protection plan, said Elizabeth Murdock, executive director of Golden Gate Audubon.

The plan's key efforts are "repowering" Altamont Pass with fewer but more efficient wind turbines with high blades that spin above the birds' flight paths, and shutting down part of the wind farm during winter.

Florida-based FPL Energy has set a goal of adding between 8,000 and 10,000 megawatts of new wind power in the U.S. by the end of 2012.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Activist Ted Glick on 32nd Day of “Climate Emergency Fast” to Protest Washington Inaction on Global Warming

Democracynow.org

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Ted Glick is the coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council. He is on the 32nd day of a fast to protest the failure of lawmakers in Washington to address climate change. [includes rush transcript]

The United Nations emergency relief coordinator has warned the world has seen a record number of floods, droughts and storms caused by climate change this year. Sir John Holmes told the Guardian newspaper that the dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has issued a record 13 emergency appeals this year. All but one of the appeals dealt with a climate-related disaster.The UN believes 66 million people were made homeless or were affected by the catastrophic flooding in Asia this year. Just this week, the UN issued a call for emergency funds for Ghana, where flooding has left more than 400,000 people homeless.

Our next guest, Ted Glick, is the coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council. He is on the 32nd day of a fast to protest the failure of lawmakers in Washington to address climate change. Ted Glick is also helping to organize the No War, No Warming action in Washington on October 22.

Ted Glick. Coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and is on the 32nd day of a Climate Emergency Fast. He is helping to organize a No War, No Warming nonviolent civil disobedience action on Capitol Hill on October 22nd.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: The United Nations emergency relief coordinator has warned the world has seen a record number of floods, droughts and storms caused by climate change this year. Sir John Holmes told the Guardian newspaper the dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has issued a record thirteen emergency appeals this year. All but one of the appeals dealt with a climate-related disaster. The UN believes 66 million people were made homeless or were affected by the catastrophic flooding in Asia this year. Just this week, the UN issued a call for emergency funds for Ghana, where flooding has left more than 400,000 people homeless.

Our next guest, Ted Glick, is the coordinator of the US Climate Emergency Council. He is on the thirty-second day of a water-only fast to protest the failure of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to address climate change. Ted Glick is also helping to organize the No War, No Warming action in Washington on October 22. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Ted.

TED GLICK: Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it.

AMY GOODMAN: I saw you in Newark, New Jersey at an antiwar protest. You are a lot thinner now. How much weight have you lost?

TED GLICK: I lost about thirty pounds.

AMY GOODMAN: Where are you doing this?

TED GLICK: One thing I do want to correct: I fasted on water only for twenty-five days; since then I’m now onto liquids. I’m taking fruit and vegetable juices and miso broth, but I am continuing the fast. I have no plans for when I’m going to end it.

This is a climate emergency fast that was begun on September 4th, the day that the US Congress came back into session after its summer recess. Both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid said prior to the opening of that fall session that they wanted to have global warming legislation passed this fall. It should be noted, Nancy Pelosi said when she came into office back in January that she wanted to have global warming legislation passed by July 4th. That didn’t happen.

It should also be noted that this summer, there were two versions of a energy bill passed: one by the Senate, one by the House. They're not the same. It’s now a month. It’s now a month since this Congress came back, and nothing is happening as far as moving forward to try to reconcile the two versions of that energy bill. Neither -- the Republicans are dragging their feet, and the Democrats are not using the power that they have to move this forward.

As far as global warming legislation, there are committees that are meeting, there a variety of different pieces of legislation that have been introduced. The best one, the strongest one, is the Safe Climate Act, as it’s called in the House. It has 140 co-sponsors, introduced by Henry Waxman. It would reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and begin the process within a year or two of passage of reducing emissions, which is absolutely what we have to do.

