Monday, August 23, 2021

We're destroying the planet

Important article by Rebecca Hersher at NPR:

The rain fell fast and hard in Middle Tennessee over the weekend, harder than it has ever fallen before. Up to 17 inches of rain inundated parts of the state in less than 24 hours on Saturday. Streets turned into rivers. Water barreled through homes. At least 21 people died, and more are still missing.
It was another deadly example of climate change after a summer of climate-driven calamities. Flash flooding — when water rises very quickly and flows with enormous speed and power — is getting more common in many places as Earth heats up.
The deadly floods over the weekend were the second major flooding event in Tennessee this year. Torrential rain flooded parts of Nashville in March and killed at least four people.
Climate scientists have warned for decades that global warming would cause more heavy rain. Now, with Earth almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it was in the late 1800s, scientists are observing that trend in real time. The amount of rain falling during the heaviest storms increased by almost a third in the Southeast U.S. between 1958 and 2016, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment.

This is our new reality and if we don't get serious about stopping the pollution and the harm to our planet, it's only going to get worse.

Also at NPR, Lauren Sommer speaks to host Emily Kwong:

MADDIE SOFIA, HOST: You're listening to SHORT WAVE...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SOFIA: ...From NPR.

EMILY KWONG, HOST: Hey, everybody, Emily Kwong here with NPR climate correspondent Lauren Sommer. Hey, hey, Lauren.

LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Hey, Emily. So today we're going inside an incredibly important climate change decision.

KWONG: OK.

SOMMER: It's happening all over the country, and it sounds like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This city council meeting is being conducted using teleconferencing and electronic means consistent with state of California Executive Order N-29-20...

KWONG: Lauren, you know I love good, crunchy local government meetings.

SOMMER: (Laughter).

KWONG: I mean, they sound boring. But really important stuff goes down in these rooms.

SOMMER: Right. Yeah. Every day, local governments use one of their core powers - deciding where and how building happens in their city. This particular city, Sunnyvale, is in the San Francisco Bay area. There's a massive housing shortage. And city planners are laying out their vision for revitalizing a particular neighborhood.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: 16,000 to 20,000 households, new streets, community facilities, two activities centers, office and R&D space, public parks and plazas, and five potential new neighborhoods.

KWONG: Sounds pretty nice - I mean, something any city would probably want.

SOMMER: Right. But there's a problem.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: All right. We have time for one last question.

SOMMER: This neighborhood is on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, which means it's in a flood zone. It's at risk from rising sea levels. So residents listening to this meeting had a question.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Why increase development in the low-lying areas?

KWONG: So basically, why build in a risky place at all?

We need to be thinking about what we are building and where we are building. It's a different landscape this year. Completely different. We need to be mindful of the impact we are having on the earth.

This is a needed topic but you know it depresses me so I'm just going to stop it there.

 

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Monday, August 23, 2021.  More problems emerge in Iraq and, try not to notice, all are connected to the Turkish government's actions.


Today, the Norwegian Refugee Council issued the folowing:

       More than 12 million people in Syria and Iraq are losing access to water, food and electricity and urgent action is needed to combat a severe water crisis, 13 aid groups working in the region warn today.

Across the region, rising temperatures, record low levels of rainfall, and drought are depriving people of drinking and agricultural water. It is also disrupting electricity as dams run out of water, which in turn impacts the operations of essential infrastructure including health facilities. Higher temperatures caused by climate change increase the risks and severity of droughts.

More than five million people in Syria directly depend on the river. In Iraq, the loss of access to water from the river, and drought, threaten at least seven million people.  Some 400 square kilometres of agricultural land risk total drought. Two dams in northern Syria, serving three million people with electricity, face imminent closure. Communities in Hasakah, Aleppo, Raqqa and Deir ez Zour, including displaced people in camps, have witnessed a rise in outbreaks of water borne-diseases such as diarrhoea, since the reduction in water.

In Iraq, large swathes of farmland, fisheries, power production and drinking water sources have been depleted of water. In the Ninewa governorate, wheat production is expected to go down by 70 per cent because of the drought, while in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq production is expected to decrease by half. Some families in Anbar who have no access to river water are spending up to USD80 a month on water.

“The total collapse of water and food production for millions of Syrians and Iraqis is imminent,” said Carsten Hansen, Regional Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “With hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced and many more still fleeing for their lives in Syria, the unfolding water crisis will soon become an unprecedented catastrophe pushing more into displacement.”

CARE’s Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa, Nirvana Shawky, said: “The situation demands that authorities in the region and donor governments act swiftly to save lives in this latest crisis, that comes on top of conflict, COVID-19 and severe economic decline. In the longer term, beyond emergency food and water, they need to invest in sustainable solutions to the water crisis.”

The Danish Refugee Council’s Middle East Regional Director Gerry Garvey said: “This water crisis is bound to get worse. It is likely to increase conflict in an already destabilized region. There is no time to waste. We must find sustainable solutions that would guarantee water and food today and for future generations.”

