See my earlier post for references.... the reference to condo's to withstand the "inconvenience" of a superstorm is a reference to a real thing. (Some of the craziness of capitalism, the head-in-the-sand response to climate change... you just couldn't make it up.)
Showing posts with label climate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate. Show all posts
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Climate fate
See my earlier post for references.... the reference to condo's to withstand the "inconvenience" of a superstorm is a reference to a real thing. (Some of the craziness of capitalism, the head-in-the-sand response to climate change... you just couldn't make it up.)
Climate Fate 气候·命运
By Kamala E
Translation by Christie Dai
I was sitting in the waiting room when you flashed across the screen
我坐在候诊室里，你闪现在银屏 A heatwave smothered India and you were on the screen 热浪吞噬着印度，你出现在屏幕 As you tried to cross the street, your shoe stuck to the road 你想要穿过那条街，路面却粘住了你的鞋 So you ran on scorched bare feet, as the black tar slowly flowed 你只好光着烧伤的脚，跑过已熔化的黑柏油 Where there once were straight white lines, a crazy pattern morphed and swirled 原来笔直的白线，呈现出疯狂的弧度 As if a giant with a paintbrush splashed out and dwarfed the world 有如怪兽用大刷子胡乱泼墨，将世界一番蹂躏 You long for cooling rain, but the monsoon will be late 你渴求雨水的洗去热浪，但雨季却姗姗来迟 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 You're a woman of Maharashtra: farm life is what you know 你是马哈拉族女子，一辈子都在田地里打滚 With the earth so cracked and bare, nothing green can grow 大地变得如此干涸贫瘠，无一物能生长 As the debt piles up for the chemicals and seed 种子和农药令你举债重重 As you wonder how to fill the many mouths you have to feed 你也为那一张张嗷嗷待哺的嘴而忧愁 As you turn to your husband to say somehow you will cope 你望向他，跟他说我能行的 You see in his eyes there's no room for hope 你注视着他的双眼，希望却已然泯灭 Your nightmare just gets worse, the day you lose your mate 噩梦延续，那天你终于失去了他 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 You've lived in Karachi all of your life 你一辈子都在卡拉奇 There with your kids, your parents, your wife 与孩子、父母和妻 Last year the heatwave rolled in and swept a thousand lives away 去年热浪来袭，上千条生命被掳去 Overwhelmed the morgue, corpses left out to decay 连陈尸的当所也满患，只能任其腐烂 This time you swear you will be ready and not have to face that smell 你说这次准备好了，一定不会再有那味道 Of those left to rot in the very place they fell 那些倒下便就地腐烂的身体 So you dig out mass graves and pray for rain while you wait 于是你挖了大坑，等待祈求降雨 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 When Sandy struck New York, you'd left for somewhere calm 龙卷风珊迪席卷纽约时，你选择风平浪静之地 Flew back when it was over, once you knew you'd meet no harm 她走了你再回来，一旦知道风险已过 Another super-storm to hit won't be so inconvenient 再一波来袭也不无妨 Even if next time, Mother Nature is less lenient 就算下次，甚至比这次更猛 For you've bought yourself a condo with rooms sealed water-tight 因为你买了防风抗雨的高档寓所 Floodgates, pumps, power and emergency light 一应俱全的防洪设施 So you gamble on oil stocks, knowing you'll be all right mate 所以你继续哄炒着燃油股票，明白自己的生活不坏 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这也是有些人面对的气候带来的命运
Translation by Christie Dai
I was sitting in the waiting room when you flashed across the screen
