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Jan

CANADA COVERS CLIMATEGATE – Rex Murphy Exposes New World Order Climate Change Scam

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ADAPTING TO A NEW WORLD ORDER As a consequence of the global economic turmoil, a new world order is emerging. Decision makers from governments, the private sector, international organizations and civil society need more than ever to rethink the strategies and develop innovative as well as future multidisciplinary solutions to face the global challenges of our multi-polar world and improve its state. MAJOR THEMES ADDRESSED ON THE FOUR DAYS OF THE FORUM: Monday, 8 June 2009: Economy and Governance Tuesday, 9 June 2009: Millennium Day: Sustainable Development, Health and Energy Wednesday, 10 June 2009: International Trade and the Americas Thursday, 11 June 2009: International Finance LUNCHEONS The working luncheons are definitely one of the highlights of the International Economic Forum of the Americas. These luncheons, an event in themselves, are a unique occasion where you can exchange views with your peers, develop your business network, and hear internationally renowned speakers. Wednesday, 10 June 2009: the Americas and the New World Order Thursday, 11 June 2009: The Economic Crisis and the Central Banks: What Role Do They Play and How Far Can they Go?
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Jul

Dan Wildcat – a Call to Consciousness on Climate Change

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Complete Video – www.nmai.si.edu Dan Wildcat (Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma) Daniel R. Wildcat is director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center and of the American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. In 1994 Wildcat helped form a partnership with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to create the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center as a nonprofit Native American initiative to facilitate technology transfer to tribal governments and Native communities, transfer of accurate environmental information to tribes, and research opportunities for tribal college faculty and students throughout the United States. In 1996 Dr. Wildcat helped plan and organize an American Indian educational program to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. As a part of the program, he moderated a live, nationally broadcast dialogue in Washington, DC, between traditional American Indian elders and American Indian scientists and engineers about the way we must live if we are to ensure a healthy planet for our children. Wildcat also helped plan and design a four-part video series entitled All Things Are Connected: The Circle of Life (1997), which dealt with land, air, water, and biological issues related to environmental science and policy challenges facing Native nations. His recent activities have revolved around forming the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change …
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Jun

IMPACT of CLIMATE CHANGE in INDIAN AGRICULTURE

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The major challenge faced by the entire world today is Climate Change or Global Warming. Every country is taking various measures to reduce the global warming. The climate change causes a greater impact on the agriculture. Particularly, Indian agriculture is hardly affected due to the climate change or global warming. The success of Indian agriculture much depends on the normal monsoon as also on favorable weather conditions. The fact is that all over the world, wherever, whenever the farmers meet, the crops and the prevailing prices. Aberrant weather conditions worry them. During recent years, burning of fossil fuels by the vehicles, coal burning by the power plants, emission from the industrial factories as also as a result of the large scale deforestation, the earth’s surface temperature is increasing, rainfall pattern is shifting causing loss of moisture, occurrence of cyclones, thunderstorms, floods as also the rising of the sea-level, which may ultimately see many coastal cities and towns inundated. As far as foodgrains production is concerned, even a slight rise in the earth’s surface temperature could cause drop in the country’s wheat production substantially as also it could much impair the quality of rice ( specially of the basmati rice), fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants, products now being much valued for their export. Despite these limitations, much useful work has been done on estimating the impacts of different climate change scenarios. In this paper climate change impacts in agriculture are examined with particular to Indian scenario.

Agriculture is one of the most weather-dependent of all human activities. In India, agriculture and allied activities constitute the single largest component of Grass Domestic Product (GDP) contributing nearly 25% of the total. The tremendous importance of this sector to the Indian economy can be ganged by the fact that it provides employment to to-thirds of the total workforce. The share of agricultural products in exports is also substantial, with agriculture accounting for 15% of export earnings. Agricultural growth also has a direct impact on poverty eradication, and is an important factor in employment generation. Further, Indian agriculture is fundamentally dependent on weather for higher productivity.

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?

Climate change can manifest itself in gradual changes in temperature, precipitation and a rise in sea level, resulting in changes in frequency, intensity and duration of extreme events. Global warming means earth getting warmer and resulting in an ecological imbalance.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTS AGRICULTURE?

Climate change can affect agriculture in a variety of ways. Beyond a certain range of temperatures, warming tends to reduce yields because crops speed through their development, producing less grain in the process. Evaporation from the soil accelerates when temperatures rise and plants increase transpiration—that is, lose more moisture from their leaves. The combined effect is called “evapotranspiration.” Because global warming is like ly to increase rainfall, the net impact of higher temperatures on water availability is a race between higher evapotranspiration and higher precipitation. Typically, that race is won by higher evapotranspiration. But a key culprit in climate change—carbon emissions— can also help agriculture by enhancing photosynthesis in many important, so-called C3, crops (such as wheat, rice, and soybeans). The science, however, is far from certain on the benefits of carbon fertilization. But we do know that this phenomenon does not much help C4 crops (such as sugarcane and maize), which account for about one-fourth of all crops by value.

Potential direct effects on agricultural systems: Seasonal changes in rainfall and temperature could impact agro-climatic conditions, altering growing seasons, planting and harvesting calendars, water availability, pest, weed and disease populations, etc. Evapotranspiration, photosynthesis and biomass production is altered. Land suitability is altered.

India, as a developing country has reasons to be concerned about the adverse impact of climate change on its economy. A large part of its population depends on climate sensitive sectors for livelihoods which makes it highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate change can have serious impact on its crops, forests, coastal regions, etc. which can in turn affect the achievement of its important national development goals. The issue of climate change cannot however be taken up without linking it to developmental needs such as poverty, health, energy access and education. Efforts to address climate change adaptation and mitigation needs should not take resources away from the core development needs and growth objectives of the developing countries. Climate Change mitigation and poverty reduction should be addressed simultaneously.

EFFECT OF GLOBAL WARMING

¨ Global warming is increasing the earth’s average temperature. The green house gases are the main culprits of the global warming. The green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are playing hazards in the present time. These green house gases trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere and thus result in increasing the temperature of the earth. The excessive emission of these gases is the major cause of global warming.

¨ The major source of carbon dioxide is the power plants. These power plants emit large amounts of carbon dioxide produced from burning of fossil fuels for the purpose of electricity generations. Coal is the major fuel that is burnt in these power plants. Coal produces around 1.7 times as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy when flamed as does natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil. Coal gives out 80% more carbon per unit of energy it produces as compared to natural gas. Another major source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the emission from the cars and other vehicles. About 20% of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere comes from burning of gasoline in the engines of the vehicles.

¨ Buildings, both commercial and residential represent a large source of global warming pollution than cars and trucks. Building of these structures requires a lot of fuel to be burnt which emits a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

¨ The second major greenhouse gas after CO2 which causes global warming is Methane. Methane is obtained from resources such as rice paddies, Bovine Flatulence, bacteria in bogs and fossil fuel manufacture. Almost in all parts of the world, rice is grown on flooded fields. When fields are flooded, anaerobic situation built up and the organic matter in the soil decays, releasing methane to the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide which is a colorless gas with sweet odour is another green house gas. The main sources of nitrous oxide include nylon and nitric acid production, cars with catalytic converters, the use of fertilizers in agriculture and burning of organic matter. A greater emission of nitrous oxides in the recent decades is leading global warming.

¨ Another major cause of global warming is deforestation. Deforestation is to be blamed for 25% of all carbon dioxide release entering the atmosphere, by the cutting and burning of about 34 million acres of trees each year. Trees collect CO2 that we breathe out and they give back oxygen that we breathe in. Thus, cutting of trees is leading to greater concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Greater urbanization, requirement of land for factories and buildings, requirement of timber are all reasons that are leading to deforestation which in turn is leading to global warming.

¨ The global warming has led to increase in mean earth surface temperature and thus melting of the polar ice. There are frequent meltdown of glaciers that result in floods and other natural calamities. The melting of ice at the poles has led the increase in sea level. And further increase in temperature may melt the ice and lead to increase in mean sea level which will engulf low lying countries.

¨ The effect of global warming is very evident on the animal kingdom. Some animals have become extinct due to loss of their natural habitat or their inability to evolve the rapid change in their life style because of the changes in the seasons. The migrating birds have changed their time to travel and also their place of migration.

¨ The effects of global warming can be felt on the seasons too. There is shift in season cycle, as the summers are getting longer than the winters. This has affected the animals and made them to change their life style accordingly and those who failed to do so have perished or on the verge of extinction.

¨ The global warming is also responsible for the introduction of some new diseases. The bacteria are more effective and multiply much faster in warmer temperatures compared to cold temperatures. The increase in temperature has led to increase in the microbes that cause diseases.

¨ Climate change is also effecting the crop production, as the crops are getting destroyed due to the sudden change in temperatures or sudden onset of rains. Also, the flash floods and other natural calamities affect the crop.

¨ As the matter of fact, because of global warming, the earth’s atmosphere is getting more unpredictable with heavy rains in the areas which have scantly rainfall or drought in the areas which received good annual rainfall. The months of rainfall are also getting affected.

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is the mainstay of Indian economy and provides food and livelihood security to a substantial section of the Indian population. The impact of climate change as witnessed in recent times has immense potential to adversely affect agriculture in this country in a variety of ways. As a large part of the arable land in India is rain-fed, the productivity of agriculture depends on the rainfall and its pattern. Agriculture will be adversely affected not only by an increase or decrease in the overall amounts of rainfall but also by shifts in the timing of the rainfall. Any change in rainfall patterns poses a serious threat to agriculture, and therefore to the economy and food security. Summer rainfall accounts for almost 70% of the total annual rainfall over India and is crucial to Indian agriculture.

Climate Change is projected to have significant impacts on conditions affecting agriculture, including temperature, precipitation and glacial run off. It affects agriculture in more ways than one. It can affect crop yield as well as the types of crops that can be grown in certain areas, by impacting agricultural inputs such as water for irrigation, amounts of solar radiation that affect plant growth, as well as the prevalence of pests.

