Meat, poultry, vegetables feel heat from global warming

The world's billion poor, whether producers or consumers, will bear the brunt, warned scientists who ended a conference Saturday on agriculture and climate change in Hyderabad, southern India."In some ways, the time for doing things is already past,"

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans)

As a people fail to understand evolutionary parameters which are conveniently "lacking/missing" in suppressed energy science today, future legends of our time will reflect a repetitive history: "the people followed the errs of the kings, and in a short span of time, lost their freedom, their land, their temples, their lives" Freedom is not to be disconnected from responsibility.


Meat, poultry, vegetables feel heat from global warming

by Anil Penna Sat Nov 24, 8:54 PM ET Yahoo News – Agence France Presse
From meat, poultry and milk to potatoes, onions and leafy greens, everything consumed on the world's dining tables is feeling the heat from climate change, scientists say.
Researchers are trying to establish the extent to which global warming will affect livestock, plant life and staple crops such as rice to bolster their resistance to disease and breed stronger varieties.
The world's billion poor, whether producers or consumers, will bear the brunt, warned scientists who ended a conference Saturday on agriculture and climate change in Hyderabad, southern India.
"In some ways, the time for doing things is already past," said John McDermott, deputy director of research at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute. "The changes are already happening."
As an example, rift valley fever, a deadly virus transmitted to sheep, cattle, camels and humans by mosquito bites, is being fuelled by climate change, the scientist said.
The virus is manifesting itself in broader swathes of East Africa and the Middle East because of climate variability in dry regions that helps vectors such as mosquitoes, tsetse flies and ticks to breed and spread, he said.
"What you see are diseases moving into areas where they have not been before, which means sometimes animals are exposed where they haven't been for a long time," he said.
"That leads to more outbreaks," McDermott added.
For the poor, livestock offers a livelihood as well as a savings bank they can tap, selling off their cows or chickens to deal with a health or family emergency.
"These are the people who don't make much of an impact on the ecological footprint of the world," said McDermott.
But they are also the people most at risk from damage wrought on livestock by diseases that could be aggravated by climate-related phenomena.
Scientists are also studying cropping and disease patterns in vegetables -- potatoes and tomatoes to cabbage and spinach, onion and garlic -- to see how they can cope with the stresses brought by global warming and its side-effects.
"If you make it a given that temperatures will go up, water will be a problem -- that will be your worst-case scenario," said Jackie Hughes, deputy director of research at the Shanhua, Taiwan-based World Vegetable Centre.
"You're going to have typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes," she said, adding vegetable growers may have to grow different varieties, use grafting techniques to address flooding and devise rain and insect protection for their crops.
"Probably, it will mean a shift of where crops are grown -- onions moving a little bit in one direction and tomatoes, cabbages coming out of very, very dry areas," she added.
Success in tackling the impact of climate change on crops is important as the world is host to a billion people who are already underweight and under-nourished, Hughes said.
The average adult is required to consume 74 kilogrammes of vegetables a year and "most don't reach that," she added.
Scientists are also concerned about the potential effect of climate change on potato blight, a weather-driven disease that takes a heavy toll on potato crops.
The pathogen that causes the blight is an "incredibly fast breeder," said Dyno Keatinge, deputy research head of the International Crops Research Institute here.
"So I am worried, you don't see me smiling in complacency," said Keatinge, who comes from Ireland where the disease caused a great famine in the 1840s.

Lack of toilets is fatal, global association says

"Some 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, with potentially fatal consequences. It is regrettable that the matter of defecation is not given as much attention as food or housing."

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans)

As a people fail to understand evolutionary parameters which are conveniently "lacking/missing" in suppressed energy science today, future legends of our time will reflect a repetitive history: "the people followed the errs of the kings, and in a short span of time, lost their freedom, their land, their temples, their lives" Freedom is not to be disconnected from responsibility.

Lack of toilets is fatal, global association says
By Jack Kim
Reuters, SEOUL

Lack of proper toilet facilities and sanitation kills almost two million people a year, most of them children, the World Toilet Association said at its first meeting on Thursday.

"It is regrettable that the matter of defecation is not given as much attention as food or housing," Sim Jae-duck, the association's South Korean head, told the meeting at its recently opened lavatory-shaped headquarters south of Seoul.

Sim, a lawmaker nicknamed "Mr. Toilet," said some 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, with potentially fatal consequences.

About 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases that are mainly blamed on inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, the World Health Organisation's regional director for the Western Pacific, Shigeru Omi, told the meeting.

The majority of these deaths occur in Asia and 90 percent of the fatalities are children under the age of five, he added.