In Al Sebat, 30 km away from Hasakah, residents have seen scores of villagers leaving to other areas, forced out by the drought.

“This year we have witnessed a wave of intense drought and as a result our lands did not produce any crops and we don’t have any sources of drinkable water either for us or for our animals,” said Abdallah, a tribal leader from Al Sebat. “It is infuriating to think that the current conditions will force us to leave the rural areas and that our lands will be left as ruins.”

Many farmers have spent their savings and gone into debt to keep their animals alive.

“Because of the drought I was unable to harvest any wheat,” said Hamid Ali from Baaj, one of the worst affected districts in Ninewa, Iraq. “Now I am overwhelmed with debt.”

Other aid groups joining today’s warning and call for emergency and flexible funding are: ACTED, Action Against Hunger, Mercy Corps, People in Need, Première Urgence Internationale, War Child, Help, Women Rehabilitation Organisation, VIYAN Organization, Al Rakeezeh Foundation for Relief and Development.

Notes for editors:

  • Photos and B-roll can be downloaded for free use and distribution.
  • Syria is currently facing the worst drought in seventy years while Iraq is facing the second driest season in 40 years due to record low rainfall according to the UN. 
  • In Turkey, major cities have suffered severe water shortages as the country’s largest reservoirs quickly became depleted at the end of last year.



The 'success' that is Iraq -- according to War Criminal Paul L. Bremer.


Post-government life as a ski bum apparently didn't work out for Paul so he returned with a column for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL that was filled with lies -- see "A War Criminal Returns."


The media's in a panic that the American people might catch on to reality so they're working overtime to hold on to US control of Iraq.  They're in panic mode as they cringe and gasp and cry about what's going on in Afghanistan -- refusing to tell you that this was always the way US military in Afghanistan was going to end.


Fearful Americans might catch on to reality, Paul shows up to insist that Iraq is a success.   And to prove that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has no fact checkers and will print any garbage submitted to them.


On the water issue, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:


An Iraqi delegation will visit Turkey early next month as water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have decreased by more than 50 percent, spokesperson for Iraq’s water ministry told state media on Sunday.

“This year is a water scarce one and there is a clear decrease in water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to a point that their water levels have dropped by more than 50 percent. That is in addition to a major drop in the water levels at Dukan, Darbandikhan, Sirwan, and Diyala dams,” spokesperson Ali Radhi told state media.

The Tigris and Euphrates both have their sources in Turkey and pass through Syria before joining together in Iraq and spilling into the Persian Gulf. They are important water resources for all three nations. 

“Many meetings have been held with the Turkish and Syrian sides on the water issue, and there is an expected visit of an Iraqi delegation to Turkey at the beginning of next month in order to continue talks on Iraq’s share of water and the situation of the Tigris and Euphrates,” said Radhi. 

He said Iraq is also preparing for a tripartite meeting with Turkey and Syria to discuss “the issue of sharing damage in the water scarcity period, completing the discussion on the joint protocol between Iraq and Turkey, and establishing a research team in Iraq” to study the issue.


Staying with that wonderful Turkish government, they're still killing civilians.  Yesterday, AFP reported, "Two civilians were killed on Sunday in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region by a Turkish army bombardment as forces battled the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels, local officials said."  Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) notes, "A reported seven other civilians have been killed, several injured, and 20 villages emptied this year. "   Kamaran Osman Tweets:


Two Iraqi civilians, Ahmed Shakir and Yousif Aamir, have been killed in a Turkish bombardment in Iraqi Kurdistan. After two days of bombing by Turkish military forces, the bodies of the two men from Mosul were found in the Batifa sub-district. #TwitterKurds #Turkey
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1:09 PM · Aug 22, 2021



The crime 26-year-old Yousif Ammar and 40-year-old Ahmed Shukir carried out?  Yousif Musa (RUDAW) explains that "they visited the village of Bankie."


Well then, off with their heads, as the Queen of Hearts would say in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, right?


This is a genocide and it should have been stopped long ago.

Musa also notes, "A parliamentary report issued last year concluded that at least 504 villages have been emptied across the Kurdistan Region since 1992, and hundreds of people have been killed. In Duhok alone, 366 villages have been abandoned since 1998."


Again, this is a genocide.


 Last Tuesday, they bombed a clinic and killed civilians.  RUDAW informs that War criminal Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despot of Turkey, insisted yesterday that they did not bomb a clinic.  That's right and Erdogan's thugs didn't attack Americans on US soil either, right?  Oh, wrong.

 

Recep lies about attacking the clinic because that attack met the legal definition of a War Crime.  He knows that.  And he thinks if he rejects the term, cowed journalists won't use it and will continue to act as though it was an 'oopsie!' and not an actual War Crime that he can be -- and should be -- prosecuted for.





The following sites updated:


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