Image: Yves Tanguy, The Dark Garden, Le Jardin sombre. 1928.
What the Real News Tells Us -- You and I and the Lions of the Serengeti are on Our Own.
By Richard Power
News of delusional pronouncements are emerging from the G-8.
Rajendra Pachauri, the Nobel Prize winning chief of the IPCC explains: The head of the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate change scientists said Tuesday that a pledge made by G8 leaders to at least halve global warming emissions by 2050 had a major flaw.
The world's wealthiest nations failed to specify a target for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions in the coming decade, a vital stepping stone for meeting the mid-century goal, said Rajendra Pachauri. Agence France Press, 7-8-08
So to compensate, here is some real news.
Real good news and real bad news.
First, the real bad news: An international research team has published the first clear example of how climate extremes can create conditions in which diseases that are normally tolerated singly may converge and bring about mass die-offs in wildlife.
In a report issued June 25 by PLoS ONE, an online peer-reviewed research journal, researchers examined outbreaks of canine distemper virus (CDV) in 1994 and 2001 that resulted in unusually high mortality in Serengeti lions. ...
The study, led by scientists at the University of California, Davis, the University of Illinois, and the University of Minnesota, showed that both of the deadly CDV outbreaks were preceded by extreme drought conditions, which led to debilitated populations of Cape buffalo, the lion's prey. ...
This study suggests that extreme climatic conditions, such as the more frequent droughts and floods expected with global warming, are capable of altering normal host-pathogen relationships and bringing about a "perfect storm" of multiple infectious outbreaks, potentially triggering epidemics with catastrophic mortality. Terra Daily, 7-8-08
And now, the real good news: The organic food market has been growing slowly but surely in Chile over the past eight years. The market, which was worth US$200,000 in 2003, today represents US$7.4 million in sales and is expected to grow to US$53 million by 2013. Chile’s internal demand for organic products is increasing by 20 percent every year, with consumers currently purchasing US$200,000 in organic products per month.
Still, Chile’s organic fruit and vegetable production is mainly for export - directed to Europe and the United States, where organic food has been part of consumption habits for a longer time. ...
In the current global warming context, more and more consumers are professing the need for slow and nature-friendly agriculture. Santiago Times, 7-8-08
You and I and the Lions of the Serengeti are on our own.
The leaders of the great nations are still fiddling with themselves while the planet slowly burns.
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
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For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".
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Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.
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