"Just imagine the number of children whose lives could be saved through simple low-cost interventions in sanitation and hygiene," Omi told the meeting.

The United Nations has declared 2008 the "Year of Sanitation" and is calling for a renewed effort to improve sanitation and hygiene facilities, especially in developing countries.

Several charities also marked World Toilet Day on Monday by launching international campaigns for more hygiene awareness and investments in toilet facilities.

The Seoul meeting, which brought together public health officials from around the world and U.N. agencies, aims to raise funds for sanitation in developing countries.

"The funding needed is not overwhelmingly large, but the return is immense," said Vanessa Tobin of U.N. children's agency UNICEF. "Political support is extremely important. Advocacy for this issue is a high priority."

According to the United Nations, spending $10 billion a year could halve the proportion of people without basic toilet facilities by 2015, and Tobin said this investment would net an estimated $84 billion in savings from improved public health and better living conditions.

In some cultures, the solution requires very little water, as is the case in sub-Saharan Africa where ash on top of a pit is often all that is needed, she said.

"It is very important to remember most people who don't have access are poor people living in rural areas," Tobin added.

(Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Miral Fahmy) 2007 Reuters News Service. ABC News Internet Ventures

UN: Climate Change Here And Getting Worse

BIG CO2 BUGS, UMBRELLAS FOR THE EARTH, 'CORNY' FUEL, FREEDUMB VS FREEDOM. Does the Future stand a chance with lame science? As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems reveal. Over 50 years of Scientific Stagnation within the energy sector bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence & resource wars" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

UN: Climate Change Here And Getting Worse
VALENCIA, Spain, Nov. 17, 2007
(CBS/AP) The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet" and called on the United States and China -- the world's two biggest polluters - to do more to fight it. As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. The potential impact of global warming is "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do," Ban told the IPCC after it issued its fourth and final report this year. The IPCC adopted the report, along with a summary, after five days of sometimes tense negotiations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes - and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken. The document says recent research has heightened concern that the poor and the elderly will suffer most from climate change; that hunger and disease will be more common; that droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world's poorest regions; and that more animal and plant species will vanish. The Summary for Policymakers, and the longer version, called the synthesis report, distill thousands of pages of data and computer models from six years of research compiled by the IPCC. The information is expected to guide policy makers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, next month to discuss an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The panel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year along with former Vice President Al Gore for their efforts to raise awareness about the effects of climate change. The report is important because it is adopted by consensus, meaning countries accept the underlying science and cannot disavow its conclusions. While it does not commit governments to a specific course of action, it provides a common scientific baseline for the political talks. The U.N. says a new global plan must be in place by 2009 to ensure a smooth transition after the expiration of the Kyoto terms, which require 36 industrial countries to radically reduce their carbon emissions by 2012. "There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change," Ban said. He said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries adopt clean energy and to adapt to changing climates. Ban encouraged the United States and China, which have stood apart from the Kyoto accord, to join in the next phase of cooperative efforts against climate change. "I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role starting from the Bali conference," Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own way." But the Bush administration is making no promises, reports CBS News correspondent Joie Chen. Just last week, the president signaled that his focus is on getting companies to do what they can to help - voluntarily. "It's easier to deal with the climate change issue if you've got the revenues and finances to invest in new technologies that will change how we live, and at the same time enable us to grow our economies," President Bush said. The report says emissions of carbon, which comes primarily from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that. Otherwise the consequences could be "disastrous," said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. In the best-case scenario, temperatures will continue to rise from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4½ feet higher than the preindustrial period, or about 1850. "We have already committed the world to sea level rise," said Pachauri. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists couldn't even predict by how many meters the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities. Yet differences remain stark on how to control carbon emissions. While the European Union has taken the lead in enforcing the carbon emission targets outlined in Kyoto, the United States opted out of the 1997 accord. President Bush described it as flawed because major developing countries such as India and China, which are large carbon emitters, were excluded from any obligations. He also favors a voluntary agreement. Sharon Hays, a White House science official and head of the U.S. delegation, said the certainty of climate change was clearer now than when Bush rejected Kyoto. "What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening," she said in a conference call to reporters late Friday. "Back in 2001 the IPCC report said it is likely that humans were having an impact on the climate," but confidence in human responsibility had increased since then. "What's new is the clarity of the signal, how clear the scientific message is," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official. "The politicians have no excuse not to act." Opening with a sweeping statement directed at climate change skeptics, the summary declares that climate systems have already begun to change. Unless action is taken, human activity could lead to "abrupt and irreversible changes" that would make the planet unrecognizable.