Drought - Fire - Rising Sea Levels
From the desk of Editor, Michael Knight. In this edition we look at the Georgia Drought, Fires in California, and rising sea levels. But first…The importance of water is never better understood than when there is a lack of it – or too much. Drought is wreaking havoc in many places around the world . Many people are perishing from starvation because there has been no rain to water their crops, and no place to go to find relief. Even the richest nation on Earth – the United States – is not immune from Nature’s now-erratic behavior. In the state of Georgia millions of people are at risk of being unable to water their lawns (bad) or flush their toilets (badder).
If you are dying of thirst in Africa, or have no water to produce milk to breast-feed your child as you sit hopelessly in a refugee camp as men with guns and attitudes run rampant through the countryside…well, the fate of the lawns in Georgia probably does not weigh heavily on your mind. Which is not to minimize the severity of the Georgia drought. With a relatively dry winter forecast, things could be a lot worse by spring. Already it is having a downstream effect as well. Right down to Florida, which gets much of its water from the same rivers and lakes that Georgia relies on. Georgia wants to cut the flow to sustain its own people and economy. After all, there are literally millions living in Atlanta alone. But Floridians are concerned, including fishermen who say cutting water flows could imperil their operations along the Florida Panhandle.
So the Georgia drought – along with massive fires in southern California – has been getting major TV air time this past week, and attention from NASA satellites and its Earth Observatory scientists. “Fueled by the powerful Santa Ana winds that whip from the high-altitude deserts of the Great Basin toward the Pacific Ocean, 12 large wildfires raged in California on October 23, 2007. "The fires clouded the air over the Pacific with dense plumes of smoke that stretched across hundreds of kilometers. “The immensity of the event is illustrated in (images) captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on October 23. “The lower image shows a close-up view of the Witch Fire, burning between Los Angeles and San Diego. “At the time the image was taken, the fire had burned 145,000 acres, destroying hundreds of homes and commercial buildings, and threatening thousands more, said the National Interagency Fire Center.
“As of October 23, fires stretched from the Mexican border to north of Los Angeles, burning more than 1,300 homes and forcing more than half a million people from their homes, reported CNN. Windy weather pushed the flames through brush and grass dried from drought." (NASA images by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center). And yet in the global overview – which is what Earth Change Report is about – these crises in the United States are simply indicative of a planet in peril. Nor is ECR alone in this point of view.
In contrast, there is an over 90 per cent probability of more heavy rain events (8 inches in New Orleans this week for example), and more warm spells and heat waves. Not surprisingly, some governments – "such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, China and India pressured the scientists working on the IPCC data to express less certainty in their findings." Fortunately, the mainstream media is finally taking notice. The BBC featured a lengthy report this week in which the United Nations expressed the view that we humans may soon be on the endangered species list. "Soon?" We are already. And we did it to ourselves.
As James Gilliland says so simply yet elegantly in the documentary “Contact Has Begun,” (see a trailer here) – “what’s more important, making a dollar or taking a breath?” Sidebar April 24 2008: It was straight talk like that in the documentary - and the fact that cross-checking his concerns about earth changes with scientists in the know supported everything James said - that led to the establishment of this newsletter. It's worth subscribing to, because it is about abrupt changes - and that's the word used in a well-hidden report especially commissioned for the US Department of Defense. Take a moment - subscribe now - and be sure you get the latest information that you need in these rapidly changing times. Making a dollar is more important to some – such as the governments that want these scientific projections (let us not call them ‘facts’ as yet, since they are only ‘probabilities’) to be diluted, as if that can change reality. Speaking of reality – Jay Bookman of The Atlantic Journal-Constitution did an awesome piece this week on the evisceration of a report on what serious health and disease effects climate change is going to cause. As he says, “altered words (are) not enough to alter reality.” His article is about politicians doing their best to influence our perceptions of reality. Or, keep us ignorant and playing fiddles and football while Rome and California burn to a crisp. You should read it. It'll clear your mind on how climate change science is being whitewashed and how well politicians look into these matters; how much they know, and how little they want us to know. Can you imagine that a Senate committee gives no more than five minutes to the head of the Centers for Disease Control to spell out the serious health effects of global warming? Five minutes! That may say something for their attention span, but it says a lot more about how little we should rely on them for the information we need. However, tempting though it can be to get sidetracked by their shortcomings, politicians and their corporate allies are of little importance when it comes to looking at the evidence for ourselves. Evidence of what? Of the probability – but for our purposes let’s call it a fact – that our world is changing very rapidly, and we have to plan our personal response to that. We have to plan a way to survive. In one sense, Nature is on our side. She is giving us plenty of advance warning that she has a fever coming on. Regrettably, although scientists have been saying for decades that it’s time for us to help her cool down we have ignored the symptoms too long, and Nature is getting set to throw an epileptic fit. If you’ve ever watched someone do that, it’s not a pretty sight. Their eyes roll back in their head, their limbs start twitching uncontrollably, they slide or fall to the floor, and there they thrash around like a dying fish. One of my past work colleagues pulled that stunt in a newsroom. It wasn’t his first such episode. He’d already been crippled by a seizure that was so severe that it dislocated his shoulders, so now instead of running with Mad Mike Hoar and his mercenaries in the Congo, he was a desk jockey on the late night news. But I digress. Tonight’s news is that Nature is warning us that a seizure is on the way, so we better prepare to get out of the way or we’ll get caught up in her thrashing about. Georgia’s farmers and Florida’s fishermen have been told by Nature itself to expect tough times ahead. The sensible ones will prepare. As for Californians – well, they’ve been moving out by the tens of thousands, many of them to the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington). The smart ones that is. The rest seem to suffer from the Hollywood effect – replaying the same movie over and over. Rebuilding houses in fire-prone areas is a bit like the definition of insanity that is credited to Einstein: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…. In the past month this web site has had visitors from over 60 countries – so the message here, and the content, is obviously of global interest.
