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Thu, Apr 17, 2014
from University of Minnesota:
People of color live in neighborhoods with more air pollution than whites, groundbreaking U.S. study shows
A first-of-its-kind study has found that on average in the U.S., people of color are exposed to 38 percent higher levels of nitrogen dioxide outdoor air pollution compared to white people. The health impacts from the difference in levels between whites and nonwhites found in the study are substantial. For example, researchers estimate that if nonwhites breathed the lower NO2 levels experienced by whites, it would prevent 7,000 deaths from heart disease alone among nonwhites each year.
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Land of the free, brave and victimized.
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Thu, Dec 5, 2013
from The Nation:
The Pope Versus Unfettered Capitalism
Condemning the "new tyranny" of unfettered capitalism and the "idolatry of money," Pope Francis argues in a newly circulated apostolic exhortation that "as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems."...
"Such an economy kills," he explains. "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape."
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What is he, some kind of religious zealot?
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Wed, Oct 16, 2013
from New York Times:
How to Feed the World
"Feeding the world" might as well be a marketing slogan for Big Ag, a euphemism for "Let's ramp up sales," as if producing more cars would guarantee that everyone had one. But if it worked that way, surely the rate of hunger in the United States would not be the highest percentage of any developed nation, a rate closer to that of Indonesia than of Britain....
While a billion people are hungry, about three billion people are not eating well, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, if you count obese and overweight people alongside those with micronutrient deficiencies. Paradoxically, as increasing numbers of people can afford to eat well, food for the poor will become scarcer, because demand for animal products will surge, and they require more resources like grain to produce....
Let's at last recognize that there are two food systems, one industrial and one of small landholders, or peasants if you prefer. The peasant system is not only here for good, it's arguably more efficient than the industrial model. According to the ETC Group, a research and advocacy organization based in Ottawa, the industrial food chain uses 70 percent of agricultural resources to provide 30 percent of the world's food, whereas what ETC calls "the peasant food web" produces the remaining 70 percent using only 30 percent of the resources. ...
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Peasants of the world, unite!
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Sat, Feb 9, 2013
from Lester Brown, via TreeHugger.com:
New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed Civilizations
This new era is one of rising food prices and spreading hunger. On the demand side of the food equation, population growth, rising affluence, and the conversion of food into fuel for cars are combining to raise consumption by record amounts. On the supply side, extreme soil erosion, growing water shortages, and the earth's rising temperature are making it more difficult to expand production. Unless we can reverse such trends, food prices will continue to rise and hunger will continue to spread, eventually bringing down our social system. Can we reverse these trends in time? Or is food the weak link in our early twenty-first-century civilization, much as it was in so many of the earlier civilizations whose archeological sites we now study? ...
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More than an "echo," I'm afraid the rising feedbacks will amplify themselves into a final, desperate, shrieking scream. That, or we could just start changing things, today.
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Mon, Jan 21, 2013
from The Daily Climate:
Sustainable development efforts mostly fail, research finds
World leaders have so far failed to raise people out of poverty by economic development while at the same time avoiding the worst effects of climate change, Swedish researchers say. A study of 134 countries published by TCO, a confederation of 15 Swedish trade unions, shows that sustainable development is not yet close to being achieved, despite it being the stated aim of many politicians.
Yet it remains the official policy of the United Nations, the aim of climate negotiations, Earth summits and many international economic forums.
The theory is that countries can develop and at the same time reduce carbon dioxide emissions by combining energy efficiency and the greater use of renewable sources of power.
About 40 countries have managed to do this, but the vast majority have not - and among those that have failed, the study says, are the fastest-growing economies and the most polluting: China, the US and India. ...
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The only thing sustained is their empty promises.
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Mon, Jan 14, 2013
from London Independent:
Made in Britain: The toxic tetraethyl lead used in fuel sold to world's poorest
A British company convicted of bribing foreign officials to maintain sales of a poisonous lead fuel additive is continuing to sell the chemical abroad to unstable countries, despite mounting evidence that it is responsible for long- term damage to human health and may be linked to violent crime. ...
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In America, we call that trickle-down.
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Mon, Dec 31, 2012
from St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
One in five kids in parts of St. Louis area struggles with asthma
...Nationwide, about 1 in 10 children has asthma. But in some of the poorest areas in north St. Louis and St. Louis County, a staggering 1 in 5 has the chronic disease, recent studies have found.
Asthma is a lung disease that causes episodes of breathing difficulty. But most people can live symptom-free if they receive medical care, use medications properly and limit triggers in their environment.
Yet four children under age 15 died from asthma in the city and county in 2009 and 2010, the latest numbers available. ...
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Poverty is suffocating.
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Mon, Dec 3, 2012
from London Guardian:
Climate change compensation emerges as major issue at Doha talks
...Whether rich countries should compensate vulnerable communities like those on Kosrae, in the central Pacific, for the "loss and damage" caused by events linked to climate change has emerged as a major new issue for developing countries in the UN talks that have just entered their second week in Doha ... But the US and Europe are resisting strongly the idea that they should compensate for losses, fearing that it would lead to potentially endless financial claims. ...
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"Endless financial claims" for our endless culpability.
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Tue, Jun 5, 2012
from E&E Publishing:
Exotic diseases from warmer climates gain foothold in the U.S.
Diseases once thought to be rare or exotic in the United States are gaining a presence and getting new attention from medical researchers who are probing how immigration, limited access to care and the impacts of climate change are influencing their spread.
Illnesses like schistosomiasis, Chagas disease and dengue are endemic in warmer, wetter and poorer areas of the world, often closer to the equator. According to the World Health Organization, almost 1 billion people are afflicted with more than one tropical disease. ...
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Weird. My cats' names are Schistosomiasis, Chagas and Dengue!
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Tue, May 8, 2012
from Huffington Post:
Air Pollution, Asthma Burden Unevenly Shared Among U.S. Children
...Disadvantaged kids not only breathe disproportionate amounts bad air, but they also can be more vulnerable to the ill effects of that bad air. As The Huffington Post reported in March, asthma is likely the most notorious of these ailments. Nearly one in four Hispanic and Puerto Rican kids living in poverty in the U.S. has been diagnosed with the condition that can cause wheezing, coughing, breathlessness and chest tightness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That compares with about one in 13 middle-class or wealthy white children. (The agency also reports similar disparities in exposures to air pollution.)... Just why lower income families more commonly reside in places with dirty air is not clear... ...