But it’s committee work that’s going on. I went to Capitol Hill about two weeks ago. I went around to about fifteen offices in the House and the Senate, talking to key people who are involved in these efforts to come up with climate legislation. I came away from that convinced that barring basically a grassroots political uprising, barring people in this country demanding of their senators and their congress people that they get it on the urgency of this crisis, that we will be lucky to see any bill coming out of committee and onto one of the floors of Congress before sometime next year. There is no sense of urgency about the climate crisis. Just as we see with the war, there is no sense of the need to get our troops out and to take whatever actions are necessary, when it comes to the Democratic Party leadership and the few Republicans who are willing to also move in that direction. So there is a need for, quite frankly, more extreme actions.

I’ll admit that a fast is extreme. It’s something you do -- a lot of fasts tend to come from prisoners. I was in prison myself during the Vietnam War for about a year. My first hunger strike was with Father Philip Berrigan during my time in Danbury Federal Prison. That’s where usually hunger strikes come from. But I became involved with this action, and other people have participated in this action, because in many ways we are in a prison right now. We have a federal government that is ignoring the needs of the American people, conducting an illegal war, doing very little in terms of responding to the urgency on climate crisis, on one issue after the other. We are in many ways in a prison. So this fast is a way of saying, “Let's step it up. Let's move the agenda. Let's do more than we’ve done.” That’s what I’m trying to get across in the strongest way that I know how.

AMY GOODMAN: And your plan for October 22nd?

TED GLICK: October 22nd is the primary action that No War, No Warming is organizing here in Washington, D.C. There will be many hundreds, hopefully thousands, of people, who on that Monday, on a day that Congress is in session, are going to be up on Capitol Hill. We’re going to be erecting windmill blockades in intersections. We’re going to be sitting in front of doors. There will be bicycle blockades. There will be various creative nonviolent actions to let this Congress know that people are really outraged at the lack of action on the war, the lack of action on global warming, the lack of action on putting resources into New Orleans, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, putting resources into communities that need them, healthcare, education. It goes right down the line. These people need to understand we’re angry, we’re not going to just sit back and do the same old things. We’re willing to step it up. We’re willing to use our bodies. That’s what I’m doing with this fast and what I hope many other people will do in the ways that they can and join with us on October 22nd in D.C., as well as around the country. There’s actions around the country, part of No War, No Warming. There’s more information at our website, nowarnowarming.org.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, Ted Glick. Thank you for joining us, coordinator of the US Climate Emergency Council on the thirty-second day of a climate emergency fast. Please take care of yourself.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

Worst floods to hit Africa in decades

NEWS AFRICA
Floods hit large parts of Africa
Media Blackout of disaster in West
Al Jazeera, Qatar

International aid agencies are calling for more help as floods continue to devastate large areas of Africa.

Dozens have died and an estimated one million people have been affected by the prolonged rains.

In the east of the continent, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda are the worst hit countries, with at least 87 people dead. Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda have also been affected.

After days of heavy rain, tributaries that flow into the Nile have burst their banks, flooding villages in Uganda's Lira district.

The heaviest rainfall in 35 years has displaced at least 150,000 people in eastern Uganda, and, according to authorities, the rain has been "worsening by the hour".

Crops destroyed

Rising flood waters have resulted in as many as 400,000 people losing their livelihoods due to crops being destroyed, Musa Ecweri, the state minister for relief and disaster preparedness, said.

Nine peope died after being washed away by floodwater or struck by lightning during violent storms.

Ecweru said the death toll was expected to rise, with rain still falling across large areas of the region.

Niels Scott, from the International Federation for the Red Cross in Geneva, told Al Jazeera: "We've already started... to provide shelter equipment, mosquito nets and tarpaulin.

"Many of them have lost their houses... they've lost grain stores, they've lost their livelihoods.

"They're looking at a very grim six months. They've got the immediate future to worry about and then they've... got to prepare for the next growing season."

Landslides

Aid organisations have stepped up efforts to get food and clean water to villagers, but landslides triggered by additional rainfall have washed away roads and aid access is currently limited, officials said.