Rise in temperatures caused by increasing green house gases is likely to affect crops differently from region to region. As a result of climate change the amount of arable land in high-latitude region is likely to increase by reduction of the amount of frozen lands. At the same time arable land along the coast lines are bound to be reduced as a result of rising sea level. Erosion, submergence of shorelines, salinity of the water table due to the increased sea levels, could mainly affect agriculture through inundation of low lying lands.

The impact of climate change on agriculture could result in water shortages and drought, new diseases, heat stress for animals and risks liked to extreme weather events. Scientists are studying very closely the effect of climate change in different fields including agriculture. Various studies have indicated that rise in temperature is going to affect the agricultural production though its contribution to green house gas is only 28%. Climate change is already upon us. Indian agriculture, despite being a relatively minor contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, will be a big loser if global temperatures rise.

Agriculture will be adversely affected not only by an increase or decrease in the overall amounts of rainfall, but also by shifts in the timing of the rainfall. Higher temperatures reduce the total duration of a crop cycle, leading to a lower yield per unit area, especially for India’s wheat and paddy crops. Soil erosion, increased numbers of pests and weeds brought by climate change will also affect agriculture in India. For instance, the amount of moisture in the soil will be affected by changes in factors such as rainfall, runoff and evaporation. Global warming will seriously affect agriculture. Some species of agricultural crops will be adversely affected by higher temperatures, increased weeds and harmful insects. It is also possible that global warming will lead to global food shortages.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN INDIA

The vulnerability of Indian agriculture to climate change is well acknowledged. But what is not fully appreciated is the impact this will have on rain-fed (non-irrigated) agriculture, practiced mostly by small and marginal farmers who will suffer the most.

The crops that may be hit include pulses and oilseeds, among others. These are already in short supply and are consequently high-priced. Nearly 80 million hectares, out of the country’s net sown area of around 143 million hectares, lack irrigation facilities and hence, rely wholly on rain water for crop growth. Over 85% of the pulses and cereals, more than 75% of the oilseeds and nearly 65% of cotton are produced from such lands. The crop yields are quiet low.

According to A K Singh, Deputy Director-General (Natural Resource Management) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), medium-term climate change predictions have projected the likely reduction in crop yields due to climate change at between 4.5% and 9% by 2039.

The long run predictions paint a scarier picture with the crop yields anticipated to fall by 25 per or more by 2099. This will have a detrimental effect on farmers’ income and purchasing power, with obvious down-the-line repercussions. Though the rainfall records available with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) do not indicate any perceptible trend of change in overall annual monsoon rainfall in the country, noticeable changes have been observed within certain distinct regions.

At least three meteorological sub-divisions – Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Kerala have shown significant decrease in seasonal rainfall though some others have recorded an uptrend in precipitation as well. Since, rain-fed crops like coarse grains, pulses and oilseeds are grown mostly during the kharif season, these are impacted by both low as well as excess rainfall.

India is among countries most threatened by climate change with experts warning that rising temperatures will lead to more floods, heat waves, storms, rising sea levels and unpredictable farm yields. Here are the main potential effects of climate change on a country which is the world’s seventh largest in area and is home to 1.1 billion people, a sixth of humanity.

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has warned that India could lose upto 125 million tones of cereals. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was awarded Nobel Prize in the year 2008 has warned that due to global warming, the sea levels in Asia will rise by atleast 40cm by 2100 flooding vast areas on the coastline, including some of the most densely populated cities, whose population will be forced to migrate inland (The Hindu Business Line dated 03-11-2007). The first to be affected by the climate change will be those living in the fringe zones, working outdoors or whose livelihoods depend directly on the physical environment. Viewed from these perspectives, the main sectors facing risks from direct impact could be agriculture, water resources and health.

The IPCC report indicates high probability of crop losses with increase in temperature in the tropical regions. Studies do confirm this trend. Among cereal crops important for food security, wheat is most sensitive to even small increase in temperature. Relatively, rice has greater tolerance to temperature increases. Increasing climate variability could result in considerable season/ annual fluctuation in food production. All agricultural commodities are subject to such variability.

SOLUTIONS FOR GLOBAL WARMING

The most important contributor to global warming is the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels due to human activity. The following are the some of the suggestions to prevent global warming.

ü CO2 emission can be cut by reducing the use of fossil fuels by cutting back on car use, investing in energy efficiency, implementing energy conservation measures and utilizing renewable resources such as wind, solar and hydropower. Reducing fossil fuel user will, coincidentally, also reduce emissions of methane, nitrous oxide and ozone.

ü Since CO2 is consumed by plants and trees (known as carbon-sinks), reversing deforestation and implementing reforestation programmes may reduce levels in the atmosphere. The need to take such measures was first recognized at the RIO climate change convention in 1992, after which over 160 countries pledged to limit emissions of CO2 and to protect and enhance natural ‘sinks’ of CO2. Trees play a unique role in the global carbon cycle. They are the largest land-based mechanism for removing CO2 from the air. Trees are able to store a large amount of CO2 in their structure. An acre of forest will absorb about ten times the CO2 amount absorbed by an acre of crop land. Planting more trees and reducing more trees and reducing timber cut worldwide will help to restore the balance.

ü Try to cut down demand for electricity when we reduce electricity power use, we save money, breathe cleaner air and help to reduce the global warming problem.

ü Government should also encourage the use of mass transit; provide tax rebates for people who buy low and no-pollution vehicles and subsidies to fossil fuel and the nuclear industries.

ü Green house gas emissions be managed using an incentive based policy, such as market based approach to capping and reducing such emissions. This type of strategy provides clear incentives for changes in business practices and the development of new technologies. It assures that economic forces are directed to keeping the cost of reducing emissions as low as they can be. Many industrial nations have now adopted policies intended to limit green house gases.

ü Try to follow the environment-friendly policies like ‘Reduce’, ‘Reuse’ and ‘Recycle’. Save containers, bags, everything that can be used in the future. Also we use cloth towels and napkins instead of paper ones and use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones.

ü Try to minimize the usage of air conditioners, refrigerators and other electronic goods which cause hazardous effects to the mother earth and can maximize the usage of the solar energy and wind energy for the power generation.

CONCLUSION

Scientists are convinced that human actions are causing global warming. If this is so, it stands to reason that our own actions can also help to reduce this threat. Today global warming poses an extraordinary challenge. The world’s leading atmospheric scientists tell us that a gradual warming of our climate is under way and will continue. This long-term warning trend poses even greater risks to many other nations, particularly poorer countries that will be far less able to cope with a changing climate and low-lying countries where sea-level rise will cause significant damage.

Meeting the challenge of global warming will require sustained effort over decades on the part of Governments, who must establish the rules and modify them. Although much is being done to reduce the emission of green house gases, the efforts are still not enough. The Indian policy makers must remember that climate change has a creeping effect on the economy and can further hurt the already fragile agricultural system.

Article from articlesbase.com

EARTH QUAKES FIRES AND FLOODS STARVATION
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May

Climate of India

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Climate Of India

By: wuwu
Posted: Oct 09, 2010

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History

The formation of the Himalayas (pictured) during the Early Eocene some 53 million years ago was a key factor in determining India’s modern-day climate; global climate and ocean chemistry may have been impacted.

During the Late Permian (some 260251 Ma), the Indian subcontinent was part of the vast supercontinent Pangaea. Despite its position within a high-latitude belt at 5575 S (as opposed to its current position between 5 and 35 N), latitudes now occupied by Greenland and parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, India likely experienced a humid temperate climate with warm, frost-free weather, though with well-defined seasons. Later, India joined the southern supercontinent Gondwana, a process beginning some 550500 Ma. During the Late Paleozoic, Gondwana extended from a point at or near the South Pole to near the equator, where the Indian craton (stable continental crust) was positioned, resulting in a mild climate favourable to hosting high-biomass ecosystems. This is underscored by India’s vast coal reservesuch of it from the late Paleozoic sedimentary sequencehe fourth-largest reserves in the world. During the Mesozoic, the world, including India, was considerably warmer than today. With the coming of the Carboniferous, global cooling stoked extensive glaciation, which spread northwards from South Africa towards India; this cool period lasted well into the Permian.

Tectonic movement by the Indian Plate caused it to pass over a geologic hotspothe Runion hotspotow occupied by the volcanic island of Runion. This resulted in a massive flood basalt event that laid down the Deccan Traps some 6068 Ma, at the end of the Cretaceous period. This may have contributed to the global Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event, which caused India to experience significantly reduced insolation. Elevated atmospheric levels of sulphur gases formed aerosols such as sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid, similar to those found in the atmosphere of Venus; these precipitated as acid rain. Elevated carbon dioxide emissions also contributed to the greenhouse effect, causing warmer weather that lasted long after the atmospheric shroud of dust and aerosols had cleared. Further climatic changes 20 million years ago, long after India had crashed into the Laurasian landmass, were severe enough to cause the extinction of many endemic Indian forms. The formation of the Himalayas resulted in blockage of frigid Central Asian air, preventing it from reaching India; this made its climate significantly warmer and more tropical in character than it would otherwise have been.

Regions

Main article: Climatic regions of India

Average annual temperatures across India:

Below 20.0 C

(< 68.0 F)

20.022.5 C

(68.072.5 F)

22.525.0 C

(72.577.0 F)

25.027.5 C

(77.081.5 F)

Above 27.5 C

(> 81.5 F)

Climatic zones in India, based on the Kppen classification system:

Alpine

(ETh)

Humid subtropical

(Cfa)

Tropical wet and dry

(Aw)

Tropical wet

(Am)

Semi-arid

(BSh)

Arid

(BWh)

India is home to an extraordinary variety of climatic regions, ranging from tropical in the south to temperate and alpine in the Himalayan north, where elevated regions receive sustained winter snowfall. The nation’s climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert. The Himalayas, along with the Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan, prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in, keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar latitudes. Simultaneously, the Thar Desert plays a role in attracting moisture-laden southwest summer monsoon winds that, between June and October, provide the majority of India’s rainfall. Four major climatic groupings predominate, into which fall seven climatic zones that, as designated by experts, are defined on the basis of such traits as temperature and precipitation. Groupings are assigned codes (see chart) according to the Kppen climate classification system.