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Part of the trickle-down effect, is my guess.
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Mon, Mar 5, 2012
from Center for Public Integrity:
Venezuela emerges as new source of "conflict" minerals
Black-market coltan likely making its way to high-tech manufacturers' supply; it's used in everything from smart phones to smart bombs... consumer-driven demand for everyday electronics may be supporting criminal gangs and organized crime in an illicit market for valuable minerals in South America. In Colombia, for example, police recently confiscated 83 tons of coltan and other minerals from an operation reportedly run by smugglers who, according to U.S. law enforcement officials, also supply cocaine to Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. ...
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Just say no to everyday electronics!
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Mon, Feb 13, 2012
from AP, via HuffingtonPost:
Mystery Kidney Malady In Central America Killing Thousands
A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as southern Mexico and as far south as Panama....
Many of the victims were manual laborers or worked in sugar cane fields that cover much of the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit lurks among the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually none of the protections required in more developed countries. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complicated and counterintuitive hypothesis. ...
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As long as it's complicated, there's nobody to blame!
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Sun, Nov 20, 2011
from New York Times:
Older, Suburban and Struggling, 'Near Poor' Startle the Census
Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called "near poor" and sometimes simply overlooked -- and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.
When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people -- one in three Americans -- either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it. ...
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We are the 33 percent.
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Wed, Oct 26, 2011
from London Guardian:
India is the most likely place for the seventh billionth child to be born
...No one knows exactly who will be the seventh billionth person on Earth, to be born on the last day of this month, according to United Nations statisticians. But the chances are he or she will be born in northern India -- perhaps even in Madanpur Khadr.
Here, narrow, rubbish-strewn lanes are filled with young children and scores of heavily pregnant women. India is home to nearly a fifth of the world's population and around 2020 it is projected to overtake China as the most populous nation on Earth. ...
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Propagategate.
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Thu, Oct 13, 2011
from London Guardian:
US must stop promoting biofuels to tackle world hunger, says thinktank
America must stop promoting the production of biofuels if there is to be any real progress in addressing spiking global food prices and famine, such as seen in the Horn of Africa, an authoritative thinktank has warned.
A new report, the Global Hunger Index, warned that US government support for corn ethanol was a major factor behind this year's food price spikes -- and was projected to fuel further volatility in food prices over the next decade. ...
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This confirms my suspicion that thinking is a dangerous activity.
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Tue, Oct 11, 2011
from Huffington Post:
Peanut Butter Price Jumps After Worst Peanut Harvest In 30 Years
Thanks to a failing peanut crop due to last summer's scorching hot weather, there's a shortage of peanuts in supply. Big brands like Peter Pan, Jif and Smucker's are left with little choice but to raise prices, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The price jumps range from 24 to 40 percent, with Jif planning to raise prices by 30 percent in November and Peter Pan by up to 24 percent in the coming weeks, reports MarketWatch Radio.
So far, the Wall Street Journal says, USDA figures show the cost of a ton of unprocessed peanuts has spiked from $450 to $1,150 since last year.
Researchers at New Mexico State University told ABC KOAT News that high heat, strong winds and bone-dry conditions created the worst peanut season in more than 30 years. ...
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Next, it'll be Reese's!
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Tue, Sep 27, 2011
from University of California - Los Angeles via ScienceDaily:
Scientists Find H1N1 Flu Virus Prevalent in Animals in Africa
UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. "I was amazed that virtually every pig in this village was exposed," said Thomas B. Smith, director of UCLA's Center for Tropical Research and the senior author of the research. "Africa is ground zero for a new pandemic. Many people are in poor health there, and disease can spread very rapidly without authorities knowing about it." ...
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When pigs flu.
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Sun, Sep 25, 2011
from Treehugger, via DesdemonaDespair:
Bill Clinton: World must prepare for climate refugees
"I think that you have to assume that because of climate change, there are going be a lot more refugees," Clinton said.
"And that the laws which exist, and the systems of support that exist, not just the US but elsewhere, were basically built for a different time when you might have a surge of refugees from this country or a surge from that country, because of a particular political upheaval or a particular natural disaster. And that's almost certainly going to not work now." [...]
"I think that in general we should become more open to immigration again," Clinton said. "Keeping people in limbo is a waste of human potential." ...
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Why can't these refugees work on making limbo a better place to waste away?
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Fri, Aug 12, 2011
from Guardian:
Somali refugee camps in Kenya swell past 400,000 - in pictures
Images of desperation in Somalia.
If this were happening to nearly half a million white people, would we respond differently?
I suspect so.
And if so, what does that say about our moral compass? That it was hitting "true north"?
Go see the pictures, to remember what the relativistic context really is. ...
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"Summertime... and the livin' is eeeasyyy."
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Sun, Jul 17, 2011
from ABC News:
Somalia Drought 'One of the Largest Humanitarian Crises in Decades'
The crisis has been brought on by a deadly combination of severe drought, with no rain in the region for two years, a huge spike in food prices and a brutal civil war in Somalia, where it is too dangerous for aid workers to operate.
Somalians are walking as far as 50 miles to reach the Dadaab complex in eastern Kenya, the largest refugee camp in the world. The trek can take weeks through punishing terrain, which is desolate except for the carcasses that litter the land....
Even after enduring these difficult circumstances, leaving behind everything they own and arriving with only the clothes on their backs, many refugees say they are happier in the camps because at least they can find some food and rations to get by....
Almost 400,000 Somalis now call the Dadaab complex home, and more than 1,300 arrive every day. ...
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Only fifty miles? I can drive that in an hour!
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Fri, Jun 17, 2011
from IRIN:
FOOD: High prices do not mean a bigger supply
Contrary to popular perception, the current high food prices will not see more money flowing into agriculture in the long term, warned a new forecast released ahead of a critical meeting of agriculture ministers in Paris on 22 and 23 June.
"Input costs, including that of fuel and fertilizer, have risen significantly - we anticipate global agriculture production to slow down in the next decade," said Meritt Cluff, a senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and one of the authors of the Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020....