Gilbert Buzu of the World Food Programme, said: "You will find water flowing over the bridge and in some areas people are using dugout boats to cross the bridge and, of course, that makes it very impossible for the trucks to move through."

The UN is expected to send helicopters and boats to boost relief efforts.

Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan are also affected, with hundreds of thousands now at risk of water-borne disease.

Ghana floods

In West Africa, 12 countries are flood-affected, with Ghana and Nigeria sustaining the heaviest damage.

Eighteen people are reported to have been killed after floods hit dozens of villages in northern Ghana.

Local residents said the death toll may rise further.

More than 250,000 people have reportedly lost their houses in the floods.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Climate change disaster is upon us, warns UN

· Emergency relief chief calls for swift action
· 12 out of 13 'flash' appeals in 2007 related to weather

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, UK

A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change "mega disaster", the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.

Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That's why we're trying ... to say, of course you've got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already," he said.

As a measure of the worsening situation, Ocha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - part of the UN secretariat that employs Sir John - has issued 13 emergency "flash" appeals so far this year. The number is three more than in 2005, which held the previous record.

Two years ago only half the international disasters dealt with by Ocha had anything to do with the climate; this year all but one of the 13 emergency appeals is climate-related. "And 2007 is not finished. We will certainly have more by the end of the year, I fear," added Sir John, who is in charge of channelling international relief efforts to disaster areas.

More appeals were likely in the coming weeks, as floods hit west Africa. "All these events on their own didn't have massive death tolls, but if you add all these little disasters together you get a mega disaster," he said.

The only one of this year's emergency appeals not connected to the climate was an earthquake in Peru, in August. The others arose after an unprecedented string of catastrophic floods across much of Africa, south Asia and North Korea, and followed severe drought in southern Africa, Nicaragua's category-five hurricane, and extreme climate conditions in Bolivia, which brought both drought and floods.

The Ocha appeals represent the tip of an iceberg since they are launched only with the agreement of the affected country. India was badly affected by floods that hit the rest of the Asian region in July. But unlike its neighbour, Pakistan, India did not call on the UN for help.

Ocha believes that 66 million people were made homeless or were otherwise affected across south Asia. The lives of several million more people were turned upside down across Africa. Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia and Uganda experienced disastrous floods, and Swaziland and Lesotho declared emergencies because of severe drought that reduced harvests by half.

The latest appeal from Ocha was launched yesterday, to try to raise emergency relief funds for Ghana, where more than 400,000 people are reported to be homeless as a result of flooding. Appeals may also be started for Togo and Burkina Faso.

"The flooding in Africa just now is the worst anyone can remember," Sir John said, expressing frustration at how little media attention in the west was being devoted to what he terms creeping climatic catastrophe.

Flooding is likely to be common for a warming planet, and climate change has a double effect - causing an increase in the frequency of storms, while higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide curb the ability of plants to draw groundwater.

A climate-change summit is to be held in Bali in December, with the aim of agreeing the principles of a new international treaty to replace Kyoto, the accord that expires in 2012. But the talks face determined US opposition to mandatory emissions targets, and most climate negotiators doubt a real breakthrough can be achieved before the Bush government leaves office in 2009.

Sir John argues that whatever is done on greenhouse gas emissions, money has to be spent now on mitigating the impact that climate change is already having. "You can't actually stop disasters happening but you can do a lot to reduce their impact and reduce people's vulnerability to them by making sure people don't live on the coast or river plains, and that roads are raised and dams are in reasonable shape."

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is leading research on the issue, global warming will disrupt and potentially devastate the lives of billions of people.

And, just as global warming starts to make itself felt, there are signs that "donor fatigue" has set in. Of about $338m (£166m) requested for Ocha's 13 flash appeals this year, only $114m has so far come from donors

Another warm winter seen for much of U.S.

From: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Long-range weather forecasts are predicting a warmer than average winter with less precipitation for much of the United States except the Pacific Northwest.