Tropical wet

A tropical rainy climate covers regions experiencing persistent warm or high temperatures, which normally do not fall below 18 C (64 F). India hosts two climatic subtypes that fall under this group. The most humid is the tropical wet climate (also known as a tropical monsoon climate) that covers a strip of southwestern lowlands abutting the Malabar Coast, the Western Ghats, and southern Assam. India’s two island territories, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, are also subject to this climate. Characterised by moderate to high year-round temperatures, even in the foothills, its rainfall is seasonal but heavyypically above 2,000 millimetres (79 in) per year. Most rainfall occurs between May and November; this is adequate for the maintenance of lush forests and other vegetation throughout the remainder of the year. December to March are the driest months, when days with precipitation are rare. The heavy monsoon rains are responsible for the extremely biodiverse tropical wet forests of these regions.

In India, a tropical wet and dry climate is more common. Noticeably drier than areas with a tropical monsoon climate, it prevails over most of inland peninsular India except for a semi arid rain shadow east of the Western Ghats. Winter and early summer are long, dry periods with temperatures averaging above 18 C (64 F). Summer is exceptionally hot; temperatures in low-lying areas may exceed 50 C (122 F) during May, leading to heat waves that can each kill hundreds of Indians. The rainy season lasts from June to September; annual rainfall averages between 7501,500 millimetres (29.559.1 in) across the region. Once the dry northeast monsoon begins in September, most precipitation in India falls on Tamil Nadu, leaving other states comparatively dry.

Tropical dry

A tropical arid and semi-arid climate dominates regions where the rate of moisture loss through evapotranspiration exceeds that from precipitation; it is subdivided into three climatic subtypes. The first, a tropical semi-arid steppe climate, predominates over a long stretch of land south of Tropic of Cancer and east of the Western Ghats and the Cardamom Hills. The region, which includes Karnataka, inland Tamil Nadu, western Andhra Pradesh, and central Maharashtra, gets between 400750 millimetres (15.729.5 in) annually. It is drought-prone, as it tends to have less reliable rainfall due to sporadic lateness or failure of the southwest monsoon. North of the Krishna River, the summer monsoon is responsible for most rainfall; to the south, significant post-monsoon rainfall also occurs in October and November. In December, the coldest month, temperatures still average around 2024 C (6875 F). The months between March to May are hot and dry; mean monthly temperatures hover around 32 C, with 320 millimetres (13 in) precipitation. Hence, without artificial irrigation, this region is not suitable for permanent agriculture.

The Thar Desert.

Most of western Rajasthan experiences an arid climatic regime. Cloudbursts are responsible for virtually all of the region’s annual precipitation, which totals less than 300 millimetres (11.8 in). Such bursts happen when monsoon winds sweep into the region during July, August, and September. Such rainfall is highly erratic; regions experiencing rainfall one year may not see precipitation for the next couple of years or so. Atmospheric moisture is largely prevented from precipitating due to continuous downdrafts and other factors. The summer months of May and June are exceptionally hot; mean monthly temperatures in the region hover around 35 C (95 F), with daily maxima occasionally topping 50 C (122 F). During winters, temperatures in some areas can drop below freezing due to waves of cold air from Central Asia. There is a large diurnal range of about 14 C (25.2 F) during summer; this widens by several degrees during winter.

East of the Thar Desert, the region running from Punjab and Haryana to Kathiawar experiences a tropical and sub-tropical steppe climate. The zone, a transitional climatic region separating tropical desert from humid sub-tropical savanna and forests, experiences temperatures that are less extreme than those of the desert. Average annual rainfall is 300650 millimetres (11.825.6 in), but is very unreliable; as in much of the rest of India, the southwest monsoon accounts for most precipitation. Daily summer temperature maxima rise to around 40 C (104 F). The resulting natural vegetation typically comprises short, coarse grasses.

Subtropical humid

Most of Northeast India and much of North India are subject to a humid subtropical climate. Though they experience hot summers, temperatures during the coldest months may fall as low as 0 C (32 F). Due to ample monsoon rains, India has only one subtype of this climate, Cfa (under the Kppen system). In most of this region, there is very little precipitation during the winter, owing to powerful anticyclonic and katabatic (downward-flowing) winds from Central Asia.

Humid subtropical regions are subject to pronounced dry winters. Winter rainfallnd occasionally snowfalls associated with large storm systems such as “Nor’westers” and “Western disturbances”; the latter are steered by westerlies towards the Himalayas. Most summer rainfall occurs during powerful thunderstorms associated with the southwest summer monsoon; occasional tropical cyclones also contribute. Annual rainfall ranges from less than 1,000 millimetres (39 in) in the west to over 2,500 millimetres (98 in) in parts of the northeast. As most of this region is far from the ocean, the wide temperature swings more characteristic of a continental climate predominate; the swings are wider than in those in tropical wet regions, ranging from 24 C (75 F) in north-central India to 27 C (81 F) in the east.

Montane

Pangong Lake in Ladakh, an arid montane region lying deep within the Himalayas.

India’s northernmost areas are subject to a montane, or alpine, climate. In the Himalayas, the rate at which an air mass’s temperature falls per kilometre (3,281 ft) of altitude gained (the dry adiabatic lapse rate) is 9.8 C/km. In terms of environmental lapse rate, ambient temperatures fall by 6.5 C (11.7 F) for every 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) rise in altitude. Thus, climates ranging from nearly tropical in the foothills to tundra above the snow line can coexist within several dozen miles of each other. Sharp temperature contrasts between sunny and shady slopes, high diurnal temperature variability, temperature inversions, and altitude-dependent variability in rainfall are also common. The northern side of the western Himalayas, also known as the trans-Himalayan belt, is a region of barren, arid, frigid, and wind-blown wastelands. Most precipitation occurs as snowfall during the late winter and spring months.

Areas south of the Himalayas are largely protected from cold winter winds coming in from the Asian interior. The leeward side (northern face) of the mountains receives less rain while the southern slopes, well-exposed to the monsoon, get heavy rainfall. Areas situated at elevations of 1,0702,290 metres (3,5107,510 ft) receive the heaviest rainfall, which decreases rapidly at elevations above 2,290 metres (7,513 ft). The Himalayas experience their heaviest snowfall between December and February and at elevations above 1,500 metres (4,921 ft). Snowfall increases with elevation by up to several dozen millimetres per 100 metre (~2 in; 330 ft) increase. Elevations above 5,000 metres (16,404 ft) never experience rain; all precipitation falls as snow.

Seasons

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) designates four official seasons:

A winter scene in Bandhavgarh National Park, Madhya Pradesh.

Winter, occurring from December to early March. The year’s coldest months are December and January, when temperatures average around 1015 C (5059 F) in the northwest; temperatures rise as one proceeds towards the equator, peaking around 2025 C (6877 F) in mainland India’s southeast.

Summer or pre-monsoon season, lasting from March to June (April to July in northwestern India). In western and southern regions, the hottest month is April; for northern regions, May is the hottest month. Temperatures average around 3240 C (90104 F) in most of the interior.

Monsoon or rainy season, lasting from June to September. The season is dominated by the humid southwest summer monsoon, which slowly sweeps across the country beginning in late May or early June. Monsoon rains begin to recede from North India at the beginning of October. South India typically receives more precipitation.

Post-monsoon season, lasting from October to December. In northwestern India, October and November are usually cloudless. Parts of the country experience the dry northeast monsoon.

The Himalayan states, being more temperate, experience an additional two seasons: autumn and spring. Traditionally, Indians note six seasons, each about two months long. These are the spring (Sanskrit: vasanta), summer (grma), monsoon season (var), early autumn (arada), late autumn (hemanta), and winter (iira). These are based on the astronomical division of the twelve months into six parts. The ancient Hindu calendar also reflects these seasons in its arrangement of months.

Winter

Once the monsoons subside, average temperatures gradually fall across India. As the Sun’s vertical rays move south of the equator, most of the country experiences moderately cool weather; temperatures change by about 0.6 C (1.08 F) per degree of latitude. December and January are the coldest months, with mean temperatures of 1015 C (5059 F) in Indian Himalayas. Mean temperatures are higher in the east and south, where they reach 2025 C (6877 F).

Inclement conditions in the Indian Himalayas: a view of Gulmarg, a popular tourist destination in Jammu and Kashmir in winter.

In northwestern India, virtually cloudless conditions prevail in October and November, resulting in wide diurnal temperature swings; as in much of the Deccan Plateau, they range between 16 C (28.8 F) 20 C (36.0 F). However, from March to May, “western disturbances” bring heavy bursts of rain and snow. These extra-tropical low-pressure systems originate in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They are carried towards India by the subtropical westerlies, which are the prevailing winds blowing at North India’s range of latitude. Once their passage is hindered by the Himalayas, they are unable to proceed further, and they release significant precipitation over the southern Himalayas. The three Himalayan states (Jammu and Kashmir in the extreme north, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand) experience heavy snowfall; in Jammu and Kashmir, blizzards occur regularly, disrupting travel and other activities.

