Fact Finding Report on the Police firing on CMAS activists in Narayanpatna, Orissa

Democracy’ at its worst !

(Fact Finding of Narayanpatna Firing on CMAS)

As this report gets written Singanna and Andru’s bodies are being cremated at Podapadar village amidst a throng of police platoons waiting to arrest any member of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS) who exposes herself or himself to the police. Already 20 have been arrested and there is evident fear of many more hundreds being detained or arrested. The total clamp down on participation of the media, activists, leaders and any sympathizer of CMAS is not only condemnable but totally unjustified. The district has been turned into a hunting ground of tribals and there is fear written all over the faces of tribals in this remote block of Koraput district. A small team of three members made a two-day visit to Narayanpatna to ascertain the situation and understand the truth behind the firing incident which killed two tribals.

Blocked roads, long walks up and down winding hill paths and petrified tribals afraid to open their mouths to any unknown persons were the memories etched in the team members’ minds. But what left the members shocked during their visit on 21^st and 22^nd November 2009 was that democracy had fallen to its worst during those three days after the firing and murder of two tribals.

There is much to be asked about the firing but the question foremost on our mind is – who ordered the firing ? did the police take the permission of a magistrate before setting off their guns ? and why was tear gas and other non-fatal measures not used to disperse a crowd which police thought might create a law and order situation ? the time gap between the protest gathering and the firing is just about 30 minutes ? but police say they requested and warned and then opened fire ? all these things happened in 30 minutes ? sounds a little preposterous and forces one to wonder whether it was cold blooded murder or a freak incident or a well-planned strategic elimination of a leader who held sway over a large number of fearless and empowered tribal cadres of CMAS.

As the days pass rising police brutalities destroy brick by brick the euphoric notions of ‘democracy’ so carefully packaged and sold to people of India by a political class sold out to corporate greed. Every night and every dawn brings shivers to the tribals as they await an assault on their hamlet, whether on the hill top or on the plains or deep in the jungles, by the marauding security forces. No one knows from which end and at what time under cover of darkness these cobras and scorpions will attack their village, break open their doors, kick them out of their homes and beat the blues out of them. The CMAS has been persistently branded a frontal organization of the CPI (Maoist) despite their vehement rebuttal and lack of any evidence to show their Maoist connections.

Facts and observations stated in this report are based on information and statements collected during interviews with Narayanpatna residents who were witness to the firing, local mediapersons and villagers of Kumbhari and Narayanpatna Panchayats.

The Facts of 20^th November 2009

o About 200 CMAS members including 100 women came to Narayanpatna Police Station to protest against harassment of tribals in particular women during the previous days’ combing operations by security forces. They reached the police station at around 2 pm and since the two gates of the police station were closed they called on the OIC to come out for a discussion. The police refused to let them in and began verbally abusing tribals who had assembled at the gate.

o When the police did not respond to their repeated requests to let a team of tribals into the police station for discussion on their complaints with the OIC, CMAS leader Kumudini Behera and CMAS President Kendruka Singanna broke open the lock of the small side gate of the police compound with an axe. As the gate opened 5-6 main leaders of CMAS including Singanna and Kumudini went to meet OIC Gouranga Charan Sahu. During a heated exchange between the OIC and Singanna, the OIC began to shout that he was being attacked by CMAS leaders and he ordered the IRB guards on the roof of the police station to open fire on the crowd gathered outside. The police fired three shots in air and then began to indiscriminately fire at the crowd standing outside the police compound. The firing was done by the IRB as well as CRPF and Cobra at 2.45 pm. The firing continued for half an hour and 300 bullets were fired at people.

o Hearing the sound of firing Singanna and others came out of the police station. Singanna was hit in the chest while he was walking out of the police compound. He received ten bullets in his chest and fell in front of the small police gate. Another CMAS member Andru Nachika of Bhaliaput village received bullet injuries and fell face down outside the police compound. Their bodies were left there by CMAS members who ran helter-skelter as the police began firing at them. Around 300 bullets were fired at the people. In this firing, while two have died it is being estimated that around 60 more persons have been injured and some are in a serious condition.

o Singanna is survived by his wife who is also pregnant, three sons and a daughter. Andru is survived by his wife who is also pregnant and two children.