There’s a world map on the office wall with push pins in it representing buyers of “Contact Has Begun.” Those pins are beginning to obscure the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and most of the countries in Europe. From Australia through Africa and now in the United States, drought is taking its toll. Nevertheless, it’s not just drought that Earth Change Report readers are concerned about. We get letters asking what sort of weather in general is likely in places like South East Australia. And this: “Please could you give me any info on changes for the UK? I live in Doncaster near Sheffield and as usual the public is told nothing about anything.” And this: “Hi Michael - thanks for the newsletter, it is definitely helpful in giving one a perspective on assessing the threat from the earth changes and what action needs to be taken.” And this: “Thank you Michael for a very informative, sometimes scary newsletter!!! "I didn't know anything about Planet X till you posted. I live in Victoria, B.C…. I know that this area of the globe has a lot of potential problems being on the coast and am concerned about where I would go and what to do…. "Family here are not believers in this kind of info so I have been feeling alone in this. Your information and the people being drawn to it feel like a new community and that helps a lot! Looking forward to more....." It was that letter (not the one which lambasted me for actually reducing the price of the DVD as a subscriber sale special this weekend because apparently I should be giving everything away for nothing if it’s of such global importance) which really got my attention. Let’s take another look at the Big Picture – the Future Picture – this time, through the findings of a report that has relevance, not to mention ‘probability’, for every person on the planet who lives in a coastal region. Regardless of time frames, regardless of whether change is “abrupt” or “gradual”, those coastal regions, from one end of the globe to the other, are going to disappear under rising sea levels. And there is a huge probability that ‘you’ live in such an area. So let’s time travel to Germany in 2006 and find the science and the source of that observation. – the German Advisory Council on Global Change. This is the headline of that particular report. (Printed version available at no charge at the Secretariat) It’s a report that does not support ECR’s contention that we should prepare for abrupt changes. Quite the opposite in fact. It foresees sea level rise (SLR) occurring over millennia. Nevertheless, despite taking the position that sea level rise will occur over a period of as much as centuries (which ECR considers far too long a time span) the Advisory Council is certain that millions in low-lying areas will be affected. It looks at a range of potentials, from just a meter or so of sea level rise, to something much greater. More importantly, as far as ECR readers is concerned, is that it includes a series of graphics showing what will happen to all the world’s lower coastal areas in the years ahead. If you live in such an area, then between Nature and these scientists, you are getting an advance warning.
The Report Says:"In Europe, the greatest potential losses are in the east of England, the Po Delta Plain of northern Italy, and along a swathe of coast extending from Belgium through the Netherlands and northwestern Germany into western and northern Denmark (Figure 2.2.2). "Significant potential losses also occur along the coasts of northeast Germany, Poland and the Baltic states, western France, eastern Sweden, and Ukraine and Russia at the northern edge of the Black Sea (particularly around the sea of Azov) (Figure 2.2.2). "It is estimated that 9% of European coastal zones, defined as a extending 10 km inland, lie below 5 m amsl. [amsl means 'above mean sea level'] This figure rises to 12% for EU member states, 22% for Denmark, 30% for Poloand, 50% for Germany and Romaina combined, and 85% for the Netherlands and Belgium combined (European Environment Agency, 2005).
"Approximately half the land area of the Florida Pan Handle is below 13 amsl and it is highly threatened by large rises in sea level as recognised in early climate change analyses (Schneider and Chen, 1980).
"In South America, the Orinoco delta is threatened as is the Amazon delta (Figure 2.2.4). "The mouth of the Parana is also highly exposed, particularly on the southern side south-east of Beunos Aires, and north of Buenos Aires along the Parana valley. "The low-lying coastal region between Porto Alegre in Brazil and Montevideo in Uraguay are also at risk.
"In this case impacts extend up to 500 km inland. Much of the Libyan and Tunisian coasts, and the Atlantic coast of north-eastern Morocco are also at risk. "Much of the West African coast is threatened (Figure 2.2.5) "In the Gulf of Guinea region the Niger Delta is at risk, as is the coast extending westwards along the coast to Ghana. "Other 'hot-spots' in Africa occur along the coast of Mozambique, particularly in the central zone around Beira, and in the region spanning the borders of Kenya and Somalia, where exposure is greatest around Kismaayo. "Sections of the west-central African coasts are also threatened, particularly along the coast of Gabon.
"Hence, many of the threatened areas are deltaic plains, but with varying degrees of human exposure from very low in the Frazer and Yukon, to very high in the Po and the Nile and the deltaic regions of south and east Asia. "Other coastal lowlands include deltas, such as the southern North Sea (the Rhine) and the USA East and Gulf Coasts (the Mississippi), but the threatened areas shown in Figures 2.2.2 - 2.2.8 are much more extensive.
"Figures 2.2.7 and 2.2.8 show land below 2m amsl for the northern European coastal and North Sea region, and the Ganges-Brahmaputra plain." (From: Sea-Level Rise: Coastal Impacts and Responses Nick Brooks, Jim Hall, Robert Nicholls, WBGU. Publications are available for free download from the WBGU website. www.wbgu.de.
Again, if you read the full report, you will note that the authors expect sea levels to take as much as 1000 years to change. But the oceans have not read anything that scientists have been speculating about. They have simply been responding to climate change and human behavior in their own way. Ice shelves melting. Earthquakes happening. Tsunamis occurring. Volcanoes erupting. Temperatures rising. Currents stalling. And sea levels rising.
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