The rest of North India, including the Indo-Gangetic Plain, almost never receives snow. However, in the plains, temperatures occasionally fall below freezing, though never for more one or two days. Winter highs in Delhi range from 16 C (61 F) to 21 C (70 F). Nighttime temperatures average 28 C (3646 F). In the Punjab plains, lows can fall below freezing, dropping to around 6 C (21 F) in Amritsar. Frost sometimes occurs, but the hallmark of the season is the notorious fog, which frequently disrupts daily life; fog grows thick enough to hinder visibility and disrupt air travel 1520 days annually. Eastern India’s climate is much milder, experiencing moderately warm days and cool nights. Highs range from 23 C (73 F) in Patna to 26 C (79 F) in Kolkata (Calcutta); lows average from 8 C (46 F) in Patna to 14 C (57 F) in Kolkata. Frigid winds from the Himalayas can depress temperatures near the Brahmaputra River. The two Himalayan states in the east, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, receive substantial snowfall. The extreme north of West Bengal, centred around Darjeeling, also experiences snowfall, but only rarely.

In South India, particularly the hinterland of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, parts of Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, somewhat cooler weather prevails. Minimum temperatures in western Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh hover around 10 C (50 F); in the southern Deccan Plateau, they reach 16 C (61 F). Coastal areas, especially those near the Coromandel Coast, and low-elevation interior tracts are warm, with daily high temperatures of 30 C (86 F) and lows of around 21 C (70 F). The Western Ghats, including the Nilgiri Range, are exceptional; there, lows can fall below freezing. This compares with a range of 12 C (21.6 F) 14 C (25.2 F) on the Malabar Coast; there, as is the case for other coastal areas, the Indian Ocean exerts a strong moderating influence on weather.

Summer

A summer view of Khajjiar, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh.

Summer in northwestern India lasts from April to July, and in the rest of the country from March to June. The temperatures in the north rise as the vertical rays of the Sun reach the Tropic of Cancer. The hottest month for the western and southern regions of the country is April; for most of North India, it is May. Temperatures of 50 C (122 F) and higher have been recorded in parts of India during this season. In cooler regions of North India, immense pre-monsoon squall-line thunderstorms, known locally as “Nor’westers”, commonly drop large hailstones. Near the coast the temperature hovers around 36 C (97 F), and the proximity of the sea increases the level of humidity. In southern India, the temperatures are higher on the east coast by a few degrees compared to the west coast.

By May, most of the Indian interior experiences mean temperatures over 32 C (90 F), while maximum temperatures often exceed 40 C (104 F). In the hot months of April and May, western disturbances, with their cooling influence, may still arrive, but rapidly diminish in frequency as summer progresses. Notably, a higher frequency of such disturbances in April correlates with a delayed monsoon onset (thus extending summer) in northwest India. In eastern India, monsoon onset dates have been steadily advancing over the past several decades, resulting in shorter summers there.

Altitude affects the temperature to a large extent, with higher parts of the Deccan Plateau and other areas being relatively cooler. Hill stations, such as Ootacamund (“Ooty”) in the Western Ghats and Kalimpong in the eastern Himalayas, with average maximum temperatures of around 25 C (77 F), offer some respite from the heat. At lower elevations, in parts of northern and western India, a strong, hot, and dry wind known as the Loo blows in from the west during the daytime; with very high temperatures, in some cases up to around 45 C (113 F); it can cause fatal cases of sunstroke. Tornadoes may also occur, concentrated in a corridor stretching from northeastern India towards Pakistan. They are rare, however; only several dozen have been reported since 1835.

Monsoon

Onset dates and prevailing wind currents of the southwest summer and northeast winter monsoons.

Regional variation in rainfall across India. The monsoon season delivers four-fifths of the country’s precipitation.

The southwest summer monsoon, a four-month period when massive convective thunderstorms dominate India’s weather, is Earth’s most productive wet season. A product of southeast trade winds originating from a high-pressure mass centered over the southern Indian Ocean, the monsoonal torrents supply over 80% of India’s annual rainfall. Attracted by a low-pressure region centered over South Asia, the mass spawns surface winds that ferry humid air into India from the southwest. These inflows ultimately result from a northward shift of the local jet stream, which itself results from rising summer temperatures over Tibet and the Indian subcontinent. The void left by the jet stream, which switches from a route just south of the Himalayas to one tracking north of Tibet, then attracts warm, humid air.

The main factor behind this shift is the high summer temperature difference between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. This is accompanied by a seasonal excursion of the normally equatorial intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a low-pressure belt of highly unstable weather, northward towards India. This system intensified to its present strength as a result of the Tibetan Plateau’s uplift, which accompanied the Eoceneligocene transition event, a major episode of global cooling and aridification which occurred 3449 Ma.

The southwest monsoon arrives in two branches: the Bay of Bengal branch and the Arabian Sea branch. The latter extends toward a low-pressure area over the Thar Desert and is roughly three times stronger than the Bay of Bengal branch. The monsoon typically breaks over Indian territory by around 25 May, when it lashes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. It strikes the Indian mainland around 1 June near the Malabar Coast of Kerala. By 9 June, it reaches Mumbai; it appears over Delhi by 29 June. The Bay of Bengal branch, which initially tracks the Coromandal Coast northeast from Cape Comorin to Orissa, swerves to the northwest towards the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The Arabian Sea branch moves northeast towards the Himalayas. By the first week of July, the entire country experiences monsoon rain; on average, South India receives more rainfall than North India. However, Northeast India receives the most precipitation. Monsoon clouds begin retreating from North India by the end of August; it withdraws from Mumbai by 5 October. As India further cools during September, the southwest monsoon weakens. By the end of November, it has left the country.

Pre-monsoon clouds, as they appear in Mumbai, western Maharashtra.

Monsoon rains impact the health of the Indian economy; as Indian agriculture employs 600 million people and composes 20% of the national GDP, good monsoons correlate with a booming economy. Weak or failed monsoons (droughts) result in widespread agricultural losses and substantially hinder overall economic growth. The rains reduce temperatures and replenish groundwater tables, rivers, and lakes.

Post-monsoon

During the post-monsoon months of October to December, a different monsoon cycle, the northeast (or “retreating”) monsoon, brings dry, cool, and dense Central Asian air masses to large parts of India. Winds spill across the Himalayas and flow to the southwest across the country, resulting in clear, sunny skies. Though the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and other sources refers to this period as a fourth (“post-monsoon”) season, other sources designate only three seasons. Depending on location, this period lasts from October to November, after the southwest monsoon has peaked. Less and less precipitation falls, and vegetation begins to dry out. In most parts of India, this period marks the transition from wet to dry seasonal conditions. Average daily maximum temperatures range between 28 and 34 C (82 and 93 F).

The northeast monsoon, which begins in September, lasts through the post-monsoon seasons, and only ends in March, carries winds that have already lost their moisture while crossing central Asia and the vast rain shadow region lying north of the Himalayas. They cross India diagonally from northeast to southwest. However, the large indentation made by the Bay of Bengal into India’s eastern coast means that the flows are humidified before reaching Cape Comorin and rest of Tamil Nadu, meaning that the state, and also some parts of Kerala, experience significant precipitation in the post-monsoon and winter periods. However, parts of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and North-East India also receive minor precipitation from the northeast monsoon.

Statistics

Shown below are temperature and precipitation data for selected Indian cities; these represent the full variety of major Indian climate types. Figures have been grouped by the four-season classification scheme used by the IMD;[] year-round averages and totals are also displayed.

Temperature

Average temperatures in various Indian cities (C)

Winter

(Jan Feb)

Summer

(Mar May)

Monsoon

(Jun Sep)

Post-monsoon

(Oct Dec)

Year-round

City

Min

Avg

Max

Min

Avg

Max

Min

Avg

Max

Min

Avg

Max

Avg

Port Blair

Thiruvananthapuram

Bangalore

Nagpur

Bhopal

Guwahati

Lucknow

Jaisalmer

Dehradun

Amritsar

Shimla

Srinagar

Leh

Climate chart (explanation)

-1

-13

8.6

-12

-6

6.5

-1

6.5

4.3

7.1

2.9

-6

-10

average max. and min. temperatures in C

precipitation totals in mm

source: Weatherbase, Plan Holidays

Imperial conversion

0.5

0.3

0.5

0.3

0.2

0.6

0.8

0.5

0.3

0.1

0.3

average max. and min. temperatures in F

precipitation totals in inches

Precipitation

Average precipitation in various Indian cities (mm)

Winter

(Jan Feb)

Summer

(Mar May)

Monsoon

(Jun Sep)

Post-monsoon

(Oct Dec)

Year-round

City

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Total

Port Blair

360

480

400

460

290

220

150

2,890

Thiruvananthapuram

125

202

306

175

152

179

223

206

1,713

Bangalore

110

150

212

249

279

315

291

210

140

1,962

Nagpur

168

290

291

157

1,094

Bhopal

136

279

360

185

1,043

Guwahati

181

226

309

377

227

199

1,722

Lucknow

114

305

292

188

1,019

Jaisalmer

219

Dehradun

230

631

627

261

2,024

Amritsar

231

187

746

Shimla

170

420

430

160

1,530

Srinagar

658

Leh

116

Bangalore

Climate chart (explanation)

120

110

137

195

180

average max. and min. temperatures in C

precipitation totals in mm

source: World Weather Information Service

Imperial conversion

0.1

0.3

0.2

1.8

4.7

3.2

4.3

5.4

7.7

7.1

2.6

0.8

average max. and min. temperatures in F

precipitation totals in inches

Disasters

Main article: Natural disasters in India

Disaster-prone regions in India.

Map showing winds zones, shaded by distribution of average speeds of prevailing winds.

Climate-related natural disasters cause massive losses of Indian life and property. Droughts, flash floods, cyclones, avalanches, landslides brought on by torrential rains, and snowstorms pose the greatest threats. Other dangers include frequent summer dust storms, which usually track from north to south; they cause extensive property damage in North India and deposit large amounts of dust from arid regions. Hail is also common in parts of India, causing severe damage to standing crops such as rice and wheat.