The Reason for CMAS Protest

o During a fact finding visit on 22^nd November 2009, all CMAS members and villagers interviewed stated that they had gone to the Police Station to lodge their protest against police harassment of tribals and in particular women who were being harassed by the security forces.

o One of the main reasons for CMAS members’ protest was that they wanted an answer from the OIC regarding violation of an assurance made to the tribals earlier. The CMAS members stated that about two months back they had held a protest rally regarding harassment of tribals in the name of combing and deployment of security forces in their villages. Following the rally, the OIC had given a written assurance to CMAS leaders that forces would not enter their villages and harass the tribals. They would conduct combing operations without harassing the locals. But the CMAS members stated that the police had violated this assurance and hence they came to ask the police the reason for this gross violation which was a serious breach of trust.

o Of particular importance is people’s statement that the security forces categorically told them during combing operations on 18^th and 19^th November that they should leave their villages immediately or else they would have to face dire consequences. They even told them that the non-tribals whose lands CMAS had ‘grabbed’ (sic!) would come back soon to claim their lands !

o Combing operations and related harassment of 18^th and 29^th November was reported from Odiapentha, Dandabeda, Palaput, Dubaguda and Badhraguda villages.

o Apart from warning them, they did not allow the women and men to continue their harvesting work. Some said that they even took away their harvested paddy and mandia crops. The tribals explained to us that this season is the most important time for them because they are engaged in harvesting, husking and storing of their foodgrains. Hence such combing operations and threats to people would destroy their harvesting operations and affect their food security.

o When the tribals related this to their CMAS leaders, the latter decided to go to the police station to demand an explanation for this warning and also protest the harassment. The CMAS leaders sent cadres to different villages and assembled the members and took a decision to hold a peaceful march to the police station to make their protest and put their demands before police.

o About 50 tribals whom we interviewed and most of who had attended the march to the police station, categorically stated that they did not carry any firearms and that they carried a few axes and thick bamboo sticks. None carried any bow and arrow because they explained to us that on previous occasions their bows and arrows had led the media to brand them as Maoists. So they said that they had consciously not carried any bows and arrows or local swords.

Situation of 22^nd November 2009

o As of today, it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of persons injured as CMAS members have returned to their villages and have not been able to meet or communicate with each other about the actual injuries to their members. Medical aid to these persons is not available as the injured are afraid to come to Narayanpatna Primary Health Centre (PHC) for medical treatment for fear of being arrested. They are taking treatment from their traditional tribal healers (disaris). Doctors are also reluctant to go to the villages for treating any patients for fear of abuse by the police and security forces. Local Anganwadis and ASHA workers are unable to teat the injured as they do not have the necessary medicines, spirit and cotton to clean and dress the wounds.

o Far flung villages and constant combing by the security forces is also making it difficult for the leaders to move to different villages to ascertain how many have been injured and what is their condition. Most leaders are in hiding as there is a reported shoot-at-sight order against them.

o On 22^nd November early morning there was a combing operation by security forces and seven persons were arrested from their homes between 5 to 6 am. Apart from this, forces forcefully broke into homes and searched for ‘red flags’ (whatever that might signify as evidence !?). They abused people, in particular the women, kicked and beat young boys with thick bamboo sticks who did not answer questions. They seized axes, sickles, knives, bows and arrows and bamboo sticks from every house they entered and told the tribals that these are ‘dangerous weapons of murder’ and that they would be arrested if they were found in their homes next time. The tribals asked us, “these are our agricultural implements and daily household needs so how can we not keep them at home ? How will we get fuelwood, cut vegetables, harvest paddy and cut branches to feed our animals ? Where should we hide them and why should we do that when we never use these as weapons of murder as accused by the police ?” We had no answers ….

o Four CMAS members from Narayanpatna and three persons from Palaput, 1 km away from Narayanpatna. The details of persons arrested are :

1. Raju Huika – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi

2. Dora Nachika – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi

3. Masi Sirka – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi

4. Ramesh Khosla – Narayanpatna Ghasi Sahi

5. Kumudini Dora - Palaput Tala Sahi

6. Debendra Behera - Palaput Tala Sahi

7. Satyanarayan Bangu - Palaput Tala Sahi (his commander was seized)

o These seven persons have been taken into police custody on 22^nd November and will have to be produced before Judicial Magistrate at Laxmipur within 24 hours. If this is not done then the police would be violating its own laws.

o Apart from this, the fact finding team also met three persons who have received bullet injuries. A boy of 18 years received two bullet injuries in his leg and in the same village another person has a bullet injury wherein the bullet is still lodged in his hip. Yet another person of that village has a bullet wound which whisked past his left calf and has left a slit which needs immediate stitches. Another older man of another village has received a bullet injury in his left hand. This person was marketing dry fish near the police station when he was hit. He had no idea about the rally and the reasons for it. He is also partially hearing impaired. Apart from this, the people the fact finding team spoke to said that about 60 others have also received bullet injuries and are hiding in the villages. None of these persons are able to get medical help.

o As the fact finding team wanted to give some medicines to the injured patients and went into Narayanpatna town for purchasing these at around 3 pm on 22^nd November they were stopped by DSP Jagannath Rao and Semiliguda IIC Sarat Sahu along with some armed constabulary. After initial questions on where the team had gone and why and checking of vehicle, they asked the team to leave the town immediately or else they would have to detain the members. This warning came despite knowing the fact that two of the fact finding members were journalists.

