Climate Matters. X is for eXtreme Weather

This post is for X in the A-Z BloggingChallenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.


Unseasonal snow, high winds, heavy rains, increased heat, damage to property, increased hospital admissions and deaths. Around the world reports of damage from extreme weather events are heard - "unprecedented", "rainfall deficits", "longest drought",  "crop devastation", "unseasonal weather", "homes without power for days", "highest known temperatures exceeded", "all time high"; this it seems, is the new normal locally and globally. 


In recent human history, extreme weather events have, statistically, been relatively rare. Due to our changing climate, the atmosphere is warmer due to complex inter-relationship of events.  For instance, warm air is able to hold more water whilst being less stable, leading to more volatile weather patterns.

Worldwide, heat waves are longer and hotter, heavy rain and flooding is more frequent. Severe storms are increasing in frequency and severity. As is expected, variation in weather patterns is evident and affected seasonally and by local geography such as rivers, lakes and mountains.

Seafront properties take the brunt of severe winds, rain and storm surges.

Computer modelling showing expected range of naturally occurring temperature variations both with and without human contribution shows that human contribution has increased the likelihood of hotter overall temperatures. (For why scientists talk about probabilities rather than certainties see A Advertising here) Upper atmosphere jet streams, swirling ocean currents, the melting of glaciers and permafrost all play a complex and interlinked part in our global weather systems.

People around the world are experiencing the effects of increasingly severe and more frequent storms. The insurance industry is already factoring extreme weather damage into their premiums; they understand that damage will be significant in years to come and have been proactive in encouraging governments to adapt and prepare. They've also been working with industry to address future needs as a result from climate change and the impacts on property and threat to life from global weather instability whether it be preparing for increased heat waves, snow, wind, cyclones or hurricanes.

Low lying industrial areas are at risk of flooding and damage during severe storms. Toxins, oils and other contaminants run into surrounding waterways creating havoc for shipping and poisoning fisheries and marine life to say nothing of loss of work and income by those affected. Cleanups are costly and can take many years leaving affected areas uninhabitable.


The heart break from rebuilding shattered lives is impossible to calculate in financial terms.

Remote areas are affected with roadways being washed away leaving farm properties stranded and creek beds susceptible to increased erosion from vehicle traffic.

Financial aid is finite and decisions need to be made whether to replace infrastructure in remote locations after flood damage.

In the recent past, communities affected by storm damage have relied on governments to assist with rebuilding and other support, but that appears to be less reliable as governments are increasingly stretched financially and decide how to most effectively divvy up their budget.

They may choose not to assist as more and more regions are impacted and infrastructure will be left to local communities to manage as best they can. Food security, transport breakdown, water impurities and general displacement impact on communities worldwide and will continue to do so as we experience this change.

Encouragingly though, communities around the world are planning with hope for the future and coming together to share information, resources and ideas to improve the resilience of their towns and regions. They're working together to create a vision for their new communities based on common goals related to making their communities vibrant places to live post Peak Oil. See also H Health here. More detailed information on the Energy Descent Action Plan here.



Last year I wrote about the X-factor that enables some people to speak out and stand up to workplace bullies. Here. 


.

Climate Matters. H is for Health

This is for H in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.

We instinctively know we function better when we’re healthy, when we have hope for the future. When we feel a sense of control over our lives we show courage in the face of adversity – we feel empowered. The converse is also true, when we feel disempowered, when life feels hopeless, depression increases throughout communities.

Most people think of climate change as a purely environmental issue. But it affects more than the environment. In itself, even without being personally impacted by an extreme climate change event, knowledge about the devastating effects of extreme weather and environmental degradation can lead to depression.

Climate change also affects the fundamental requirements for health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.

Heat
As people in bushfire prone areas are aware, extreme heat can lead to devastating bushfires, resulting in deaths, higher pollution levels and asthma attacks as well as long term impacts as a result of trauma for those impacted directly and indirectly. Heatwaves affect health in a variety of ways - by triggering heart attacks, strokes, accidents and heat exhaustion – all potentially requiring hospitalisation. Vulnerable people such as the very young and elderly may die. High temperatures can also lead to increased pollutants in the air that afffect those with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases including asthma.