Besides the cost of agricultural inputs, pressure on resources such as water and land, and the higher risk of adverse weather are also contributing to the slow-down in food production....
"Throughout the world, but especially in low-income countries, the poor are overwhelmingly net food buyers, so poverty increases as food price levels rise - but losses due to food price volatility fall mainly on relatively better-off large farmers, Barrett said.
"Perhaps not coincidentally, these same large farmers enjoy tremendous taxpayer-funded support programmes from G20 governments presently expressing concern about food price volatility." ...
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Soylent Green is made by farmers!!
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Wed, Apr 20, 2011
from Environmental Health News:
California's poor, Mexican American kids have among world's highest levels of flame retardants
Mexican American school children in California are contaminated with seven times more flame retardants than children in Mexico and three times more than their own mothers, according to a new study. The 7-year-olds in the Salinas Valley had more of the chemicals in their bodies than almost all other people tested worldwide. University of California scientists warn that the levels they found in the children "present a major public health challenge." Low income, rather than race or ethnicity, is probably the major factor in determining who is highly exposed to these chemicals. Household dust is likely the major source. ...
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These kids may be poor but at least they won't catch on fire easily.
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Thu, Apr 7, 2011
from ScienceDaily:
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in New Delhi Public Water Supply
Disease-causing bacteria carrying the new genetic resistance to antibiotics, NDM-1, have been discovered in New Delhi's drinking water supply.
A Cardiff University-led team found new strains of resistant bacteria in the Indian capital, including species which cause cholera and dysentery. The findings are the first evidence of the environmental spread of NDM-1, which had previously only been found in hospitals.
The scientists are calling for urgent action by health authorities worldwide to tackle the new strains and prevent their global spread....
While most patients with the bacteria have recently been hospitalised in India, some cases have occurred there without recent hospital treatment, prompting the team to test the wider environment.
Samples were taken in New Delhi from public water taps and from waste seepage, such as water pools in the street. Resistant bacteria were found in 4 per cent of the water supplies and 30 per cent of the seepage sites.
The researchers identified 11 new species of bacteria carrying the NDM-1 gene, including strains which cause cholera and dysentry. Antibiotics are used to reduce excretion of bacteria in cholera patients, and to reduce the duration and severity of dysentery. Worryingly, the identified Shigella isolate, which can carry dysentery, is resistant to all appropriate antibiotics....
The research team also believes that temperatures and monsoon flooding make New Delhi ideal for the spread of NDM-1.
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What happens when we see NDM-2, the Sequel?
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Wed, Apr 6, 2011
from SeekingAlpha:
Food Prices and Global Hunger Equal Riots, Civil Wars and Revolution
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations puts out a global hunger index (pdf). The most recent was from 2010, well before this year's 45 percent price spike in foodstuffs. According to the IMF, each 10 percent increase in food prices doubles the likelihood of civil disorder, riots or worse by 100 percent [The Food Riot and Revolution Index]. By my math, we are at a four or five-fold increase and still ramping up. In the FAO's scoring, a hunger score above 30 is considered extremely alarming, 20-29 is alarming, and 10-19 is serious. With the massive food inflation, I submit that it's reasonable to add about 10 to the old, quickly outdated (by the day) 2010 number. If you care to argue this point, fine; but add something substantial. Nigeria was 18 in 2010, so this would be in the high 20s today, and at the upper end of the alarming score. Potential hotbed Pakistan was 19 in 2010.
Another oil producer, Angola, had a 27 hunger index in 2010 and would now be in the extremely alarming category. Cameroon, a small African oil producer, has a 2010 score of 18. That country was severely impacted by food riots during the 2008 commodity bubble. Both Bangladesh, and emerging market darling India, were ranked 24 in 2010. With the spike, it would be well over 30 today. Don't be surprised if ethnic and religious turmoil breaks out in what are considered democracies. That will be hard for the U.S. to spin. I don't think the U.S. has enough aircraft carriers to cover these contingencies. ...
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The military-industrial-ecocide complex is ready to help!
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Wed, Feb 16, 2011
from Huffington Post:
UN's Figueres Warns Of 'Climate Chaos,' Urges Militaries To Invest In Prevention
Global warming is a looming threat to stability and national security around the world, and militaries should spend some of their ever-expanding budgets on reducing carbon emissions to avoid "climate chaos," the U.N.'s top climate official said Tuesday.
Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate secretariat, warned of the destabilizing effects created by growing water stress, declining crop yields and damage from extreme storms in some of the world's poorest countries, which could set off mass international migration and regional conflicts.
Figueres said the world's military budgets grew by 50 percent in the first nine years of this century. Rather than continue that growth in weaponry, she said, the generals should invest in preventative budgets to "avoid the climate chaos that would demand a defense response that makes even today's spending burden look light." ...
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It's as if she thinks a collapsing economy in a hypermilitarized security state is a bad thing.
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Sun, Jan 23, 2011
from London Independent:
Home fires: The world's most lethal pollution
The world's deadliest pollution does not come from factories billowing smoke, industries tainting water supplies or chemicals seeping into farm land. It comes from within people's own homes. Smoke from domestic fires kills nearly two million people each year and sickens millions more, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
A new UN project has now been set up to try to reduce this appalling toll. It aims, over the next nine years, to put 100 million clean cooking stoves into homes in the developing world.
The WHO ranks the problem as one of the worst health risks facing the poor. In low-income countries, such as those in Africa and Asia, indoor smoke from cooking has become the sixth biggest killer. Globally, it kills more people than malaria, and nearly as many as Aids -- and far more insidiously than either. ...
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We have met the enemy ... and he is poverty.
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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
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Thu, Jan 13, 2011
from New York Times:
Stress, Pollution and Poverty: A Vicious Cycle?
The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $7 million in grants to researchers to study the cumulative health impact of pollutants like mercury and lead and social factors like stress and poor nutrition in several low-income communities, the agency said Tuesday... But a growing body of research suggests that cumulative exposure to multiple pollutants, and nonchemical factors like stress, poverty and poor diet, can amplify the negative effects of a single toxic substance. ...
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I think we should pay more attention to rich people.