Floods and landslides

See also: 2007 South Asian floods and 2008 Indian floods

In the Lower Himalaya, landslides are common. The young age of the region’s hills result in labile rock formations, which are susceptible to slippages. Rising population and development pressures, particularly from logging and tourism, cause deforestation. The result, denuded hillsides, exacerbates the severity of landslides, since tree cover impedes the downhill flow of water. Parts of the Western Ghats also suffer from low-intensity landslides. Avalanches occur in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Sikkim.

Floods are the most common natural disaster in India. The heavy southwest monsoon rains cause the Brahmaputra and other rivers to distend their banks, often flooding surrounding areas. Though they provide rice paddy farmers with a largely dependable source of natural irrigation and fertilisation, the floods can kill thousands and displace millions. Excess, erratic, or untimely monsoon rainfall may also wash away or otherwise ruin crops. Almost all of India is flood-prone, and extreme precipitation events, such as flash floods and torrential rains, have become increasingly common in central India over the past several decades, coinciding with rising temperatures. Mean annual precipitation totals have remained steady due to the declining frequency of weather systems that generate moderate amounts of rain.

Cyclones

Satellite imagery of Cyclone 05B in the Bay of Bengal.

Tropical cyclones, which are severe storms spun off from the Intertropical Convergence Zone, may affect thousands of Indians living in coastal regions. Tropical cyclogenesis is particularly common in the northern reaches of the Indian Ocean in and around the Bay of Bengal. Cyclones bring with them heavy rains, storm surges, and winds that often cut affected areas off from relief and supplies. In the North Indian Ocean Basin, the cyclone season runs from April to December, with peak activity between May and November. Each year, an average of eight storms with sustained wind speeds greater than 63 km/h (39 mph) form; of these, two strengthen into true tropical cyclones, which have sustained gusts greater than 117 km/h (73 mph). On average, a major (Category 3 or higher) cyclone develops every other year.

During summer, the Bay of Bengal is subject to intense heating, giving rise to humid and unstable air masses that morph into cyclones. The 1737 Calcutta cyclone, the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone rank among the most powerful cyclones to strike India, devastating the coasts of eastern India and neighboring Bangladesh. Widespread death and property destruction are reported every year in the exposed coastal states of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. India’s western coast, bordering the more placid Arabian Sea, experiences cyclones only rarely; these mainly strike Gujarat and, less frequently, Kerala.

Cyclone 05B, a supercyclone that struck Orissa on 29 October 1999, was the deadliest in more than a quarter-century. With peak winds of 160 miles per hour (257 km/h), it was the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Almost two million people were left homeless; another 20 million people lives were disrupted by the cyclone. Officially, 9,803 people died from the storm; unofficial estimates place the death toll at over 10,000.

Droughts

Main article: Drought in India

The dry bed of the Niranjana River, Bihar.

Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the monsoon as a source of water. In some parts of India, the failure of the monsoons result in water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields. This is particularly true of major drought-prone regions such as southern and eastern Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. In the past, droughts have periodically led to major Indian famines. These include the Bengal famine of 1770, in which up to one third of the population in affected areas died; the 18761877 famine, in which over five million people died; the 1899 famine, in which over 4.5 million died; and the Bengal famine of 1943, in which over five million died from starvation and famine-related illnesses.

All such episodes of severe drought correlate with El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. El Nio-related droughts have also been implicated in periodic declines in Indian agricultural output. Nevertheless, ENSO events that have coincided with abnormally high sea surfaces temperatures in the Indian Oceann one instance during 1997 and 1998 by up to 3 C (5 F)ave resulted in increased oceanic evaporation, resulting in unusually wet weather across India. Such anomalies have occurred during a sustained warm spell that began in the 1990s. A contrasting phenomenon is that, instead of the usual high pressure air mass over the southern Indian Ocean, an ENSO-related oceanic low pressure convergence center forms; it then continually pulls dry air from Central Asia, desiccating India during what should have been the humid summer monsoon season. This reversed air flow causes India’s droughts. The extent that an ENSO event raises sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean influences the degree of drought.

Extremes

Alwar, on the fringes of the Thar Desert, registered a temperature of 50.6 C (123.1 F), India’s highest.

India’s lowest recorded temperature was 45 C (49 F) in Dras, Ladakh, in eastern Jammu and Kashmir; however, the reading was taken with non-standard equipment. Readings as low as 30.6 C (23 F) have been taken in Leh, further south in Ladakh. However, temperatures on the Indian-controlled Siachen Glacier near Bilafond La (5,450 metres/17,881 feet) and Sia La (5,589 metres/18,337 feet) have fallen below 55 C (67 F), while blizzards bring wind speeds in excess of 250 km/h (155 mph), or hurricane-force winds ranking at 12 (the maximum) on the Beaufort scale. These conditions, not hostile actions, caused more than 97% of the roughly 15,000 casualties suffered by India and Pakistan during conflict in the region. The highest reliable temperature reading was 50.6 C (123.1 F) in Alwar, Rajasthan in 1955. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) doubts the validity of 55 C (131 F) readings in Orissa from 2005.

The average annual precipitation of 11,871 millimetres (467 in) in the village of Mawsynram, in the hilly northeastern state of Meghalaya, is the highest recorded in Asia, and possibly on Earth. The village, which sits at an elevation of 1,401 metres (4,596 ft), benefits from its proximity to both the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal. However, since the town of Cherrapunji, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the east, is the nearest town to host a meteorological office (none has ever existed in Mawsynram), it is officially credited as being the world’s wettest place. In recent years, the Cherrapunji-Mawsynram region has averaged between 9,296 and 10,820 millimetres (366 and 426 in) of rain annually, though Cherrapunji has had at least one period of daily rainfall that lasted almost two years. India’s highest recorded one-day rainfall total occurred on 26 July 2005, when Mumbai received more than 650 millimetres (25.6 in); the massive flooding that resulted killed over 900 people.

Remote regions of Jammu and Kashmir, such as Baramulla district in the east and the Pir Panjal Range in the southeast, experience exceptionally heavy snowfall. Kashmir’s highest recorded monthly snowfall occurred in February 1967, when 8.4 metres (28 ft) fell in Gulmarg, though the IMD has recorded snowdrifts up to 12 metres (39.4 ft) in several Kashmiri districts. In February 2005, more than 200 people died when, in four days, a western disturbance brought up to 2 metres (7 ft) of snowfall to parts of the state.

Global warming

Main article: Effects of global warming on India

Solar Activity and Climate Change (2008.07.10)

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Does solar activity play a part in climate change (Euronews)
Video Rating: 4 / 5

PLAYLIST: www.youtube.com Solar Flares – Mitch Battros Solar Flares First hour guest, Earth changes expert Mitch Battros shared an update on recent solar activity, which included a small B-class flare. Because of the cycle we’re in, with Earth’s magnetic field weakening, we could be affected more by smaller flares, such as experiencing satellite outages, he warned.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

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May

Climate Change Update ( 10 March 2011 ) Powerful X-Class Solar Flare

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X-FLARE: March 9th ended with a powerful solar flare. Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1.5-class explosion from behemoth sunspot 1166 around 2323 UT. A movie from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a bright flash of UV radiation plus some material being hurled away from the blast site: After four years without any X-flares, the sun has produced two of the powerful blasts in less than one month: Feb. 15th and March 9th. This continues the recent trend of increasing solar activity, and shows that Solar Cycle 24 is heating up. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours. Stay tuned. spaceweather.com www.sott.net X class flare JUST erupted from Sun – March 9, 2011 – headed THIS way www.youtube.com VIDEOS: 09/03/2011 – Real-time Magnetosphere Simulation www.youtube.com MILLIONS OF COLOMBIANS HIT BY HEAVY RAIN CCTV News www.youtube.com

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Mar

Business Continuity and Climate Change (Part 1)

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At the end of this decade, scientists discover that giant solar flares have caused the temperature of Earth’s core to increase at an incredible rate. As the fragile balance of the planet’s structure is tipped by this unprecedented event, cracks begin to appear in the Earth’s crust, creating earthquakes of increasing ferocity. Despairing governments hatch a plan to ensure the survival of life via the creation of modern-day Arks – but while this desperate plan unfolds vast swathes of the world are consumed by mega-tsunamis, gigantic volcanic eruptions and the clash of mountain against mountain. Billions die – and the fate of humanity rests in the hands of… John Cusack?

The more observant among you may well have noticed that this is not in fact a representation of the near future from the perspective of shared services and outsourcing; rather, a precis of the plot of disaster movie 2012. However, while such cataclysmic challenges remain (for the moment…) in the realm of Hollywood sci-fi, the threat posed to smooth back-office operations by smaller (but nevertheless potentially devastating) phenomena is very real. Organizations without clear, coherent and agile disaster-avoidance and disaster-recovery strategies are courting catastrophe – and in many respects the challenges will only intensify over the years to come…

If that sounds too doomladen for many readers’ palates, it’s worth taking a look at a few critical issues. Firstly, from an organizational standpoint a catastrophe doesn’t have to be global to have global implications: the amazing advances in technology that have paved the way for IT-enabled centralization and the rise of the shared services model have resulted in countless benefits but have also created incredible dangers for any companies foolhardy enough to put all their data eggs in one basket – the oft-imagined (and thankfully unlikely) scenario whereby Company X’s sole SSC is destroyed in an earthquake without that company backing up its mission-critical data is the archetypal nightmare here.