"It will be a lot like last year but the climate models are even more in agreement now than they were last fall," said Mike Halpert, head of forecast operations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.

"Temperatures will be warmer than average in most places except the northwest of the country, which could see some cold."

Forecasters believe the emergence of a La Nina condition -- unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean -- will be the main factor behind the anticipated warmth for much of North America.

"Computer models that simulate La Nina conditions have come up with an overwhelming consensus of above-normal warmth for a large part of the (energy) consuming east and back into the southern Rockies," said Jim Rouiller, senior energy weather forecaster at Planalytics in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

The forecast warmth could come as a relief to heating oil consumers who are facing higher prices with crude oil trading above $80 per barrel and lower fuel inventories. Distillate fuel stocks, which include heating oil, are 13 million barrels lower than last year, according to U.S. government data.

Private weather forecaster WSI Corp warned last week that while temperatures in the Northeastern United States, home to the world's largest heating oil market, may be cooler than normal in October, the chill was unlikely to last long enough to deplete burgeoning natural gas inventories.

"Typically, in the eastern U.S., La Nina means a warm October and a cold December," WSI forecaster Todd Crawford said, but added that cold ocean temperatures in the northern Pacific indicate a colder October than would normally be forecast.

U.S. natural gas inventories grew by 57 billion cubic feet in the week to September 28, the U.S. government reported Thursday. The increase was less than had been expected by analysts, but overall stocks are 7.5 percent above the five-year average for this time of year.

Typhoon Lekima Kills 12 in Southeast Asia

From: Reuters

KY ANH, Vietnam - Typhoon Lekima lashed Vietnam and southern China with torrential rains and high winds, killing at least seven people, damaging hundreds of homes and disrupting air, sea and train travel, officials said on Thursday.

The storm, which killed at least five people in the Philippines last weekend, swept into central Vietnam from the sea on Wednesday night, blowing roofs off houses, sinking scores of fishing vessels and grounding flights before moving to Laos.

The typhoon raised rivers to dangerous levels in Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces, but the damage caused was not as serious as feared.

"Thanks to good preparatory work the damage from the storm is not large," Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, supervising the response to the storm, told Reuters TV in Ky Anh in Ha Tinh.

Trees were felled and electricity cut off in the provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh where residents returned to clean up debris after evacuating on Wednesday.

A Vietnamese government report said many areas reported blackouts due to Lekima, the Vietnamese name of a local fruit.

The national weather centre in Hanoi warned residents to take precautions against flash floods and landslides.

It said the centre of the storm passed through Quang Binh, crossed Laos on Wednesday night and advanced into northern Thailand where it weakened into a depression.

Vietnam is hit by up to 10 storms a year, causing millions of dollars in damage and sometimes killing hundreds of people.

Lekima, the fifth storm of 2007, killed 7 people, while 3 others were missing, officials said.

The storm hit China's beach resort of Sanya on Hainan island on Tuesday, trapping tourists and forcing the evacuation of 225,000 people. Vietnamese authorities evacuated tens of thousands of people before the storm hit.

Three cargo vessels capsized while taking shelter at a port in Quang Binh, a Reuters reporter traveling in the region said.

National carrier Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines, the

second-largest airliner, cancelled flights to the central cities of Vinh, Hue and Danang on Wednesday.

The southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi were hit with heavy rain and strong winds.

Most shipping and rail services linking Hainan with the mainland resumed late on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency said.

(Additional reporting by Nguyen Van Vinh)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Melting ice cap brings diamond hunters and hopes of independence to Greenland

Arctic Ministers hope potential mineral wealth and hydro-electricity will allow nation to break free from Denmark

Paul Brown in Greenland
The Guardian, UK

Changing landscape - an iceberg off Ammassalik island, Greenland. Native people are being forced to retrain as their traditional livelihood disappears along with the ice. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

Helicopters have been hard to hire in Greenland this summer. In most countries that would not be a big problem, but for the locals on the world's biggest island - where there are no road networks and sparse settlements are often 100 miles apart - it can make life tricky.