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Wed, Jan 5, 2011
from FAO, via Guardian:
World food prices enter 'danger territory' to reach record high
Soaring prices of sugar, grain and oilseed drove world food prices to a record in December, surpassing the levels of 2008 when the cost of food sparked riots around the world, and prompting warnings of prices being in "danger territory".... Published by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the index tracks the prices of a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, and has risen for six consecutive months.... Abbassian warned prices could rise higher still, amid fears of droughts in Argentina and floods in Australia and cold weather killing plants in the northern hemisphere.
"There is still room for prices to go up much higher, if for example the dry conditions in Argentina tend to become a drought, and if we start having problems with winterkill in the northern hemisphere for the wheat crops," Abbassian said. ...
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Those high prices are only for poor people, right?
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Mon, Jan 3, 2011
from IRIN:
Prepare now for future migration surge, says International Organization for Migration
Decisions taken by local authorities on land use, building regulations and access to health services probably affect migrants more than decisions taken nationally, "yet in most countries, migration policy is set at the national level with little attention to capacity-building at the local level, where policy is usually implemented," says the new World Migration Report 2010.... The current number of 214 million migrants globally, according to IOM, could rise to 405 million by 2050.
It says new trends in migration could be affected by varying rates of population growth (slowing in the developed world and prompting an even greater demand for labour); environmental change; and shifts in the global economy.
...
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I could do with a handful of indentured servants.
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Sun, Dec 19, 2010
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
On the move in a warming world: The rise of climate refugees
... Across the Sahel, a band of semi-arid land south of the Sahara stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, an estimated 10 million people suffered food shortages this year, including 850,000 children who are acutely malnourished and could die without urgent care. In the Sahel region of Chad, more than 20 per cent of children are acutely malnourished, on top of a chronic malnutrition rate of about 50 per cent. In some regions, mothers are desperately digging into anthills in search of tiny grains and seeds for their children. And this is just one of many places around the world where the changing climate has left the people dependent on foreign aid.
When the 190-nation climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, staggered to an end last weekend, there was no binding agreement on curbing carbon emissions and no sign of a treaty to replace the soon-expiring Kyoto Protocol. The negotiators will try again next December. But regardless of those negotiations, the facts on the ground will not change: The climate is growing more precarious, and millions of people are on the move. The question now is whether to encourage them to migrate - or to salvage their ravaged land with long-term investment, instead of simply handing out emergency aid. ...
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Is there no other option, such as colonizing Mars? C'mon, people, where's the can-do vision?
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Sat, Dec 11, 2010
from Associated Press:
UN climate meeting OKs Green Fund in new accord
A U.N. conference on Saturday adopted a modest climate deal creating a fund to help the developing world go green, though it deferred for another year the tough work of carving out deeper reductions in carbon emissions causing Earth to steadily warm.
Though the accords were limited, it was the first time in three years the 193-nation conference adopted any climate action, restoring faith in the unwieldy U.N. process after the letdown a year ago at a much-anticipated summit in Copenhagen.
The Cancun Agreements created institutions for delivering technology and funding to poorer countries, though they did not say where the funding would come from. ...
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We developing countries dodged the bullet again!
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Fri, Dec 10, 2010
from Los Angeles Times:
Cholera now throughout Haiti, U.S. says
A cholera outbreak in Haiti that has sickened more than 91,000 people and killed more than 2,000 has spread to all of the Caribbean nation and into the neighboring Dominican Republic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. Nearly half of the ill were hospitalized.
In some cases, the deaths are occurring as rapidly as two hours after people fall ill, according to a CDC report published Wednesday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Patients can lose as much as one liter of fluid an hour, said Dr. Jordan W. Tappero, director of the Health Systems Reconstruction Office at the CDC's Center for Global Health. ...
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These poor people have been collared by cholera!
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Sun, Dec 5, 2010
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
Who will pay for the environmental mess we're in?
Many leaders from the developing world and Western activists are demanding trillion-dollar reparations for the developed world's damage to the Earth's atmosphere at the expense of the poor. Their argument is an extension of the anti-globalization, anti-corporate credo that assigns moral blame for the vast gap in global living standards.
Representatives from developing countries arrived at Cancun determined to hold rich nations to account for their role in causing what scientists say is a growing climate crisis, one that will hit poor nations the hardest.
However, the United States and the European Union are mired in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. The heightened level of economic insecurity -- and the perception that China is overtaking Western economies -- will make it increasingly difficult for those governments to win public support for massive climate-related transfers to developing countries that would have been politically problematic even before the global slump. ...
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Unfortunately, we're all gonna pay!
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Wed, Nov 17, 2010
from London Daily Mail:
Waiting in vain, the quarter of a million Haiti residents at risk from cholera who are wondering when all that help the international community promised will arrive
For row after interminable row, the tents stretch as far as the human eye can see at a squalid camp on the northern side of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.
Each has a number on a board pegged into the rain-sodden ground outside and is home to a family waiting for cholera to strike them down.
The disease began its rampage an hour's drive away from this camp, called Croix de Bouquet, last month. Now nearly one thousand people in Haiti are dead and cholera has reached the capital.
UN soldiers with guns march down the lines of tents to stop rioting over deliveries of emergency medicines and water, while charity workers hand out soap in a desperate attempt to boost hygiene levels and stop the cholera in its tracks.
It is a terrifying race against time. Boys and girls with ribs clearly visible after months of hunger play in the filthy rivulets of water amid piles of rubbish.
These are the forgotten children of a forgotten country, still reeling from one of the world's worst earthquakes in January when 300,000 people were killed and a million more were made homeless in an instant. ...
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This blame game is done being fun.
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Mon, Oct 25, 2010
from Thanh Nien Daily:
HCMC set to bear brunt of climate change impacts
Ho Chi Minh City and other Asia's coastal megacities will suffer more frequent and severe flooding affecting millions of people, if current climate change trends continue, a new report says.
Major flooding could cost billions of dollars in infrastructure damage, hurting the economy. The hardest hit are likely to be urban poor populations, says the report titled Climate Risks and Adaptation in Asian Coastal Megacities...The cities have populations close to or over 10 million and are economic centers of their countries and the region.
Yet they are facing increased risks of climate change such as rising sea levels and an increased frequency in extreme weather conditions. ...
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Here in the US we call that the trickle down effect.