Increasing drought leads to food and water shortages. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are likely to lead to further malnutrition in many countries.

Floods
Floods can cause drownings and physical injuries, damage homes, businesses and infrastructure and disrupt all services including the supply of medical and health services. The economy is affected by lost work and school days, population displacement and disruption of transportation leading to food and fresh water shortages.

Floods contaminate freshwater supplies. Gastroenteritis and waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid outbreaks could also become more common because warmer temperatures would make it easier for bacteria to multiply in food and contaminated water after infrastructure has broken down due to flooding.

Residents in Townsville QLD were warned to preserve drinking water
after the devastation of Cyclone Yasi.

Diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Ross River virus may become more prevalent as mosquitoes extend their range and flourish in a generally warmer climate and breed in stagnant water after floods. Tick borne diseases such as lyme disease are also expected to increase.

Rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather events will destroy homes, farms, businesses, medical facilities and other essential services. More than half of the world's population lives within 60 km of the sea. People will be forced to move, which in turn heightens the risk of a range of health effects, from emotional distress to coming into contact with new diseases.

Food prices skyrocket and seaside communities are devastated
after extreme weather events worldwide.

When forests are decimated for timber, agriculture or mining, the native animals are crowded together in fragmented, smaller areas. One ill animal can infect others more easily and because they crowded together, and are closer to settlements, the disease carries far more easily and can transfer to humans easier than would be possible if their habitat was intact.

The health of the world’s people depends on truly sustainable development. This will ideally incorporate all areas of human activity and include our interactions with land, ocean and atmospheric environments to ensure that they, and we, are reslilient in the face of increasing pressure to use them with little regard for the outcomes.

Social, economic, public health and environmental needs must all be addressed in order to fully achieve sustainable progress - at local, national, regional and international levels. Policy makers, scientists, stakeholders, (including big business) and the wider public must learn to work together if we are to transition successfully through this period of climate change.

Last year I wrote about Harassment and Health for H in my theme on workplace bullying. Here.
.

Climate Matters. D is for Desertification

Post for the letter D in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.
(Edited during the Australian bushfire disaster Jan 2020)

Desertification is when once fertile lands degrade and become extremely dry and unproductive. It is known to be caused by human activities like overgrazing as well as by climate change. It is a huge problem worldwide with many negative consequences.

Vegetation can stabilise sand dunes.

Deserts expand and contract independent of human activities, they can stabilise as vegetation takes root and expand as grasses, shrubs and trees are removed. Desertification has affected civilisations for eons and led to displacement of peoples as lands become uninhabitable, and unable to support human needs.

Dryland ecosystems are extremely fragile. As populations increase and more people need to be fed, communities in dryland areas place increasing demands on the land by overgrazing and over-cultivation – more people need to be fed from less arable land. The soil can become increasingly salty, leading to poorer crop yields – malnutrition is often the outcome. Stressed soil is less able to absorb water, which in turn leads to an increase in erosion, which makes the land even less useful for often already marginalised communities.

In many countries where meat consumption has traditionally been low, there has been a push to increase their meat consumption either by importing cattle or increasing the size of their own herds.
Cattle trample fragile grasslands and the lack of vegetation leads to erosion and further loss of topsoil when there is rain. Cattle also muddy and foul precious drinking water as fencing in many developing nations is often inadequate.

When grasses are inadequate to feed the cattle, grain intended for human consumption is fed to the cattle which represent the families wealth. Land which wasn’t particularly productive at the best of times is degraded even further, leading to subsistence lifestyles or displacement – people move to cities hoping to find work which is increasingly scarce.

Cattle and other ruminants also emit a huge amount of methane (ie they fart) which contributes substantially to the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. It’s estimated that cattle emit similar levels of greenhouse gasses as does industry.

Even in wealthy countries like Australia, there are problems with salinity and erosion due to overgrazing and inappropriate farming methods in the past.

We know what the problems are, we know how to address them. Will we?

Splitting paddocks into small sizes and using large mobs of cattle grazing on rotation, Mr Le Feuvre is grazing pasture more intensively while giving it longer to rest, increasing carrying capacity.