The scarcity has been caused by a diamond rush with prospectors, mostly from North America, believing they can strike it rich. As the ice cap recedes due to rising temperatures, rock covered for centuries could produce spectacular finds. The interest in the Greenland tundra was sparked partly by the announcement this year of the discovery of a 2.4-carat diamond at Garnet lake in west Greenland, the largest of 236 diamonds found in a trial dig in the area by Hudson Resources of Vancouver.

While the Hudson company was willing to announce its find, presumably to encourage its investors, most prospectors are less keen to discuss their activities in this vast mineral rich wilderness.

The belief in Greenland's potential riches stems from the fact that the geology is identical to that found across the now ice-free north-west passage in Canada, which has led to large opencast mining in the Arctic region.

But Greenland has other potential riches too. Gold has been discovered and is already being mined, although so far at a loss, and there are deposits of other minerals such as zinc, that could be exploited. Oil giants are negotiating licences to explore blocks of the coastline covering thousands of square miles.

The dash for minerals is fuelling another debate in Greenland: whether the country should go for independence from Denmark. With its 56,000 population scattered over an area almost the size of Europe, Greenland is heavily dependent on a subsidy from Denmark for survival. The island has internal self-government but Denmark is responsible for foreign policy.

Aleqa Hammond, the foreign minister in Greenland's home-rule government, hopes that the oil and mineral companies moving in will create sufficient wealth for her country to break from colonial rule. "It is natural for a country to want to be independent. We do not feel ourselves part of Europe - we are an Arctic people - but our way of life is changing and we have to change with it. My mother's generation fought for Greenland homeland government and achieved it in 1979, leaving only foreign affairs and defence in the hands of Denmark.

"Then, we could not strike out alone because we were so heavily dependent on Danish money, and we still are, but we can change that by exploiting our natural resources to achieve financial and political independence."

But some argue that independence has dangers. Greenland is the land mass closest to the North Pole and has rapidly assumed greater strategic importance as its much more powerful and populous neighbours vie for a slice of the Arctic's supposed mineral wealth. The United States is strengthening its air base at Thule on the extreme north of the island and the Russians have already planted flags on the sea bed.

But rather than putting her faith in mineral wealth, Mrs Hammond believes that her country's best prospect of buying its independence lies in hydro-electricity. The vast lakes and melting ice cap provide enormous potential for electricity free from fossil fuel and the Greenland government is negotiating with Alcoa, an aluminium company, to built the world's second largest smelter. No contract has been signed but the minister hopes this project will provide 3,500 much-needed jobs.

It was ironic, she says, that climate change had melted the ice sufficiently for prospectors to move in, and that might in turn give the nation its independence. A referendum in Denmark had shown a majority in favour of granting Greenland home rule. "We hope it will happen soon."

But Professor Minik Rosing, of the University of Copenhagen, who was born in Greenland, believes it would be a disaster if his country had a big oil find and used the revenue to buy independence. "As everybody gets more desperate for that commodity you do not want to be a very, very small, very independent country, very far from anywhere else. Much better to stay with the friend you know."

A major mineral find could be catastrophic, he said. "With such a small population we could be overwhelmed by people coming to work here. We should be cautious of suddenly finding ourselves in the minority."

Aqqaluk Lynge, an Inuit leader and former chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is also cautious about independence. "Frankly I think it is still a long way off. We do not want to rush into these things. We need to avoid conflict and assess exactly what the resources and options are before we make decisions."

Mrs Hammond's government has introduced education programmes so that native hunters can retrain to prepare for new lives and independence. "The fact is we cannot go on as we are," she said. "The hunters wait one month later for the ice to form and it melts one month earlier in the spring. It is like an employer taking away three months of your pay without notice. They cannot find enough food for themselves and their dogs. Less than 500 of the whole population can now survive only by hunting."

The Global Warming Archive