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Mon, Oct 4, 2010
from London Guardian:
Malaria threatens 2 million in Pakistan as floodwaters turn stagnant
More than 2m cases of malaria are expected in Pakistan in the coming months in the wake of the country's devastating floods, aid workers have warned.
Two months into the crisis, large areas remain submerged in southern Sindh province, creating stagnant pools of standing water that, combined with the heat, are powerful incubators of a disease spread by mosquitoes that breed and hatch in the pools.
More than 250,000 cases of suspected malaria, including some of the fatal falciparum strain, have been reported, according to the World Health Organisation. ...
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Noah should have known to leave mosquitoes behind.
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Tue, Sep 7, 2010
from Jakarta Globe:
Feces, Arsenic Pervade Water Supply, Sickening Half a Nation
Water contaminated by feces and harmful chemicals may be responsible for making almost half of all Indonesians sick, health experts say.
World Bank data shows that in 2006, 42 percent of Indonesians suffered from diarrhea caused by waterborne diseases, up from 28 percent in 1996.
A study two years ago by the Ministry of Health showed that in addition to bacteria that cause the more common infectious diseases, many of Indonesia's sources of water also contained unacceptably high levels of toxic chemicals that could lead to more serious illnesses such as cancer and anemia. ...
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Water contaminated by feces that creates diarrhea sounds like a vicious, shitty cycle.
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Mon, Sep 6, 2010
from Burness Communications via ScienceDaily:
In a Changing Climate, Erratic Rainfall Poses Growing Threat to Rural Poor, New Report Says
Against a backdrop of extreme weather wreaking havoc around the world, a new report warns that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in diverse forms of water storage as an effective remedy. "Millions of farmers in communities dependent on rainfed agriculture are at risk from decreasing and erratic availability of water," said Colin Chartres, director general of the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which released the report to coincide with World Water Week in Stockholm. "Climate change will hit these people hard, so we have to invest heavily and quickly in adaptation." ...
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Ashes to ashes... dustbowl to dustbowl...
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Wed, Sep 1, 2010
from IRIN:
New strains of HIV spreading in Ugandan fishing communities
A study of HIV-positive people in fishing communities on the shores of Lake Victoria in central Uganda has found that more than a quarter have "recombinant" viruses that might threaten both treatment and prevention efforts.
Of the numerous sub-types of HIV circulating worldwide, A and D are the most common in Uganda and were found in most of the 117 men and women surveyed from five fishing communities in the two districts of Masaka and Wakiso. But the study also found that 29 percent had "recombinant" forms of HIV called A/D and D/A - evidence that re-infection has occurred.
Some of the recombinant strains may have been the result of "superinfection" which occurs when an HIV-positive person is re-infected with another strain of HIV and can increase the likelihood of drug resistance to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy if a resistant virus is transmitted and could also speed up disease progression. ...
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I'm being superinfected with recombinant worry.
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Sun, Aug 29, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Encephalitis kills 215 in India, toll expected to soar
At least 215 people, mostly children, have died in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in an impoverished region of northern Indian and the death toll is likely to soar, officials said Saturday. Eastern parts of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh are ravaged by encephalitis each year as malnourished children succumb to the virus which is transmitted by mosquitoes from pigs to humans but this is one of the worst outbreaks, officials said.
The deaths of four more children on Saturday pushed the toll to 215, with hundreds sick, some two to a bed, in hospitals in Gorakhpur, a deeply neglected area of 14 million people, regional health officer U.K. Srivastava told AFP by telephone from Gorakhpur. "A total of 1,324 patients had been admitted in hospitals until Saturday in Gorakhpur," which is the epicentre of the outbreak, and "more encephalitis patients are coming into our hospitals," Srivastava said. ...
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Poverty is so expensive.
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Thu, Aug 26, 2010
from Agence France-Press via TerraDaily:
Cholera epidemic now threatens all of Nigeria: ministry
A cholera epidemic that has killed more than 350 people in Nigeria since the start of the year now poses a threat to the entire country, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
"Epidemiological evidence indicates that the entire country is at risk," the ministry said in a statement.
"Reports received so far from 11 states show we have recorded 6,437 cases with 352 deaths from cholera this year. Most of the outbreaks occurred in the northwest and northeast zones" of the country, it stated.
Surveys carried out by the ministry showed that less than 40 percent of the population in the affected states have access to adequate toilet facilities, the statement said. ...
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Can't somebody get these people some squeezably soft toilet paper?
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Thu, Aug 26, 2010
from Inter Press Service:
Climate Change Policy Ignores Women Farmers
...Research has shown that women are more likely to feel the effects of climate change because they have less access to resources. Changing weather patterns increase poor women's work burden on gathering water and firewood. Girls may be forced to forgo school in order to contribute to the increased household work.
Where traditional land tenure is practiced, women may lose land normally reserved for growing crops for household consumption to give way for commercial crops.
The South African government, through its Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), is in the process of developing a national climate change policy. Consultations with a few environmental experts and civil society organisations took place in May.... ...
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Does this mean my foot rub is going to be delayed again?
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Wed, Aug 18, 2010
from Agence France-Press:
UN fights to save our planet from deserts
Fortaleza, Brazil - The United Nations on Monday launched a campaign to save the planet from deserts that are threatening a third of the planet along with the livelihoods of more than a billion people...Parched land and deserts today are home to one in three people on Earth, or 2.1 billion people, 90 percent of whom are in developing nations. One billion people struggle to find enough food to survive in such inhospitable terrain...Climate change is seen as the main cause of the phenomenon, a view reinforced by droughts and flooding in different areas of unusual intensity. ...
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Our just desserts = just deserts.
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Sat, Aug 14, 2010
from London Independent:
Children bear the brunt of Pakistan's nightmare
...Two weeks after unprecedented monsoon rains started causing chaos and devastation in the north-west of the country, in this region the effects are still being felt. Further south, in Sindh province, it is likely that the worst is yet to come.... Half the people being rescued by the troops and volunteers are children. Experts estimate that of the 14 million people affected by these floods, six million children are at risk. In every natural disaster, it is often children who suffer the most. When food is in short supply, they are often the last to eat, they are more vulnerable to contagious diseases and water-borne illnesses such as cholera, and under such hardship a child's needs may not always be a family's priority.