Secondly, the increasing interconnection brought on by globalization has similarly led to innumerable benefits but has also led to the possibility of almost unthinkable dangers, both natural and artificial: the headlines over the past year have been dominated by the consequences of the financial crisis, a “near miss” event in many ways which at one point looked as though it could result in systemic collapse with the global banking superstructure within hours of collapse; and by the avian ‘flu pandemic which – fingers crossed – appears now to be less problematic than was first feared but which could – thanks again to globalization and easy travel – have reached every corner of the earth more rapidly than any previous pandemic and with devastating consequences. In this case, disaster-recovery teams would have had to cope not with acute trauma at any one location, but the consequences of a significant proportion of the workforce being rendered unfit for purpose (ie, dead) and of the impact of a substantial depletion of the consumer base on profitability. Two near-misses in a single year: it’s easy to imagine the Sword of Damocles swaying gently overhead…

Coping with that kind of catastrophe might seem beyond the domain of shared services (as if they didn‘t have enough to cope with); however, it seems logical to assume that, in the case of a seriously destabilizing event like either of the last two mentioned could well have become, shared services would be perfect to lie at the heart of any recovery strategy developed by a global organization: a number of small, agile centralized groups (as long as they’re not too depleted or rendered useless by whatever’s transpired) are far better placed to mount coherent resistance to disaster than widely dispersed (and probably pretty terrified) local teams – as long, crucially, as the lines of communication remain open and the aforementioned mission-critical data is not lost. Any element of disaster-avoidance strategy dealing with major global events should therefore include well-defined roles for shared services teams maximizing the advantages conferred by this model.

However, such events remain, thankfully, unlikely in the short-term. Much more immediate and pressing is the risk of local catastrophes which threaten the shared services units themselves – and dealing with these, and minimizing their impact on the organization as a whole, is what disaster-avoidance and -recovery are really all about. After all, in the case of a truly disastrous global pandemic or systemic collapse we’re all probably going to have a lot more to worry about than whether the business processes are still up and running; however, a localized event could have very little impact on the world at large but prove fatal for an organization which hasn’t taken the time to take preventative measures. Unfortunately, in many ways it seems that the likelihood of such localized events – whether of natural or artificial origin – is on the up, for a number of reasons.

Foremost amongst these is the ongoing impact of climate change (and here it’s worth pointing out that while skeptics can rail against the assumption that humans are responsible, very few are actively denying that climate change is a reality) and other consequences of environmental degradation. Following the old adage that prevention is better than cure, a sensible starting-point for disaster avoidance would be to avoid locating critical infrastructure in areas likely to be worst affected by global warming in the foreseeable future – so global businesses are unlikely to be setting up shared services hubs on the beaches of the Maldives or the shores of the Ganges Delta, for example. The problem here is that nobody knows to what extent climate change is already impacting on what might previously have been thought “safe” areas via catastrophic meteorological events: anyone in the Philippines (an increasingly important shared services and outsourcing hot spot) during the fatal storms and floods earlier this year, or in New Orleans during the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, can testify to the effects of the weather on productivity. The bottom line is that now more than ever, location selection processes must include at their heart a full and rational assessment of the possible impact of climate change. In addition, once built, those responsible for a shared service center – no matter how sensibly sited – must also put in place contingency measures to cope with weather-related events of an intensity over and above what may have been expected only a few years previously. Back-up generators and plans to minimize the impact of disrupted communications and transport links are already an absolute minimum here.

At the other end of the spectrum, the possibility of a human-induced destabilizing event, which – thanks to an increase in terrorism targeting sites of commercial activity – has also increased over the past decade, is likely to rise exponentially if the worse forecasts for climate change are realized. Rising sea-levels and – ironically but no less catastrophically – increased drought are likely to see extreme population movements over the next couple of decades, fuelling existing social tensions and creating new ones. Predicting the stability of any given location ten years from now certainly isn’t an easy proposition – but it’s one that planners cannot now afford to ignore, especially as much new shared services activity is taking place in those fast-growing developing nations most likely to be worst affected by such pressures.

These points are by no means meant as an argument for keeping new shared services development wholly within the developed world (specifically within meteorologically “safe” locations); the benefits posed by siting infrastructure in the emerging hot spots are frankly too good to miss. The point is that those benefits will be for naught if they are not insured by robust disaster-mitigation practices which factor in the potential impact of climate change – and any board unwilling to face the realities of climate change, skeptical though its members may be about the underlying causes, is asking for the kind of trouble from which many businesses wouldn’t be able to recover. Splashing out a few bucks on getting a climatologist’s advice before investing millions in a new center might a few years back have been seen as verging on the lunatic; now it’s probably if not indispensable then pretty close to it.

Of course, it’s not just those looking at setting up new infrastructure that have to concern themselves with such gloomy matters: existing centers should also be assessed in terms of potential risks based on scientific data. But to a large extent such scrutiny will already have been carried out by most organizations – after all, severe weather events are hardly a new phenomenon: it’s their prevalence and intensity which are likely to increase over time. More crucially, firms now don’t just need to assess their own susceptibility to damage: thanks to the growth of outsourcing and the development of more disaggregated business structures, it’s increasingly vital to include in any due diligence an assessment of a potential provider’s ability to cope with the possible consequences of climate change. After all, the gains derived from a sweet outsourcing deal will look pretty paltry pretty quickly if your partner’s infrastructure is rendered useless by flooding or other weather-induced trauma.

For those who may be thinking all this is overly paranoid, it’s worth noting that the consensus within the business community is increasingly aligning itself with the climate-change evangelists. A survey conducted last year for insurance brokers Marsh found that 87 per cent of businesses consulted saw climate change as the single leading threat facing them over the next decade in terms of risks to future growth (while threats posed by the global economic downturn may well have risen to top spot in current thinking, it’s unlikely to have driven climate change off the agenda altogether). Regardless of cause – and that debate is unlikely to disappear despite the growing scientific consensus placing blame at humanity’s doorstep – in the minds of those running the planet’s economic engines, the threat posed by changes in the environment is more pressing than those offered by terrorism, pandemics or anything else. Shared services, so clearly at the heart of so much of the transformation to have revolutionized business over the past few years, simply can’t afford not to be at the forefront of this most urgent issue.

_______________________________________________________________________

This article was first published on the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON) – Read it here: http://www.ssonetwork.com/topic_detail.aspx?id=6572&ekfrm=6&utm_source=ssonetwork.com&utm_medium=SMO&utm_campaign=DIRECTORIES&mac=SSON_External_Listing_2056

About The Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON)

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Jamie Liddell has worked in journalism since he was a 17-year-old cub reporter for The Tico Times, Costa Rica’s highly regarded English-language weekly newspaper. Holding an MA in English from Clare College, Cambridge University, Jamie came to the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network from the world of overseas property publishing where he worked on the industry’s best-selling publications for the UK and Ireland, and gave seminars at consumer and b2b exhibitions and conferences internationally.

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Mar

Climate Change in Our Magnetic Environment

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It is commonly believed that we live in one gigantic magnetic field, but in fact we live in two, and both are changing at a fast pace, possibly faster than evolution, meaning our bodies cannot keep up with the change of the natural environment that we are designed to live in.

The first of these fields is the earth’s natural magnetic field, generally assumed to be a static field with north at the top of the world and south at the bottom. However, this has not always been the case. The earth’s magnetic field is subjected to geomagnetic reversals which are estimated to occur on average every 250,000 years. This is a natural cycle of time and does not necessarily present any issues as evolution has always coped with this slow change. However, there is a problem. The earth’s magnetic field is fading at an alarming rate, probably faster than at any point in history. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was in 1845 when the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (whose name is now used as a unit of magnetic measurement) started to keep records.

The second field is the earth’s natural electromagnetic field known as the Schumann Resonance. In 1952 Professor W. O. Schumann of the Technical University of Munich proved that the main frequency of the earth’s resonance is 7.83 Hz. This discovery was immediately linked to research that was being carried out on the alpha rhythm of brain waves, which just happened to be about the same as the earth’s resonance. It is not only human brains that have the same frequency as the earth, but all mammalian brains share this common frequency. This phenomenon suggests that the Schumann Resonance is the tuning fork of life.

Any schoolboy will tell you that magnetic fields and electricity are inextricably linked, and our bodies are a mass of bioelectrical activity. Each individual cell is dependant on the electrical resistance of its neighbouring cell and it is this electrical communication combined with the body’s transportation system (blood flow) that controls the efficiency of all cellular functions in the body. An electrical breakdown causes pain, disease, tiredness, etc, etc. Modern medicine relies on this mechanism to provide chemical cocktails that have the ability to change the resistance levels of targeted body cells.

When the first astronauts ventured into space they suffered nausea, dizziness, and vomiting; subsequent flights included a device to produce a pulsed frequency of the Schumann Resonance and the problem disappeared. Volunteer students who lived for four weeks in a bunker hermetically sealed against all magnetic fields suffered physical and emotional disorders, but after only a brief exposure to the Schumann Resonance of 7.83 Hz their health stabilised. Research by E. Jacobi at the University of Duesseldorf showed that one sided use of Schumann wave simulation without the geomagnetic stimulation (the earth’s magnetic field) caused serious health problems. But the bad news is the earth’s frequency is rising (figures suggest the average frequency has jumped to nearly 11 Hz) and science can offer no explanation, but one theory suggests that the continual and growing bombardment of man-made electromagnetic waves around our planet is starting to effect our natural environment.

Is life’s tuning fork starting to play the wrong note?

For more information on magnotherapy, visit

www.brodpod.co.uk

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Mar

FINAL DIESEL REVIEW~ EMP ~SOLAR FLARES ~CLIMATE CHANGE ~OIL PRICES~JEFF the CANUCK

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Prepare for higher crude oil prices with diesel vehicles. The Mercedes has a “timing chain”, they do wear as well. Pre-97 VW vehicles apply to this video. 1997 and up have a computer controled injection system, same with the Ford’s, around 1996? Do your own research. Bottom line, any diesel vehicle is better than a gas vehicle.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Feb

THE CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX HOAX

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“The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!”
-Senator James Inhofe

Thanks to an outspoken American Senator, the world is being set straight on climate change. Working tirelessly to block Al Gore’s Capitol Hill celebration as part of a seven-continent “Live Earth” concert tour intended to rally the planet in cheerfully addressing runaway global warming, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe speaks with the conviction of a Holocaust denier when he calls climate change “The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!”

