environment India Indian music music: benefit concert genius
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Flutes Against Climate Change: Steve Gorn’s Set
At long last, we can begin to upload the music from May 19th’s Playing For The Planet concert.
Here is Steve Gorn’s set, with Akshay Navaladi on tabla and me playing tamboura. He began with a lovely Kaunsi Kanada:
Followed by this Bhatiyali dhun:
Finally concluding the concert with a ravishing Bhairavi:
environment: denialists idiots rising sea levels
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 7, Day 3: Today Is The Tomorrow You Worried About Yesterday
The Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) has a shrill editorial from a chap named Howard Brown, titled, “Commentary: Climate change isn’t fictional.” Indeed:
Is it just me, or has it been a little warm around here lately? Or warmer earlier? The early and unusually mild spring here in Wisconsin may be nature’s way of reminding us that the clock is ticking on climate change and we need to take action before it’s too late.
While stationed in Kangerlussuac, Greenland, 50 years ago, I noted my airbase was 4 miles west of the Russell Glacier grinding down from the ice cap. Looking at today’s satellite images, this glacier has retreated to the east toward the ice cap, easily noted from the satellite. The retreat averages 1,000 feet per year, producing a torrent of melt water that flows down the fjord and to the sea.
Glacial retreat is one indicator that global warming is taking its toll. Today, in more populated areas of the earth, disappearing glaciers are responsible for drought, loss of irrigation water and less drinking water. As much as 54 cubic miles of ice disappear each year in Antarctica, 24 cubic miles per year in Greenland. As this ice melts, ocean levels rise and coastal regions flood.
Read the comments for the full flavor. SOS. Sent June 22:
When we listen to climate-change denialists, we hear it over and over again: while the planet’s climate is changing, there’s no reason to worry; it’s all happened before, and anyway, there’s no way humans’ greenhouse emissions could be involved.
Well, Earth’s climate has indeed been changing for billions of years. But in general, those changes have happened over many thousands of years, giving ecosystems a chance to adapt. Fossil evidence and the geological record strongly suggest that when an external event accelerated those slow transformations, the resulting climate change was catastrophic for many of the world’s inhabitants (65 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth — and the dinosaurs lost the world they’d lived in for eons). The overwhelming climatological consensus is that we stand on the brink of a similarly abrupt and equally devastating shift.
With our civilization now having transformed almost fifty percent of the planet’s surface, it’s increasingly apparent that humanity has inadvertently crafted its very own asteroid. If we wish to sustain our species over the tumultuous environmental disruptions promised for the next ten thousand years, we can no longer afford the luxury of denial. The dinosaurs probably thought they’d live forever, too.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility hunger sustainability
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 7, Day 2: The Hunger Games?
USA Today’s Wendy Koch:
As leaders from more than 130 nations convene a United Nations conference on sustainable development Wednesday, new research shows how climate change will likely exacerbate a key issue: hunger.
The number of undernourished women and young children could increase 20% and affect one of every five within a decade because of climate change’s impact on food production, according to an analysis by the World Health Organization and other groups. Today, one in seven or 495 million women and children under age 5 lack sufficient food, the report says, adding population growth will worsen the problem.
Eventually they’re going to eat the rich. Sent on June 21:
The connections are obvious: more unpredictable weather means fewer predictable crops, which means more hunger, privation and misery. A mother facing a catastrophic crop failure can ill afford the luxury of pretending that the planetary greenhouse effect is a conspiracy ginned up by a liberal cabal. An undernourished child cannot silence hunger pangs with out-of-context statistics.
Furthermore, the humanitarian consequences of climate change are only part of the picture. Starvation has its own devastating geopolitical impacts, and any robust environmental policy must address them before they threaten global security. Our political paralysis in the face of this threat demonstrates once again that climate-change denial is the exclusive prerogative of the economically protected. If the wealthy power-brokers in corporate boardrooms and the halls of Congress could abandon their gourmet lunches and finally face a hungry, thirsty, malnourished world, perhaps they’d stop blocking progress towards a meaningful global agreement on climate.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: cities sustainability urban planning
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 7, Day 1: The Old Gray Mayor Just Ain’t What He Used To Be
Michael Bloomberg wants you to know that he’s on the case:
Again and again, Bloomberg stressed the contrast between the paralysis of national governments and the agility of municipal authorities, which he said were up to meeting the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
“We don’t have the luxury of just sitting back and talking about the problems because on a whole range of critical action, the buck stops at city hall,’’ said Bloomberg, adding that cities are key players in the fight against global warming because about 75 percent of global emissions take place within city limits.
“We aren’t arguing with each other over reduction targets, we’re making progress individually and collectively to improve our cities and the planet,’’ he told journalists on a conference call ahead of Tuesday’s event. He added that two-thirds of the C40 initiatives to combat climate change were financed solely out of municipal budgets, with no funds from national governments.
Some of the projects already under way include Paris’ rental bike and electric car programs, Bogota’s electric taxis, Los Angeles’ use of more efficient bulbs LED in its street lights, and the improved solid waste collection initiatives by New Delhi, Lagos and Mexico City.
Good for them. How about some large-scale support? Sent June 20:
Given that well over three-quarters of Americans (and over half the world’s population) live in cities, sustainable urban design is an idea whose time has clearly come. The fight against climate change requires us to feed and shelter the world’s steadily-increasing population while simultaneously significantly reducing greenhouse emissions — an impossible task without the economies of scale and increased efficiency cities provide.
But a climate-changed world poses enormous challenges to urban planners. Extreme weather will stress infrastructure to the breaking point, our already-vulnerable agricultural systems will be hard-pressed to feed millions of people, and unlimited fresh water is no longer something any of us can take for granted.
Cities around the world will play a crucial role in our struggle against the burgeoning greenhouse effect — but they must be supported with robust environmental and energy policy initiatives at all levels of governance from local to international.
Warren Senders