In these floods, many children, inclined to swim and splash in the deep brown waters, have been attacked by snakes. ...
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Whatever happened to the meek inheriting the earth?
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Fri, Jun 18, 2010
from Utrecht University via ScienceDaily:
Climate Change Threatens Food Supply of 60 Million People in Asia
According to an article by three Utrecht University researchers published in the journal Science on 11 June, climate change will drastically reduce the discharge of snow and ice meltwater in a region of the Himalayas, threatening the food security of more than 60 million people in Asia in the coming decades. The Indus and Brahmaputra basins are expected to be the most adversely affected, while in the Yellow River basin the availability of irrigation water will actually increase. ...
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Doesn't McDonald's sooo feed that many folks in, like, ten minutes?
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Sun, May 2, 2010
from Hindustan Times:
India's wastelands endanger 5m poor
At sunset, the sky above Ram Ganga river in Moradabad, 200 km from Delhi, turns black with smog. Tiny chimneys belch smoke, the result of hundreds of small waste processing plants that residents have opened in their homes. A huge waste processing accident in Delhi, where one person died and seven were taken ill after radiation exposure, has caught the media's attention. But far from the media glare, five million of the country's poorest are exposed to hazardous waste -- including radioactive -- every day as India turns into the wasteland of the world.
In the last three years, India's hazardous waste import spiked 48 per cent. Last year, the developed world dumped 64 lakh tonnes of waste in India, adding to the 59 lakh tonnes produced domestically. ...
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Maybe they can take on all this leaking oil from the Gulf!
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Wed, Mar 10, 2010
from Inter Press Service:
"Famine Marriages" Just One Byproduct of Climate Change
The negative fallout from climate change is having a devastatingly lopsided impact on women compared to men, from higher death rates during natural disasters to heavier household and care burdens.
In the 1991 cyclone disasters that killed 140,000 in Bangladesh, 90 percent of victims were reportedly women; in the 2004 Asian Tsunami, an estimated 70 to 80 percent of overall deaths were women.
And following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the United States, African-American women, who were the poorest population in some of the affected States in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, faced the greatest obstacles to survival, according to the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO)...women are particularly affected by climate change because they are the largest percentage -- accounting for about 70 percent -- of the poor population. ...
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Next you'll be telling me menfolk emit more methane!
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Mon, Jan 4, 2010
from New York Times:
Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home
Natural calamities have plagued humanity for generations. But with the prospect of worsening climate conditions over the next few decades, experts on migration say tens of millions more people in the developing world could be on the move because of disasters.
Rather than seeking a new life elsewhere in a mass international "climate migration," as some analysts had once predicted, many of these migrants are now expected to move to nearby megacities in their own countries.
"Environmental refugees have lost everything," said Rabab Fatima, the South Asia representative of the International Organization for Migration. "They don't have the money to make a big move. They move to the next village, the next town and eventually to a city." ...
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Surely, they will find shelter there.
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Tue, Dec 29, 2009
from London Guardian:
Change beckons for billionth African
The baby's name and nationality are not known. The child will grow up innocent of having a place in history. But somewhere, this year, that child became the billionth person in Africa, the continent with the fastest growing population in the world.
Climbing from 110 million in 1850, Africa's headcount reached this threshold in 2009, according to the United Nations, although patchy census data in many countries means that no one can say where or when.
By 2050, the population is projected to almost double, to 1.9 billion. Pessimists predict a human tide that will put an unbearable burden on food, jobs, schools, housing and healthcare. Yet optimists sense an opportunity to follow billion-strong China and India in pursuing economic growth. ...
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What do ya wanna bet it's the optimists who continue to reproduce.
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Tue, Dec 29, 2009
from Associated Press:
Malaria and other diseases coming back worldwide in new and more deadly forms
...Malaria is just one of the leading killer infectious diseases battling back in a new and more deadly form, the AP found in a six-month look at the soaring rates of drug resistance worldwide. After decades of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and staph have started to mutate. The result: The drugs are slowly dying.
Already, The Associated Press found, resistance to malaria has spread faster and wider than previously documented. Dr. White said virtually every case of malaria he sees in western Cambodia is now resistant to drugs.... People generate drug resistant malaria when they take too little medicine, substandard medicine or -- as is all too often the case around O'treng -- counterfeit medicine with a pinch of the real stuff. Once established, the drug-resistant malaria is spread by mosquitoes. So one person's counterfeit medicine can eventually spawn widespread resistant disease. ...
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That's a bit self-serving of those mosquitoes, don't you think?
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Mon, Dec 28, 2009
from The Times of India:
Bonfires that make you cough
KANPUR: With the rising number of vehicles, industries and use of generators due to frequent rostering, the city has been moving up quite fast on the list of most polluted cities. Come winters and the impromptu bonfires lit up by those living on the roads add to the pollution.
Bonfires lit up on the roadsides, early in the morning and late into the evening are a common sight. The poisonous smoke released into the atmosphere as garbage, coal, rubber, dry leaves and other sundry items are put into the bonfire not only reduces visibility but also there are more cases of respiratory diseases. ...
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Plus the bonfires add that cinematic, post-Apocalyptic feel.
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Sun, Nov 29, 2009
from London Independent:
Bhopal: The victims are still being born
Bhopal is a calamity without end. On 3 December 1984, clouds of poison leaking from a Union Carbide pesticides plant brought death to thousands in this central Indian city. Today, fully a quarter of a century later, victims of this, the world's worst industrial disaster, are still being born.
Here, in neighbourhoods where people depend on water contaminated by chemicals leaking from the abandoned factory and to mothers exposed to the toxic gas as children, brain damaged and malformed babies are 10 times more common than the national average. Doctors at Bhopal's Sambhavna Clinic say that as many as one in 25 babies are still born with defects and developmental problems such as a smaller head, webbed feet and low birth weight. ...
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Presumably, the perpetrators continue to be born as well.
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Thu, Nov 19, 2009
from Inter Press Service:
Women Central to Adaptation, Mitigation
Poor women will bear the greatest "climate burden", says the United Nations Population Fund in its 2009 State of the World Population report, released today.