A least since the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, WMD in Iraq, the Iranian threat, Bush’s Terror War On Terror, and the constitutional curtain-closing Patriot Acts 1, 2 and 3. [The Hill Mar 28/07]

Apparently unafraid of facing future Nuremberg-style environmental trials, Climate Change Deniers such as the National Science Teachers Association have refused 50,000 free DVDs of Gore’s Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth” in fear of alienating heavy corporate funders like Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute, which publishes expensive ads in newspapers ridiculing melting glaciers, while also helpfully providing “teaching aids” such as coal coloring books and classroom videos asserting, “You Can’t Be Cool Without Fuel.”

That means you, Mr. and Mrs. Penguin.

Still, it’s hard to debate a destabilizing 10,000-foot thick glacier. With sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets already at the upper limits of 30 year projections, another 500,000 square miles of Arctic sea ice melted, and Alaska’s glaciers threatening to turn off the winter-warming Gulf Stream by decanting more than 13 trillion gallons of meltwater into the world ocean each year, and Greenland’s fast-melting 2,000 kilometres of solid ice increasing its melting rate over the past five years from a metre a year to a metre a month, and polar bears drowning a hundred miles offshore while looking for ice floes retreating another 300 miles out, and thousands of Canadian harp seal pups experiencing 100% mortality from the same lack of ice, and with the first month of 2007 3.4°F hotter than the any January ever recorded, and the snowpack serving drinking water to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest shrinking toward bare rock, and more than a quarter of the American West in either severe or exceptionally severe drought and Arizona cactus dying from lack of water… it is undeniably clear that the Inhofe is right: the planet can’t be heating up! [Reuters Mar 23/07; CBC Aug 3; Aug 20/04; BBC Radio 4 Aug 7/05; Independent Oct 2/05; Knight Ridder News Service July31/03; New York Times Mar 10/06; www.cejnewsviews.blogspot.com; www.realclimate.org]

On the other hand, an 18-inch rise in sea level would see salt water flowing into the Sacramento River Delta, destroying the drinking water for 23 million Californians. A 20-foot ocean level rise will put half of Florida under water— including Miami, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville—along with the new WTC memorial in Manhattan, and much of Washington DC, where Senator Inhofe is busily blocking climate change-inspired discourse, dancing and music. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar 11/07; BBC July28/04]

In more than 180 countries, one out of every ten people on the planet could soon be chuckling over the climate change hoax while swimming inland. Fortunately for U.S. legislators like Inhofe, only one of these countries is the United States. The rest—China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, Thailand and the Philippines have mostly expendable non-white populations who don’t buy much stuff from the United States, which today primarily produces bullshit, weapons and wars. [Inter Press Service Mar 28/07]

Meanwhile, the rapidly melting and slip-sliding Greenland ice sheet does not know it is a hoax and is set to raise world sea levels 20 to 30 feet, while far to the south, inland Western Antarctic glaciers uncorked by the calving Larson ice shelf are rushing to add another 20-feet or so to the rising sea level hoax. As for the melting Eastern Antarctic… think about relocating to a mountaintop with a dock in your front yard.

OCEANS ‘R’ US
Onboard a planet that is much more Ocean than Earth, the gigantic saltwater buffer covering 70% of its surface is absorbing half of our carbon folly every day. This is not so good, because all this hot water is helping to create vast fishless Dead Zones off the coast of California and Oregon every year for the last five years. Dead zones are also blooming in the waters off Chile, Namibia and South Africa. Nearly 50% of the world’s fisheries are in these areas. [BBC News Feb 17/07]

Even worse, in contributing to a 25 million ton carbon deposit into the One World Ocean every day, we are seeing a resulting carbonic reaction that is rapidly turning this whole big watery wilderness acidic. [www.earthfiles.com Aug 13/04; Agence France-Presse July 20/05]

And those 25 million daily acid-making tons are increasing rapidly.

Meanwhile, the global warming hoax so stridently opposed by Senator Inhofe means that temperatures in Eastern Europe are not averaging 8° Fahrenheit above normal, even though they are. Canada on average is more than 5 degrees warmer than normal, and hoax-ridden Siberia is 9°F hotter than usual. [Agence France-Presse Feb 16/07; AP Feb 16/07]

THE HEAT IN PEAT
This is a scream because the world’s largest frozen peat bog stretches for a million square kilometres across western Siberia’s once permanently frosty permafrost. Warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth, this time bomb tundra contains several hundred billion tons of methane that—if thawed by a few more cheap flights to Mexico—could be burped like a giant cow fart into an atmosphere already dangerously overloaded with fast-food bovine flatulence. [NewScientist.com Aug 11/05]

Thing is, each teeny molecule of methane released into the atmosphere destroys millions of sunshielding ozone molecules. And despite the hoax of ozone layer depletion, last year’s 11 million square miles ozone hole over the Antarctic was the biggest ever recorded, with local ozone absence often reaching 99%. No more ozone means no more plankton means no more oxygen and no more fishies. [National Science Foundation Press Release Dec 17/03; www.greenguerrilla.com/om.htm; Agence France-Presse Dec 26/06]

Another thing is, one molecule of methane also traps 21 times more heat than a measly molecule of carbon dioxide. [EPA]

Suddenly—hopefully—that next drive to Burger King may not seem as urgent as leaving the key unturned in the aptly-named ignition. Because about another two or three degrees rise in global temperatures could release more heat-trapping tundra methane all at once than all the carbon released over the past 100 years. [Baltimore Sun Dec 16/04]

THE IPCC HOAX
But as Inhofe urges, relax and throw another log on the fire. The good news is that the latest alarming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections showing an “upper range” temperature increase of about 11°F by this century’s end based on carbon burning trends in places like the USA, Canada and China turn out to be baloney.

The bad news is that 1,200 of the world’s best atmospheric scientists at the IPCC forgot to factor in land-based methane releases, which are “emptying at an alarming rate,” according to Chris Freeman of the University of Wales. Apparently uninformed that methane levels already rising three-times faster than CO2 are a hoax, a frightened Freeman exclaims, “It’s a vicious circle. The problem gets worse and worse, faster and faster” as more methane heats the atmosphere releasing more methane and so on. [National Science Foundation Press Release Dec 17/03; NewScientist.com Aug 11/05]

Even with the terrible tundra factored in, panicked oceanographers are warning that just a few degrees more ocean warming could release another 2,000 billion tons of methane gas into the atmosphere. That’s a lot. In fact it’s enough to trigger a sudden “destabilization event” even worse than a jilted spouse.

We won’t like it. A NASA study confirmed that 55 million years ago a similarly tremendous underwater methane burp instantly heated Earth’s atmosphere by up to 13° F within a few decades. This messed up a lot of finned, feathered and furred lives, disrupting climate worldwide for more than 100,000 years.

Some 200 million years before that, another series of methane releases came close to wiping out all life on a lone space colony called Earth. As oxygen levels plummeted and organic life teeter-tottered on the brink of extinction, more than 94% of marine species headed for off-planet dimensions. It took between 25 and 100 million years for coral reefs and forests to regrow into their former diversity.

For those of us who don’t like waiting for anything, such an interruption could be extremely aggravating.

NOT ALL CYCLES ARE BICYCLES
These Big Extinction Events—and other periodic warming and cooling episodes—are what people like Inhofe and your neighbors and coworkers mean when they say that climate change is “cyclical”. They’re right. But not in the way they mean.

For example, about 12,700 years ago average temperatures in North Atlantic region abruptly plummeted nearly 5°C and remained that way for 1,300 years. The Younger Dryas is named after a cold-loving Arctic wildflower that flourished during this era in the US and European regions, where icebergs extended as far south as the coast of present day Portugal.

Another abrupt warming took place about 1,000 years ago that allowed Norse voyagers to settle a northern green land. Three centuries later, the Norse abandoned their Greenland settlements when the climate chilled abruptly—with even more profound agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe. In the USA, the American revolution was nearly aborted by rapid climate shift as Washington struggled to get his thinly-clad troops across the icebound Delaware.

“Rapid changes in ocean circulation are linked to these abrupt climate changes,” Robert Gagosian, President and Director Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution told the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2003. “A growing body of evidence demonstrating linkages among ocean-related climate shifts, ‘megadroughts’ and precipitous collapses of civilizations, including the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia 4,200 years ago, the Mayan empire in central America 1,500 years ago, and the Anasazi in the American Southwest in the late 13th century.”

Now a lot more people could experience that excitement again. In May 2005, climate change researcher Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, aimed sonar upwards beneath the Arctic ice cap from Royal Navy submarines and correlated ships’ measurements across the Greenland Sea to detect that one of the two “heat pumps” driving the Gulf Stream had weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

“Until recently we would find giant ‘chimneys’ in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 metres below, but now they have almost disappeared,” Wadhams said. “As the water sank it was replaced by warm water flowing in from the south, which kept the circulation going. If that mechanism is slowing, it will mean less heat reaching Europe.”

Today, the powerful Gulf Stream that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters conveyed from the tropics has slowed by 30% in the last dozen years. According to UK newspapers, “The Gulf Stream delivers the equivalent of 1 million power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. Ireland, Britain and northwestern Europe lie on the same latitude as Siberia.” The shut down of this Gulf Stream “radiator” could lead to a century or more of no frost-free days on the northern European, UK and US Atlantic seaboards—at a time when the end of cheap oil sends fuel oil and food transport costs skyrocketing. [Sunday Times (Ireland) May 8/05; Guardian Dec 1/05]

While unusually violent solar flares are not linked to these major climatic events, cold northern meltwater and methane releases caused by mass volcanic eruptions are. On a Gaian world driven by intricately interconnected feedback mechanisms to maintain narrow margins of mammalian habitability, volcanism may somehow be cyclical.

