Fighting Drought Years

Climate change has caused some areas to see their
climate take the form of lost summers, floods and
hurricanes.  In other places, the rain has been
very stubborn and refuses to fall at all.  This is
especially worrisome in areas that have never
needed summer irrigation before.  Retrofitting an
entire company with the irrigation equipment
previously reserved for very high value crops is
not an option considering current and likely future
commodity crop prices.  When growing maize for
a gas tank, for instance, it doesn’t make sense
to waste valuable water and resources when crop insurance allows
you to simply till it under and wait until next year.

However, irrigation in one form or another might become a practical
necessity in the Mid-west, just as it has been for a very long time in
the arid West.  Homeowners and farmers alike need to compete for water
during drought years.  As has been evidenced by conditions during the
100-year drought that has continued for several years in Australia,
extreme droughts can bring on some very unusual behaviors in the local
wildlife as well as the populace.

According to BBC News, “The Australian of the year 2007, environmentalist
Tim Flannery, once predicted that Perth, in Western Australia, could become
the world’s first ghost metropolis, its population forced to abandon the city
due to lack of water.”  It has been cited that the populace of Perth outpaces
the rest of Australia in terms of water usage.  And, in general, Australia
accounts for a large percentage of global energy consumption.

“Climatologists tell us that it is the most profoundly affected city in the
world. People have accepted that it is climate change.  In other parts of
the world people are thinking it’s something that’s going to happen to them
in the next 10 or 30 years and that they’ve got time to adjust. We’ve found
we’ve been living with it for 30 years now and we’re having to adjust very
quickly.”  In relation to Perth, Don McFarlane, of the Commonwealth
Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), had this to say.

Consider this quote taken from WikiPedia. “By far the largest part of
Australia is desert or semi-arid lands commonly known as the outback. A
2005 study by Australian and American researchers investigated the
desertification of the interior, and suggested that one explanation was
related to human settlers who arrived about 50,000 years ago. Regular
burning by these settlers could have prevented monsoons from reaching
interior Australia. In June 2008 it became known that an expert panel had
warned of long term, maybe irreversible, severe ecological damage for the
whole Murray-Darling basin if it does not receive sufficient water by
October. Australia could experience more severe droughts and they could
become more frequent in the future, a government-commissioned report said
on July 6, 2008.”

On a related note, consider Lake Chad in Africa.  It supplies water to four
bordering countries.  When surveyed in the early 1800’s, it was one of the
largest lakes in the world.  It nearly dried up twice in the 1900’s.  It is
said to be presently only an average of 5 feet deep.  Since the 1960’s, it
has shrunk in size by 95%.

Technorati Tags: climate change, drought, drought years, irrigation

Major Players in Sustainable Development

Sustainable development requires the input of all the major stakeholders in
the climate change solution phase.  That means that governments,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other concerned parties cannot
set about on a sustainable course of action until some sort of agreement
is reached with any party that might raise an objection that could put the
project in danger.

Sometimes public input on policy changes can keep the bill that is
politically expedient from becoming a law that appeases everyone and fixes
nothing.  Major stakeholders in the climate debate include just about
everyone, but some special groups that have been very active include
native and indigenous peoples, residents of island nations, commerce and
business groups, environmental activists and human rights campaigners, to
name just a few.

It is very important that these groups have a chance to sit down on a
regular business and state their concerns or compliments about how climate
change mitigation is being handled.

Technorati Tags: climate change, public input, sustainable development

Observing a Warming Earth

It seems that the idea of climate change used to be an intellectual
curiosity and yet another worrisome warning from people you wouldn’t
invite to parties.  However, in the span of just a few years, there has
been a dramatic shift in how people perceive climate change in North
America.

It may be disappearing polar bears or killer bees, but the wacky weather
that is now apparent to so many has been on the mind of climate
researchers for over a century.

While searching for the cause of ice ages, it was discovered that the
climate seemed to warm whenever carbon dioxide levels reached a critical
point.  Therefore, it was reasoned, the burning of coal could one day
cause the atmosphere to heat up too much.

When this was first proposed in the late 17th century, it was thought it
could take 500 years or more for such levels to be reached.  Had the
consumption of petroleum not become so widespread, that might have been
true, but in less than half that time, the Earth as far exceeded the
carbon dioxide concentrations that it were theorized would case the
opposite of an ice age to occur.

Technorati Tags: carbon dioxide concentrations, climate change, warming earth

Unique Ways to Cope With Climate Change

Important word for the 21st century:  adaptability.  When presented with
problems that have been hereto unknown to most living people, history
might provide some clues as to how to deal with some of the unexpected
consequences of climate change.  For instance, let’s say your town is
covered in two feet of water and you have to evacuate.

Assuming you don’t have a boat, the family horse could be a valuable
second option.  Think about the following simple example.  Horses were
seen delivering refugees through the contaminated flood waters of New
Orleans after hurricane Katrina.

Other old ways may also become new again.  Travel by ship, for instance,
could become the next popular way to honeymoon among the elite, just as
it was at the turn of the 20th century.  Anything that can be used as it
was a century ago has a good chance of being powered by renewable
resources, such as animals or complicated looking hand powered tools.

Technorati Tags: adaptability, climate change, renewable resources