The problems in developing countries are even greater due to lack of political interest in marginalised groups and the scale of the problem.

Last year I wrote about Danger, Depression and Doctors for D in my theme of workplace bullying. Here.
.

Book Review: "An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days".

.

It was an absolute pleasure to read “An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days” by Susan Wittig Albert.

I felt like a trusted friend who had been invited to share this perceptive, beautifully expressed journal written during 2008 – the year Obama became president of the USA.

The journal is confronting due to the issues Albert is exploring, but unexpectedly it’s not depressing. She shares her growing awareness and concern about recession, climate change, environmental degradation, water misuse and energy depletion. But she also ponders her reactions to these issues, and contemplates how she will respond proactively. Albert is awesomely well read and includes her reading list at the end of each month for anyone wanting to further their own knowledge.

Included are quotes from her readings and press clippings about current political happenings, which gives a sense of immediacy of the unfolding political and environmental landscape. An added bonus is hearing about her life as an author, landowner and wife and the challenges she faces on those fronts as well.  Her writing is accessible and in no way intimidating, she comes across as a very aware woman who is sharing a challenging journey with us.

“An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days” is an excellent commentary on the current state of our world. I was so impressed, I’ve requested my local library to purchase a copy.


*I doubt that I've ever written a book review before, but I found this book to be outstanding, and wanted to share my enthusiasm. My book club mates know I'll be naturally attracted to books that are possibly 'meatier' than others enjoy, but having said that, if you are interested in what's happening with the environment, this is a good place to begin and/or extend your knowledge in a very accessible way.
.

Poinsettias

The drought has broken

Plague locusts massing

An army waiting. Biding their time

Farmers nervously watching, crops decimated if all goes as feared

Summer skies, usually blue and high, will blacken with the onslaught of flying
ravenous insects. Devouring every green thing in their path

A politician (chasing city votes) flippantly states: "They'll stop when they get to Melbourne"
as of thats ok

Glossing over the farmers' anguished loss

The scientists disagree - the suburbs will mirror the farmland, bereft of green
All will be eaten in the path of this horde

Happily the silk poinsettias in the window box survive.



More information about the Australian Plague Locust including a link to a swarm map, can be found here, and images here.

This Drabble is number 7 of 31 at the Annual Advent Calendar at The Burrow.


***

Winter doldrums

Oh my goodness, hasn't it been cold. I think that over the last few years, we've forgotten what Winter "should" feel like.

The summer dust is long gone, and the trees have had their fill of water. Leaves that were crisp and dead have blown away and been replaced with fresh growth. Now, it's drizzly and miserable. I've wimped out of scooping the dead bird into the compost heap. It must have been blown off a branch the other night during the storm. That's the second one this month. I wonder if it means the storms are particularly vicious, or if the birds have forgotten what storms are like? I suppose 12 years of drought could be enough for the group memory to fade?

The last few winters have been uneventful affairs. Ho hum weather, dry and not even particularly cold, but this year we've been getting the extremes. It's as if the sky gods are making up for lulling us into a state of complacency. And so we've had rain. All sorts of rain. Vast sheets of bucketing rain, miserable squalls interspersed with pallid blue sky and grubby clouds, drizzly rain that appears ineffectual until you go out and it seeps through the layers, down the sleeves and up your arms to your elbows. How on earth does it do that? And the hail. We've never seen anything like it down here before. The size of golf balls, damaging cars and roofs, and injuring animals and people. Not fun at all.

But speaking of fun, one of the joys of my childhood and that of my children was splashing in puddles, making leaf boats and floating them down the little rivulets in the gutters. This last generation of children missed out on that pass-time. No puddles, no gumboots, no running under the hoses in Summer and squealing with pleasure. No rain.

I wonder how the gumboot manufacturers fared? I don't think you could have bought them for love nor money for many years. But this year! Joy! They are out and proud! During their hibernation they really have evolved into footwear of beauty. Boring black or basic block colours? Forget it. These are paisley, floral, with animal prints, with little ears and dangles and doodads. They're really making up for lost time and bringing smiles in spite of the dreary weather.

Life is good.