我坐在候诊室里，你闪现在银屏 A heatwave smothered India and you were on the screen 热浪吞噬着印度，你出现在屏幕 As you tried to cross the street, your shoe stuck to the road 你想要穿过那条街，路面却粘住了你的鞋 So you ran on scorched bare feet, as the black tar slowly flowed 你只好光着烧伤的脚，跑过已熔化的黑柏油 Where there once were straight white lines, a crazy pattern morphed and swirled 原来笔直的白线，呈现出疯狂的弧度 As if a giant with a paintbrush splashed out and dwarfed the world 有如怪兽用大刷子胡乱泼墨，将世界一番蹂躏 You long for cooling rain, but the monsoon will be late 你渴求雨水的洗去热浪，但雨季却姗姗来迟 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 You're a woman of Maharashtra: farm life is what you know 你是马哈拉族女子，一辈子都在田地里打滚 With the earth so cracked and bare, nothing green can grow 大地变得如此干涸贫瘠，无一物能生长 As the debt piles up for the chemicals and seed 种子和农药令你举债重重 As you wonder how to fill the many mouths you have to feed 你也为那一张张嗷嗷待哺的嘴而忧愁 As you turn to your husband to say somehow you will cope 你望向他，跟他说我能行的 You see in his eyes there's no room for hope 你注视着他的双眼，希望却已然泯灭 Your nightmare just gets worse, the day you lose your mate 噩梦延续，那天你终于失去了他 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 You've lived in Karachi all of your life 你一辈子都在卡拉奇 There with your kids, your parents, your wife 与孩子、父母和妻 Last year the heatwave rolled in and swept a thousand lives away 去年热浪来袭，上千条生命被掳去 Overwhelmed the morgue, corpses left out to decay 连陈尸的当所也满患，只能任其腐烂 This time you swear you will be ready and not have to face that smell 你说这次准备好了，一定不会再有那味道 Of those left to rot in the very place they fell 那些倒下便就地腐烂的身体 So you dig out mass graves and pray for rain while you wait 于是你挖了大坑，等待祈求降雨 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这就是有些人面对的气候带来的命运 When Sandy struck New York, you'd left for somewhere calm 龙卷风珊迪席卷纽约时，你选择风平浪静之地 Flew back when it was over, once you knew you'd meet no harm 她走了你再回来，一旦知道风险已过 Another super-storm to hit won't be so inconvenient 再一波来袭也不无妨 Even if next time, Mother Nature is less lenient 就算下次，甚至比这次更猛 For you've bought yourself a condo with rooms sealed water-tight 因为你买了防风抗雨的高档寓所 Floodgates, pumps, power and emergency light 一应俱全的防洪设施 So you gamble on oil stocks, knowing you'll be all right mate 所以你继续哄炒着燃油股票，明白自己的生活不坏 And this is how some people face their climate fate 这也是有些人面对的气候带来的命运
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Climate fate
I was sitting in the waiting room when you flashed across
the screen
A heatwave smothered India
and you were on the scene.
As you tried to cross the street, your shoe stuck to the
road
So you ran on scorched bare feet, as the black tar slowly
flowed.
Where there once were straight white lines, a crazy pattern
morphed and swirled,
As if a giant with a paintbrush splashed out and dwarfed the
world.
You long for cooling rain, but the monsoon will be late.
And this is how some people face their climate fate.
You’re a woman of Maharashtra; farm
life is what you know.
With the earth so cracked and bare, nothing green can grow.
As the debt piles up for the chemicals and seed,
As you wonder how to fill the many mouths you have to feed,
As you turn to your husband to say somehow you will cope,
You see in his eyes there’s no more room for hope.
Your nightmare just gets worse, the day you lose your mate.
And this is how some people face their climate fate.
You’ve lived in Karachi
all of your life,
There with your kids, your parents, your wife.
Last year the heatwave rolled in and swept a thousand lives
away,
Overwhelmed the morgue, corpses left out to decay.
This time you swear you will be ready and not have to face
that smell
Of those left to rot in the very place they fell.
So you dig out mass graves and pray for rain while you wait.
And this is how some people face their climate fate.
When Sandy
struck New York, you’d left for
somewhere calm.
Flew back when it was over, once you knew you’d meet no
harm.
Another super-storm to hit won’t be so inconvenient,
Even if next time, Mother Nature is less lenient,
For you’ve bought yourself a condo with rooms sealed
water-tight,
Floodgates, pumps, power and emergency light.
So you gamble on oil stocks, knowing you’ll be all right
mate.
And this is how some people face their climate fate.