But humans are cynical. And our denial is much more dangerous. As U.S. government geologist John Atcheson observes, “Humans appear to be capable of emitting carbon dioxide in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions.” According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels in cars, jets, ships, wood stoves and power plants releases more than 150 times the amount of volcanic carbon dioxide—”the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes the size of Hawaii’s Kilauea.” [Baltimore Sun Dec 16/04]

Inhofe says that more than 700 million cars and trucks running their motors an eggshell-thin atmosphere as enclosed as any garage are not affecting anything. [Independent Dec 6/03; Globe and Mail Apr11/98]

Atcheson, says, “Once these methane releases really get cooking, it’s likely to play out all the way.” [Independent Dec 6/03]

BUY LOCAL—HELP OIL TANKERS RETIRE NOW
Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping are increasing at an alarming rate and could rise by as much as 75% in the next 15 years unless we stop shopping for cheap junk at Wal-Mart and similar Chinese coal-plant prodding consumption emporiums. All this shipping traffic to deliver consumer toys and oil is nearly double Britain’s total emissions and more than all African countries combined.

For anyone who still believes in leaving their personal responsibility and children’s’ future to governments governed by corporate interests, more than 200 million tons of carbon emissions from 70,000 perpetually steaming ships do not come under the Kyoto agreement or any proposed European legislation. Few studies have been made of the vehicles that transport 90% of our not-so-goods over thousands of sea miles.

“Buying local” takes on new urgency and appropriateness with 20,000 new ships on order and shipboard emissions heading toward more than a million tons a day by 2020. [Guardian Mar 3/07]

STATES OF UNION
Apparently still clueless that climate change is a hoax, 409 mayors have signed a climate-protection agreement requiring cities to reduce greenhouse emissions, and 29 states have already passed legislation limiting greenhouse gases. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is also seeking to terminate global; warming by imposes the first state cap on greenhouse gas emissions that will reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Last Monday, the governors of Washington, California, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico announced a regional agreement on climate change.

On Thursday—as temperatures rose to the highest level ever for March at 11 locations across Japan—Senate hearings examined these state and local programs as models for federal legislation. [Kyodo news Mar 30/07]

On Sunday, Vice President Al Gore won an Academy Award for his must-see documentary on global warming.

As astonished Japanese hauled out their Saki for cherry blossom-viewing in a Tokyo sweltering under July-like temperatures, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “We are making tough choices. We are investing our taxpayers’ money. We are transforming our cities into laboratories for climate protection. In short, we are making a difference, and laying the groundwork for strong federal policies and programs.”

Calling on Congress to pass a plan “that calls for a hard and declining cap on emissions,” Nickels insisted that cities and states should be eligible for federal grants that underwrite innovative programs and research. “We need the federal government to take on a leadership role now so that we move beyond the grass-roots innovation that is blossoming in every state in the country,” he said.

But blowing up Iraq and Afghanistan, and getting ready to blow up Iran, Syria, North Korea and possibly Canada if we don’t fork over the rest of our natural gas, oil and fresh water for SUVs and desert golf courses, continues to vacuum nearly every shekel—er, dollar—from the U.S. economy. As Truthout’s Environmental Editor Kelpie Wilson points out, the anticipated cost of the Iraq slaughter “will be at least a trillion dollars. The installed cost of solar power is currently about a watt, so ,000 would buy a 2.2 kilowatt solar power system. That is enough power for a household with modest needs to spin the meter backward a good portion of the time. A trillion dollars would put a system like that on 50 million roofs.” [Truthout.com Mar 29/07]

SURGES
With the real surge taking place not in Baghdad but across the globe, as current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere leaped higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years and worldwide carbon fuel emissions surged past 900 tons each second, the doughty Senator Inhofe said he would fight any proposal based on California’s model that is already reducing traffic, de-stressing people’s lives and putting more saved fuel dollars in their pockets.

“Let’s be honest about what these programs, and their companion proposals here in Congress, really are,” Inhofe said. “They are the biggest tax increase in U.S. history. In fact, they are worse than taxes.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar 2/07]

Was the Oklahoma senator perpetrating his own hoax? By becoming the first local government in the United States to deal with climate change back in 1993, the city of Portland has already achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions below 1990 levels—while booming in smiles, improved health and cash savings.

“People have looked at it the wrong way, as a drain,” Mayor Tom Potter patiently explained after parking his Prius hybrid. “Actually it’s something that attracts people. It’s economical. It makes sense in dollars.”

Portland has led the way into a more fun, less carbon future by installing two light rail lines and a streetcar system, and 750 miles of bicycle paths. As a result, another 10 out of every hundred residents have left their dangerous cars chained up and are happily commuting by foot or on bicycle. [Guardian Mar 5/07; Washington Post Feb 27/07]

FLIPPING THE OTHER SWITCH
The “DO NOT CROSS” threshold of a further two degree temperature rise must be avoided at all costs—even if it means turning off computers, TVs and other appliances in tens of thousands of showrooms—and similar gadgets not actually in productive use in the office or at home.

Why not switch off global warming now?

And put the cash savings in your jeans?

And maybe not work so hard to keep all these machines turned on. Even when you think they’re turned off. Which could be the biggest hoax of all.

“Number one is to turn things off when they are not in use,” Wilson suggests. “Seventy-five percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Across the US, this equals the annual output of 12 power plants and costs consumers over billion each year. Buy some power strips so you can take back control over these ‘vampire loads.’ Light bulbs are also crucial. Lighting is about 25 percent of US electricity use. Compact fluorescent light bulbs use about one-third the energy of incandescent bulbs. [Truthout.com Mar 29/07]

Another big blind spot is that we in North America are too often locked by our media mesmerizers and cultural conditioning into thinking that what we see and hear around us is the way things are everywhere.

Not!

Flip on the Internet, buy a copy of the New Economist, chat up a visitor and the great and joyous news is that 95% of global humanity do not live here—and are not subjected to the ignorant bleating of Senators like I’m-a-foe, and presidential pretenders like Cheney, I mean Wolfowitz, I mean Perle, I mean JINSA, I mean Bush.

Europe is moving fast fast fast to wean itself off a species limiting carbon addiction. So is Scandinavia. Even Big Bad China, in the midst of its coal-fired-power-plant-a-week frenzy, is acknowledging planetary peril and attempting to put on the carbon brakes while rolling out windmills, electric bicycles and paradigm-changing Lithium Ion batteries in truly Chinese quantities.

Across the warming ocean in the other direction, to avoid a further 2 degrees centigrade temperature rise, further polar melting, and catastrophic methane releases—the woman-led German government is calling on industrialised countries to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 20% by 2020, and 60% by 2050. [Independent Dec 6/03]

That would help. A rapid 90% low-carbon diet might stave off calamity.

With targets—and incentives—like this, the opportunities for personal creativity, long wished for lifestyle changes, and entrepreneurship are boggling!

“Now is our chance to develop the American low-energy lifestyle. The Japanese use half the energy we do, yet still maintain an affluent lifestyle. Many European countries do the same. We can look to Japan and Europe for models, but we can also do it our own way,” Kelpie Wilson says—while powering her family’s fully but carefully equipped Oregon home with solar panels and a micro-stream generator for 11 months of the year.

REURGENCE AND REBIRTH
After thousands of hours of meticulous research, this writer can say definitively that climate change is not happening.

Forget “climate change”. The gradual warming of the Earth—which actually sounds inviting to shivering Northern Hemispherians—is nonsense.

We are actually well past climate change. We are now experiencing rapid Climate Shift.

And if we don’t flip off unneeded car and plane trips, appliances, light switches, deadbeat politicians, and consumption-driven network television right now—we could trip the switch on Climate Flip.

This means us, Mr. and Mrs. North America. As Flavia Nunes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California points out, the key finding from ice core samples and the geological record is that “the Earth is a system that can change very rapidly”—once an enclosed, recirculating atmosphere is saturated with the heat-trapping effluence of our affluence. [Christian Science Monitor Jan 26/06]

The heartening news is that Climate Shift is causing a concomitant Consciousness Shift. A lifeboat mentality is beginning to displace our misplaced “me first” conditioning as the realization sinks in that we could all sink down if our spaceship Earth founders on the reefs not of carbon and methane, but our own denial.

The answer to the biggest motivator for transformation yet enjoyed by challenge-loving and ultimately cooperative hominids is as simple—and immediate—as changing our minds.

So why not pull those plugs, jump on your bike, and visit a friend or your local farmer’s market right now? The liberating lesson of climate shift is that we can move just as quickly away from fear, guilt, loneliness, and the treadmill stress of credit card serfdom to enjoy true “freedom” as masters of our destiny in a supportive and approving community.

[The author has clicked off his nonessential electrical power bars, scrapped his old pickup, and is converting his recumbent bike to electric power.]

WHO IS WILLIAM THOMAS?

I am an award-winning Canadian author, reporter, photographer and filmmaker. A former Vancouver Sun “photog” – his feature writing and accompanying photographs subsequently appeared in more than 50 publications in eight countries, including translations into French, Dutch and Japanese.

My 30-minute video documentary Eco War won the 1991 US Environmental Film Festival award for “Best Documentary Short”. Excerpts from this “front-lines” chronicle of a three-man environmental emergency response team in Kuwait aired in an eight-part CBC Gulf War mini-series, and have been shown on CNN and NBC television, as well as Noam Chomsky’s feature film, “The Corporation”.

During and immediately after the Gulf War, I served five months in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a member of a three-man environmental emergency response team.

Winner of four Canadian feature-writing awards, I am the author of Days Of Deception: Ground Zero and Beyond; All Fall Down: The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion, Scorched Earth, Bringing The War Home, Alt Health, Stand Down, Dialing Our Cells: Cell Phone Health Hazards and the recently updated Chemtrails Confirmed.

A former pilot, ocean sailing master and frequent radio talk-show guest, I currently live and work in the Gulf Islands off Canada’s west coast.

Visit my investigative reporting website: willthomasonline.net

Visit my photography website: willthomasphotography.com

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