The report emphasises that climate change is more than an issue of energy efficiency or industrial carbon emissions; it is also an issue of population dynamics, poverty and gender equity.
Poor and vulnerable populations the world over are the ones who will be hardest hit by climate change, despite their comparatively minute contribution to our global carbon footprint - the poorest billion people on Earth contribute a mere three percent of the world's total carbon footprint. ...
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Just so the gals don't get all hysterical!
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Wed, Nov 18, 2009
from TIME Magazine:
Floods and Droughts: How Climate Change is Impacting Africa
...If the world's leaders need more inspiration before heading to the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, they need look no further than East Africa. Here climate change is no longer a future threat -- it is displacing and killing people today. In 2006, the United Nations said it expected Africa to be the continent most affected by climate change, not because it produces a large amount of greenhouse gases -- quite the opposite -- but because, as the world's poorest and most badly governed continent, it is the least equipped to cope with change. Around 90 million Africans were "at risk," it said, and that's not counting those impacted by wars and tribal conflicts, many of which are linked to extreme weather phenomena such as droughts and floods. ...
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Would seem Africa is not alone in being ill-equipped to change.
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Thu, Nov 5, 2009
from Daily Climate:
Rapid change threatens foundations of human health
Rapid changes already underway to the Earth's climate, ecosystems and land cover threaten the health of billions, undermining key human life-support systems and threatening the core foundations of healthy communities worldwide, according to a new report released Wednesday.
There's been this extraordinary ballooning of the whole human enterprise. When you put climate change on top of that, we're looking at further destabilization of an already tenuous situation between people and their life-support systems. The disruption represents the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century and leaves poor populations mostly in developing nations most vulnerable – even though they contribute the least to many of the problems... The report outlines a series of public health threats – food and water scarcity, altered distribution of infectious diseases, increased air pollution, natural disasters, and population displacement – that collectively threaten large segments of the human population. ...
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Thy shit is on a sure trajectory, fan-ward.
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Wed, Nov 4, 2009
from Reuters:
Poor urge deep climate cuts
Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked "total destruction" unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach.
Keeping up pressure at U.N. climate talks in Barcelona, the poor insisted that developed countries should cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- far more than on offer. ...
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Everybody listens to the poor!
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Tue, Nov 3, 2009
from London Guardian:
Global warming could create 150 million 'climate refugees' by 2050
Global warming will force up to 150 million "climate refugees" to move to other countries in the next 40 years, a new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) warns.
In 2008 alone, more than 20 million people were displaced by climate-related natural disasters, including 800,000 people by cyclone Nargis in Asia, and almost 80,000 by heavy floods and rains in Brazil, the NGO said.
President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, who presented testimony to the EJF, said people in his country did not want to "trade a paradise for a climate refugee camp". He warned rich countries taking part in UN climate talks this week in Barcelona "not to be stupid" in negotiating a climate treaty in Copenhagen this December.... Last month, the president held a cabinet meeting underwater to draw attention to the plight of his country. ...
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We're gonna need a lot more portajohns.
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Sat, Aug 22, 2009
from Wall Street Journal:
Developing World's Parasites, Disease Hit US
Parasitic infections and other diseases usually associated with the developing world are cropping up with alarming frequency among U.S. poor, especially in states along the U.S.-Mexico border, the rural South and in Appalachia, according to researchers...."These are diseases that we know are ten-fold more important than swine flu," said Peter Hotez, a microbiologist at George Washington University and leading researcher in this field. "They're on no one's radar."
The insect-borne diseases -- among them, Chagas and dengue fever -- thrive in shanty towns along the Mexican border, where many homes have no window screens and where poor drainage allows standing puddles for bugs to breed. Outbreaks of a bacterial infection transmitted in rat urine have cropped up among the urban poor in Baltimore and Detroit.... These diseases share a common thread. "People who live in the suburbs are at very low risk," Dr. Hotez said. ...
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But in the suburbs, people catch "ennui-itis"!
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Sat, Jun 13, 2009
from London Guardian:
'We are fighting for our lives and our dignity'
Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands -- often paying the ultimate price... Peru is just one of many countries now in open conflict with its indigenous people over natural resources. Barely reported in the international press, there have been major protests around mines, oil, logging and mineral exploitation in Africa, Latin America, Asia and North America. Hydro electric dams, biofuel plantations as well as coal, copper, gold and bauxite mines are all at the centre of major land rights disputes.... What until quite recently were isolated incidents of indigenous peoples in conflict with states and corporations are now becoming common as government-backed companies move deeper on to lands long ignored as unproductive or wild. As countries and the World Bank increase spending on major infrastructural projects to counter the economic crisis, the conflicts are expected to grow. ...
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But my toaster and my car and my job have to run on something!
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Sun, May 31, 2009
from Salon:
Deadly heat
Climate change is currently killing 300,000 people a year around the world, while seriously impacting the lives of hundreds of millions more, states a controversial new report from the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva. The report, "Human Impact Report: Climate Change -- The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis," predicts that by 2030, approximately 500,000 people will lose their lives to global warming annually. Even today, it charges that 325 million people are seriously affected by climate change, at a total economic cost of $125 billion a year.
"Climate change is a silent human crisis. Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time," said Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations, who is now the president of the Global Humanitarian Forum, in a statement. "Already today it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people, most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change. We need an international agreement to contain climate change and reduce its widespread suffering." ...
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Normally we could say, "then get out of the kitchen," but the heat's in the whole house!
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from The Daily Climate:
Climate change hitting poor in U.S. hardest.
Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and minorities in the United States – a "climate gap" that will grow in coming decades unless policymakers intervene, according to a University of California study.
Everyone, the researchers say, is already starting to feel the effects of a warming planet, via heat waves, increased air pollution, drought, or more intense storms. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on society's disadvantaged, the researchers found. ...
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Isn't this what we call "trickle down"?
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Sun, May 17, 2009
from Associated Press:
UN: Growth of slums boosting natural disaster risk
The rampant growth of urban slums around the world and weather extremes linked to climate change have sharply increased the risks from "megadisasters" such as devastating floods and cyclones, a U.N. report said Sunday.
The study — which examines natural disaster trends and strategies to reduce potential catastrophes — also noted that millions of people in rural areas are at higher risk from disasters such as landslides where forests have been stripped away or crippling droughts blamed on shifting rainfall patterns.