References:
Friday, May 27, 2016
100% renewable energy - needed now more than ever
As South Asia swelters through a record-breaking heatwave, with reports of hundreds of lives lost in India (on top of hundreds of farmer suicides this year owing to crop failures due to drought), a May 20 report by Reuters that Pakistanis were digging mass graves in preparation for heatwave-related deaths brings into sharp focus the grim situation we are in. Climate change is here, and the people of the underdeveloped nations least responsible for it are among those hardest hit and least able to withstand its impacts.
In August, geologists will decide whether to formally adopt the designation “Anthropocene” to mark the Earth having entered a new geological epoch. Whether or not they do, it’s a term that is in wide use among earth system scientists, owing to the impact human society is having, not just on local ecosystems, but on earth systems as a whole – biodiversity, chemical cycles, freshwater, land use, ocean acidity, climate and more.
As Ian Angus documents in his new book “Facing the Anthropocene,” humans’ impact on earth systems and in particular, climate, stem from the explosive growth in fossil fuel use driven by the US oil giants, car manufacturers and military, along with the growth in suburban living, road and shopping mall construction, and changing (fossil-fuel dependent) agricultural practices.
After the Pleistocene epoch with its recurring Ice Ages, in which humans first developed, it was the last 11,500 years, the warmer Holocene epoch, that made agriculture, fixed settlement and civilisation possible.
The determinants of global temperature and climate (in particular, greenhouse gas concentrations) have now reached levels beyond those of both the holocene and pleistocene, so that we are on course for a chaotic global climate regime outside anything we know for sure can support the agriculture on which most of the 7 billion humans now living depend.
Whether or not it is possible to return to the relative climate stability of the holocene will depend on how quickly we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide and methane, but others too) to zero and remove the excess that has built up in the air and oceans.
To stabilise the climate, or failing that, to make the inbuilt inevitable climate changes slow enough to have a chance to minimise loss of life and social disruption, we need to treat climate change as the emergency it is and make a rapid transition away from fossil fuel use. Halting deforestation and increasing the amount of land that is covered by forests will be another essential component.
Environmental think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions produced a report in 2010 showing that using commercially available technology, Australia could transition to meet all our stationary power needs from renewable sources within a ten-year time-frame, for a cost of around $37 billion a year. Under the plan, 60% of electricity would come from concentrating solar thermal plants that allow the sun’s heat to be stored overnight and converted to electricity continuously; 40% from wind generators; and a small proportion from rooftop solar, existing hydro and burning crop residues to supply back-up when solar and wind wasn’t enough.
What this shows is that there is no technical reason to keep using fossil fuels for electricity generation.
More capital is invested in fossil fuel infrastructure than in any other industry, with a 2011 UN report estimating existing fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure at U$15-20 trillion, with big oil alone making over US$650 billion in profits between 2001 and 2008. The bulk of the global economy – from transport and construction to agrochemicals, synthetic textiles and the biggest single greenhouse gas emitter, the military – is dependent on cheap oil for power and on petrochemicals for inputs.
With the fossil fuel industry’s economic clout comes political power, and so far this political power has been used to resist every measure to curb fossil fuel extraction and use.
Rational argument by the world’s most informed scientists hasn’t been enough to convince the decision-makers of the coal, oil and gas giants to voluntarily stop holding a blow-torch to the planet; nor to persuade the political leaders of the LNP, ALP or Greens, to go beyond what is palatable.
It will take a groundswell of action by the majority – a mass movement of concerned people prepared to defend current and future generations from the devastation of run-away climate change – to break the power of the fossil fools over our economic and political life, to create a new grassroots democracy and to begin to make the transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy.
Socialist Alliance seeks to work with others to build such a grassroots, mass movement.
Originally published at Green Left Weekly.
In August, geologists will decide whether to formally adopt the designation “Anthropocene” to mark the Earth having entered a new geological epoch. Whether or not they do, it’s a term that is in wide use among earth system scientists, owing to the impact human society is having, not just on local ecosystems, but on earth systems as a whole – biodiversity, chemical cycles, freshwater, land use, ocean acidity, climate and more.
