Tag: drought

Time for bipartisanship

11th January 2013

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TLg3B1Vi3XI]

When faced with an emergency, it has been common practice for governments to adopt a bipartisan approach.

This has happened routinely during times of war and, typically, resources have been mobilised rapidly to combat a common enemy.

The common foe now is climate change, which is bringing major disruption to all corners of the globe. Whether it is record drought in the US, record rainfall in the UK, or record heat waves in Australia, to continue to deny there is any need for a coordinated response (or repudiate the existence of the problem altogether!) when there is such a strong scientific consensus, is to abdicate moral responsibility.

The Union of Concerned Scientists should be congratulated for producing this video. The rest of us need to join the call to action.

2013 has to be the year we acted on climate change. 

The Amazon basin drought

16th October 2005

lbrazil_drought_deadfish.jpg
Brazilian fishermen stand among dead fish along an Amazon tributary
Image source: planetark.com

Just as deforestation has affected rainfall patterns in China, the dramatic images from the drought-stricken Amazon basin this week shows what happens when 6 football pitches of rainforest are cut down every minute. As this latest environmental catastrophe is one of a long line of such incidents around the world recently, it has barely registered with the world’s media, yet it affects 61 municipalities and threatens the livelihoods of millions of people.