Much of nearly 200-page report restates warnings from previous studies about unchecked urban growth and shortsighted rural planning. But it also seeks to sharpen the apparent link between climate change and the severity and frequency of major natural disasters including severe droughts and epic storms. ...
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These slumdogs are our canaries in the catastrophic coal mine.
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Sun, May 17, 2009
from National Geographic:
The Global Food Crisis
It is the simplest, most natural of acts, akin to breathing and walking upright. We sit down at the dinner table, pick up a fork, and take a juicy bite, oblivious to the double helping of global ramifications on our plate. Our beef comes from Iowa, fed by Nebraska corn. Our grapes come from Chile, our bananas from Honduras, our olive oil from Sicily, our apple juice—not from Washington State but all the way from China. Modern society has relieved us of the burden of growing, harvesting, even preparing our daily bread, in exchange for the burden of simply paying for it. Only when prices rise do we take notice. And the consequences of our inattention are profound....High prices are the ultimate signal that demand is outstripping supply, that there is simply not enough food to go around. Such agflation hits the poorest billion people on the planet the hardest, since they typically spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food. Even though prices have fallen with the imploding world economy, they are still near record highs, and the underlying problems of low stockpiles, rising population, and flattening yield growth remain. Climate change -- with its hotter growing seasons and increasing water scarcity -- is projected to reduce future harvests in much of the world, raising the specter of what some scientists are now calling a perpetual food crisis. ...
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Sounds like it's time to stock up on the Poptarts!
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Mon, Apr 27, 2009
from New York Times:
Study Says Warming Poses Peril to Asia
With diminished rice harvests, seawater seeping into aquifers and islands vanishing into rising oceans, Southeast Asia will be among the regions worst affected by global warming, according to a report scheduled for release on Monday by the Asian Development Bank.
The rise in sea levels may force the sprawling archipelago of Indonesia to redraw its sea boundaries, the report said... Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable to global warming because of the number of people who live near coastlines and the high rate of poverty. About 19 percent of those in Southeast Asian, some 93 million people, live on less than $1.25 a day and are more vulnerable to the projected increase in typhoons, drought and floods. ...
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Well, they sure ain't gonna be able to buy their way out of this problem!
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Tue, Apr 21, 2009
from Press Association:
Climate victims will double - Oxfam
The number of people hit by climate-related disasters around the world will increase by more than half in the next six years, aid agency Oxfam has warned.
The charity predicted the number affected by events such as flooding, storms and drought would rise from 242 million people to hit 375 million a year by 2015.
And with the humanitarian aid system already a "postcode lottery on a global scale", it is already barely able to cope with current levels of disasters and could be overwhelmed by increases in the next few years, Oxfam warned.
The aid agency said the expected rise of 133 million at risk stemmed from a combination of existing poverty and people migrating to densely populated slum areas which would be prone to increasingly frequent climate-related crises.... A new campaign by Oxfam, Here and Now, aims to tackle climate change and ensure the world's poorest and most vulnerable people get a fair deal as the world tackles global warming. ...
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Or: The more you contributed to global warming the LESS aid you get!
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Tue, Feb 10, 2009
from NPR:
Cholera Exhausts Zimbabwean Health Care System
In December, the World Health Organization's worst-case scenario for Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak was that 60,000 people might become infected before the end of March. But already, nearly 70,000 cases of cholera have been reported.
Despite the fact that cholera is relatively easy to treat and to prevent with basic hygiene and appropriate sanitation, more than 3,300 people have died of the disease since the outbreak began in August 2008, according to the WHO.
A simple treatment of oral rehydration can save most lives, but health experts who have visited Zimbabwe recently say those measures simply aren't available because the economy is in meltdown. ...
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Let's hope Zimbabwe shall overcome their problems.
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Tue, Feb 3, 2009
from BBC:
Water - another global 'crisis'?
Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.
Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over. Some people, perhaps incredibly from a western vantage point, are hardy enough to survive in these conditions; but it is not a recipe for a society that is healthy and developing enough to break out of poverty.
"Obviously there are many drivers of human development," says the UN's Andrew Hudson.
"But water is the most important." ...
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...bet they're drinking their own pee...
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Mon, Dec 1, 2008
from Agence France-Presse:
Cholera-hit Zimbabwe cuts water supplies to capital
Zimbabwe has cut water supplies to the capital Harare, state media said Monday, as the health minister urged the public to stop shaking hands in a desperate bid to curb a deadly cholera epidemic.
The city has suffered periodic water cuts for years as the crumbling economy has caused widespread power shortages that often leave pumps idle.
But the city-wide cut appeared aimed at stopping the flow of untreated water around Harare, which is at the epicentre of the cholera epidemic that has claimed 425 lives since late August -- most in just the last month. ...
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The people of Zimbabwe need to learn the Western-style fist bump.
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Thu, Nov 27, 2008
from Toronto Star:
Poorest areas also most polluted, report shows
Many of Toronto's poorest residents live near industries that spew the highest levels of toxic chemicals and pollutants into the air, a groundbreaking report has found.
Low-income families, many already facing diminished health from stress, bad nutrition, diabetes and poor dental care, are placed at further risk because they breathe air contaminated with pollutants suspected of causing cancer and reproductive disorders, say the authors of the report.
The study, a two-year research project by Toronto-based PollutionWatch, is one of the most comprehensive examinations ever of an issue that has largely gone unnoticed in Canada. ...
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Sometimes, you just gotta hear the obvious said aloud.
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Thu, Sep 11, 2008
from The Economist:
Adapt or die
Two things have changed attitudes. One is evidence that global warming is happening faster than expected. Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, believes "it is already too late to avert dangerous consequences, so we must learn to adapt."
Second, evidence is growing that climate change hits two specific groups of people disproportionately and unfairly. They are the poorest of the poor and those living in island states: 1 billion people in 100 countries. Tony Nyong, a climate-change scientist in Nairobi, argues that people in poor countries used to see global warming as a Western matter: the rich had caused it and would with luck solve it. But the first impact of global warming has been on the very things the poorest depend on most: dry-land agriculture; tropical forests; subsistence fishing. ...
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Why don't they just get a job?
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