As Ian Angus documents in his new book “Facing the Anthropocene,” humans’ impact on earth systems and in particular, climate, stem from the explosive growth in fossil fuel use driven by the US oil giants, car manufacturers and military, along with the growth in suburban living, road and shopping mall construction, and changing (fossil-fuel dependent) agricultural practices.
After the Pleistocene epoch with its recurring Ice Ages, in which humans first developed, it was the last 11,500 years, the warmer Holocene epoch, that made agriculture, fixed settlement and civilisation possible.
 |
| Graphic taken from ice-core data study by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research |
The determinants of global temperature and climate (in particular, greenhouse gas concentrations) have now reached levels beyond those of both the holocene and pleistocene, so that we are on course for a chaotic global climate regime outside anything we know for sure can support the agriculture on which most of the 7 billion humans now living depend.
 |
| Graphic from NASA http://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/ |
Whether or not it is possible to return to the relative climate stability of the holocene will depend on how quickly we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide and methane, but others too) to zero and remove the excess that has built up in the air and oceans.
To stabilise the climate, or failing that, to make the inbuilt inevitable climate changes slow enough to have a chance to minimise loss of life and social disruption, we need to treat climate change as the emergency it is and make a rapid transition away from fossil fuel use. Halting deforestation and increasing the amount of land that is covered by forests will be another essential component.
Environmental think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions produced a report in 2010 showing that using commercially available technology, Australia could transition to meet all our stationary power needs from renewable sources within a ten-year time-frame, for a cost of around $37 billion a year. Under the plan, 60% of electricity would come from concentrating solar thermal plants that allow the sun’s heat to be stored overnight and converted to electricity continuously; 40% from wind generators; and a small proportion from rooftop solar, existing hydro and burning crop residues to supply back-up when solar and wind wasn’t enough.
What this shows is that there is no technical reason to keep using fossil fuels for electricity generation.
More capital is invested in fossil fuel infrastructure than in any other industry, with a 2011 UN report estimating existing fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure at U$15-20 trillion, with big oil alone making over US$650 billion in profits between 2001 and 2008. The bulk of the global economy – from transport and construction to agrochemicals, synthetic textiles and the biggest single greenhouse gas emitter, the military – is dependent on cheap oil for power and on petrochemicals for inputs.
With the fossil fuel industry’s economic clout comes political power, and so far this political power has been used to resist every measure to curb fossil fuel extraction and use.
Rational argument by the world’s most informed scientists hasn’t been enough to convince the decision-makers of the coal, oil and gas giants to voluntarily stop holding a blow-torch to the planet; nor to persuade the political leaders of the LNP, ALP or Greens, to go beyond what is palatable.
It will take a groundswell of action by the majority – a mass movement of concerned people prepared to defend current and future generations from the devastation of run-away climate change – to break the power of the fossil fools over our economic and political life, to create a new grassroots democracy and to begin to make the transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy.
Socialist Alliance seeks to work with others to build such a grassroots, mass movement.
Originally published at Green Left Weekly.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Tree
I don't know your story -
who ever could?
all that I know is
you're more than just wood.
You sheltered bees
in a world where they're dying.
Now for your crime,
you're sentenced; I'm crying.
Cockatoos and galahs
shrieked - it seemed in dismay
at your pruning; but now this:
what will they say?
The hive hollowed you out
so in spite of your shade,
your sequestration
who ever could?
all that I know is
you're more than just wood.
You sheltered bees
in a world where they're dying.
Now for your crime,
you're sentenced; I'm crying.
Cockatoos and galahs
shrieked - it seemed in dismay
at your pruning; but now this:
what will they say?
The hive hollowed you out
so in spite of your shade,
your sequestration
of CO2 someone made,
what you give to the birds,
what you give to the bees,
you're being cut down
in the City-Bush squeeze.
They say not only might you
drop a limb on someone,
but you're in the way
of the badge, car and gun.
Constable Care, it seems,
needs more space,
and a driveway, a heat sink,
is taking your place.
I grieve at your falling,
mourn I could not stop it,
add my voice to those calling
A tree! Do not chop it!
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