by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 17, 2012 | Climate Change, Indigenous Autonomy
By Social Science and Humanities Research Centre
Indigenous people around the world are among the most vulnerable to climate change and are increasingly susceptible to the pathogen loads found in potable water after heavy rainfall or rapid snow melt.
These are the preliminary findings of Sherilee Harper, a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar in Aboriginal People’s Health at the University of Guelph, who says that there has been a significant increase in the incidence of diarrhea and vomiting following these weather events.
Harper is undertaking a comparative study of how extreme weather events affect waterborne diseases in the Arctic and in southwestern Uganda—and is finding plenty of similarities between health issues faced by indigenous groups in Uganda and those in Inuit Nunangat.
“There are a lot of similarities,” she says. “One of the most significant is caused by changes to the climate; in both places, increased temperatures and rainfall are leading to increased bacterial loads in water. This can be because of heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt, but, in each case, it leads to an increased risk of exposure to waterborne disease from both tap water and brook water.”
With climate change, these weather events are expected to increase in frequency, duration and intensity, in turn increasing the risk of disease. As a result, the risks associated with some centuries-old practices may be changing. For example, when Inuit go hunting or to cabins, they use water from brooks and streams or melt ice. Harper’s research shows that this water can have a negative impact on their health.
“After a heavy rainfall, there is an increase in E. coli and total coliforms in the water, which means there is an increased risk of exposure to these bacteria,” says Harper. “In Nunatsiavut, where I started this research, clinic records showed a significant increase in cases of vomiting and diarrhea after these high-impact weather events.”
Harper’s research indicates that water issues such as these are not likely to diminish in the near future.
“Under any climate change scenario you consider, this is going to increase,” she says. “Waterborne diseases are not just an Arctic issue; they are global. The World Health Organization projects that most of the climate change disease burden in the 21st century will be due to diarrhea and malnutrition.”
Harper’s comparative research also takes her to Uganda, where she is studying how climate events similar to those affecting Canada’s North are affecting Batwa peoples’ health. The Batwa are conservation refugees who were moved out of their forest homeland when the Ugandan government made it a national park to protect the silverback gorillas.
“The Batwa face similar social and societal issues to the Inuit, of which one of the most important is access to safe drinking water,” she says. “Comparing the two cultures allows me to examine similarities between two seemingly different populations and start addressing a deficit in understanding of the health dimensions of climate change among indigenous populations. This information can then be used to offer best practice guidelines and develop adaptation strategies in an indigenous context.”
Harper will discuss her research and answer questions from the press as part of the Canada Press Breakfast on the Arctic and oceans, being held at the 178th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The breakfast will be held in Room 306 of the Vancouver Convention Centre at 8 a.m. on February 17, 2012, and will feature Canadian research experts from across natural sciences, engineering, health, social sciences and humanities.
From Physorg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-climate-pollution-indigenous-people.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 12, 2012 | Climate Change
By Agence France Presse
French scientists unveiling new estimates for global warming said on Thursday the 2 C (3.6 F) goal enshrined by the United Nations was “the most optimistic” scenario left for greenhouse-gas emissions.
The estimates, compiled by five scientific institutes, will be handed to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for consideration in its next big overview on global warming and its impacts.
The report — the fifth in the series — will be published in three volumes, in September 2013, March 2014 and April 2014.
The French team said that by 2100, warming over pre-industrial times would range from two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 5.0 C (9.0 F).
The most pessimistic scenarios foresee warming of 3.5-5.0 C (6.3-9.0 F), the scientists said in a press release.
Achieving 2C, “the most optimistic scenario,” is possible but “only by applying climate policies to reduce greenhouse gases,” they said.
In its Fourth Assessment Report published 2007, the IPCC said Earth had already warmed in the 20th century by 0.74 C (1.33 F).
It predicted additional warming in the 21st century of 1.1-6.4 C (1.98-11.52 F), of which the likeliest range was 1.8-4.0 C (3.24-7.2 F).
The French estimates are derived from two different computer models that crunch data for four scenarios based on atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas.
The work differs from previous calculations as it takes into account the reflectivity of clouds and uptake of CO2 by the oceans and other factors that can skew the equation, the authors said.
Meeting in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010, countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set 2 C (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times as the maximum limit for warming.
They vowed to consider lowering it to 1.5 C (2.7 F) if scientific evidence warranted this.
Small island states and other poor nations badly exposed to climate change are lobbying for the 1.5 C (2.7 F) limit.
Read more from Physorg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-2c-goal-optimistic-french.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 9, 2012 | Climate Change
By Steve Connor
The total volume of water that has melted from all of the world’s polar ice sheets, ice caps and mountain glaciers over the past decade would repeatedly fill Britain’s largest lake, Windemere, more than 13,000 times, according to one of the most comprehensive studies of the Earth’s frozen “cryosphere”.
Using a unique pair of satellites that have monitored the disappearing ice over the entire surface of the globe, scientists estimated that some 1,000 cubic miles of ice has disappeared between 2003 and 2010 – enough to cover the US in one-and-a-half feet of water.
The survey found that the melting of the cryosphere has been responsible for raising sea levels by about half an inch over the same period, equivalent to a rise of about 1.5mm a year. This was on top of sea-level increases due to the thermal expansion of seawater caused by rising ocean temperatures.
Data gathered by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a joint satellite project run by Nasa and the German government, also found that the amount of ice melting from the mountain glaciers and ice caps that were not in Greenland or Antarctica was actually significantly smaller than previous estimates had suggested.
Instead of contributing nearly 1mm of sea level rise per year as previously suggested, some of the Earth’s glaciers and ice caps, especially in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges in Asia, were melting significantly slower than expected, contributing about 0.4mm of sea level rise per year – less than half the amount predicted.
One explanation for the previous overestimates could be that most of the glaciers that have been studied intensively are at lower altitudes and therefore more prone to melting. Higher glaciers are colder and less susceptible and yet only 120 glaciers out of 160,000 glaciers and ice caps have been directly measured from the ground.
The GRACE satellite experiment, however, covered the entire globe and found that all the world’s glaciers and ice caps combined, apart for those in Greenland and Antarctica, had lost about 148 billion tonnes of ice, or about 39 cubic miles, annually between 2003 and 2010. The individual glaciers on the fringes of Greenland and Antarctic contributed an additional 80 billion tons over the same period, the study published in Nature found.
“This is the first time anyone has looked at all of the mass loss from all of the Earth’s glaciers and ice caps with GRACE,” said John Wahr, professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who was part of the research team that analysed the satellite data.
“The Earth is losing an incredible amount of ice to the oceans annually, and these new results will help us to answer important questions in terms of both sea-level rise and how the planet’s cold regions are responding to global change.”
Professor Jonathan Bamber, of Bristol University, said: “Melting glaciers are an iconic symbol of climate change… they seem to have been receding, largely uninterrupted, almost everywhere around the world for several decades.”
1,000 Cubic miles of ice has disappeared between 2003 and 2010 from polar caps.
From The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/billions-of-tons-of-water-lost-from-worlds-glaciers-satellite-reveals-6672129.html
by revolutionofthelilies | Oct 20, 2011
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