Green Options

Even as the world prepares for the grand climate meet at Copenhagen this December, a large part of South India has gone under water. And while talks have already begun on coming up with an equitable deal and the very fear that there may be none, over 300 people have already lost their lives while millions are displaced and missing in this global warming related freak weather event, predicted well in advance by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Croatia and Hungary signed an agreement yesterday to protect a major biodiversity area that crosses borders along three rivers. The agreement is being called a “Trans-Boundary UNESCO Biosphere Reserve” and has resulted in the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) awarding the two countries with a “Leaders for a Living Planet” award.

The reserve will preserve several endangered species, among other environmental jewels. There is also the possibility of the reserve expanding several times over into neighboring countries in the future.

Monsoon - said to be India’s true Finance Minister and an indicator of the country’s water and livelihood security - has had a delayed arrival this year.

And when it came, it has been more variable than ever before in recent recorded history. Drought and floods have hit the country and put it under a great water stress. The situation is being monitored very closely and the Indian Government is ready with a contingency plan.

Two states have been declared drought hit and the Indian Agriculture Minister has expressed his concern over food production this year. Water wars have already begun in the country that has otherwise been giving a good fight to the global financial crisis. Not sure if its climate change or a result of rapid urbanization, or both, but India certainly needs to do a lot to secure its water resources for today and tomorrow.

Slash-and-burn agriculture may be bad for the environment, but in southeast Asia, the cure may be worse than the disease. Endorsed by multiple governments, at both the local and national levels, as well as numerous business interests, everyone from individual farmers to massive corporations has been replacing the traditional slash-and-burn, more technically known as swidden, method of farming with rubber plantations managed with European techniques. In the last 20 years, over 1.2 million acres of land in China, Thailand, Vietnam, [...]

Today, the upper part of the Zambezi river has pushed past the highest ever recorded water levels. It’s cutting off communities, destroying crops and washing out the networks of small dirt roads that were the only travel system through this remote part of Africa.

Climate change, developers, and logging are blamed

Since the winter of 2006, when a state of emergency was declared for 18 counties in the state, Western Washington has experienced increasingly dramatic annual flooding episodes creating a state of emergency in growing numbers of counties each year.

For the past three years here, the number of roads, farms, buildings, and houses damaged or destroyed increased—helped along by the landslides that usually follow in the wake of such flooding. Although with this year the number of landslides has been somewhat constrained, the total area of flooding has increased from the previous two years (several sections of Interstate 5 remained shut down as of Saturday night, Jan. 10), and tens of thousands of people have had to be evacuated over the past 10 days. The governor declared a state of emergency in late December, which has only abated in the past couple of days.

It would seem that a “trifecta” of reinforcing factors is to blame: climate change (an extra heavy dose of snow, followed by several days of heavy rains), upland forest clear-cutting (leaving less vegetation to soak up water and hold the soil in place), and over-development in flood plane areas (leaving too many people’s houses too low in the face of rising rivers) …all of which set the stage for the current state of emergency. The damage is still being tallied, and although the heavy rains have largely abated, repairs to roads and highways will take months if not a full year (and with state budgets so tight) or more.

Flooding has been a fact of life in Venice, Italy for over 700 years. However, the frequency and severity of the floods is increasing steadily.

Almost a third (28%) of South Africans have not heard about global warming or climate change while over a half considered their knowledge as “hardly anything” or less.

The Human Sciences Research Council, a South African parastatal, conducts human sciences research in support of the growth and development of the country. Their 2008 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) collected information from a representative sample of over three thousand people. One of the modules of the survey explored issues such as knowledge and concern about climate change, perceived causes and impacts, where responsibility for action lies, and the level of support for interventions.

The results show that South Africans are poorly informed about climate change and its implications. They lack a full understanding of the impacts it is likely to have on their lives over the next few decades. This hints at difficulties that will be encountered as South Africa addresses climate change.

Respondents identified food security (15%), temperature (13%), disease (13%) and the standard of living (11%) as issues that would be effected by climate change. Issues with less direct impact on the individual, such as storms, floods, and loss of biodiversity, were not identified as frequently.

What if your house could simply walk away from natural disasters? This house can. Designed by an art collective in Denmark, the 10 foot high house is solar and wind-powered and can walk across a variety of terrain. It is equipped with a living room, bed, toilet, kitchen, and wood stove, and is controlled by an internal mainframe computer.

After much arm wrestling, the Senate came to an agreement on energy tax breaks which are set to expire later this year. Both Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), of the Senate Finance Committee, made the announcement on Tuesday.

The tax package will provide $17 billion in renewable energy tax breaks. It will also adjust the alternative minimum tax, extend tax credits for children and create several business tax cuts. It will also set aside $7 billion in tax relief for those affected by recent floods and hurricanes. The bill extends the solar and wind investment tax credit for eight years, and the production tax credit for biomass and hydropower for up to two years.

Floods have been a common phenomenon all across the Indian state of Bihar - unfortunately, also the least developed region in the country. So much so that river Kosi, a major river that passes through the state is more popular as the Sorrow of Bihar. Now, this sorrow has turned into grief and a catastrophic one at that, with the river changing its course and inundating a large part of the state.

Around 15 days ago, river Kosi broke open its embankment in the Northern part of the state (bordering Nepal) to pick up a channel it had abandoned over 200 years ago, drowning towns, numerous villages and rendering over a million homeless in the process.

This is the biggest disaster in the history of independent India and by far the most challenging rescue and relief work ever carried out in the country is now under operation.