Impact of Firing on People

o All people whom the fact finding team met in the last two days are under tremendous fear that the police would kill every tribal they set their sight on including all members of CMAS. There is fear in their eyes as they spoke to the fact finding team members. They asked, “what should we do when the police comes to our village ?” When they were told not to run upon seeing the forces, they asked, “if we do not run then how can we save ourselves ? they will definitely kill us”. The women stated that they heard forces warning them in low breath that if the CMAS male members did not hand themselves over to the police then they would rape the all the women to ‘teach them a lesson’. One old woman asked us, “what wrong have we done ? We only asked for lands to cultivate and live a life of dignity and freedom from hunger ?”

o People are afraid to move out of villages due to fear of arrest and are constantly discussing about what will happen to them after this. Every village we went to we found women and men assembled in their village meeting place discussing the impending dangers. They are afraid to stay in the jungles as the forces are patrolling the jungles as well. They say that if they stay in the jungles they will be hunted and killed and if they live in their villages then they will be hunted out into the jungles and then also killed. “So either ways we die”, tell the women.

o The leaders of CMAs have several questions : why did the police not use tear gars to disperse the tribals if they thought there was going to be a law and order situation ? Why were rubber bullets not used ? The firing took place within half and hour of the protest rally so how did the police state that they gave the people adequate opportunities to break the rally and disperse ?

o The CMAS leaders also asked us, “when the police comes attacking us in our villages we do not retaliate and kill them ? In fact we allow them to search us, our homes and even beat us up mercilessly ? So why did police kill us when we came to their home to seek answers to simple questions ?” They told us, “even if we had snatched the weapons we could not have fired because we do not know how to use them ? So how did we become threats to the life of the OIC or the IRB guards standing on the rooftop ?”

o They asked us to reflect on why would they, the tribals, want to attack the police in their own compound ? And why would 200 tribals come to the police station to loot arms when the OIC did not even have a gun on him when they confronted him ? They explained to us that the IRB guards stationed on the roof, who fired at the crowd, were beyond the reach of tribals and hence it is impossible that they were trying to snatch their weapons at the roof.

o A very pertinent question was asked to us by a few tribal youths at a meeting in a village of Kumbhari Panchayat. They told us that the Government wants tribals to keep peace and help the Government and use democratic means to state their complaints. But the CMAS members asked us, “why should we help Government when it has not even given us our basic survival needs like PDS, NREGS, schools and health ? Government forced us to fight for our survival but killed us because we went to ask them a question ? Is that so undemocratic ? And what the police did to us, is that what you call democracy ?”

o The fact finding team also observed that the local mediapersons have not been reporting the truth behind several facts of the firing incident and are tracking movement of other reporters and fact finding teams visiting the area. They are conveying this information to the local police. The team felt very strongly that local mediapersons were doing this with malafide intentions.

Fact Finding Team Members

1. K Sudhakar Patnaik – Senior Journalist

2. Manoranjan Routray – Journalist

3. Sharanya – HumAnE, Koraput

Massive Rally and Convention at Muniguda challenges Vedanta’s plans to mine Niyamgiri

5^th September, 2009

A rally of over 5000 people gathered together at Muniguda, inspite of the heavy rains and an ongoing Bus strike, to protest Vedanta’s proposal to mine Niyamgiri. Thousands of Jharania and Dongaria Kondhs braved the rains to join the rally with their traditional arms. The rally started at 10 am from Rajulguda village near Dahikhal and reached Muniguda petrol pump where tribals and other protesters had converged from four diffrent corners of the region shouting slogans such as “Niyamgiri is ours”; “We will never give up Niyamgiri till we are alive”.

Speaker after speaker spoke out against Vedanta’s genocidal efforts to destroy Niyamgiri and its environs for its greed for profits. In his speech, Prof Bhagwat Prasad Rath wanted to know if there is any example available within the 62 years history of independent India where mining has benefited the locals and conserved the resources for the safety of future generations. Bhagwan Majhi of PSSP , Kashipur, while narrating the repressions and atrocities they have experienced in their fight against Utkal Alumina for the last 15 years also appealed the Niyamgiri fighters to further intensify their struggle. Dongaria leaders Dadi Majhi and Bari Prikaka declared in their addresses that, " Niyamgiri is our mother, it is our father and it is our god. We can't breath without Niyamgiri".

Other prominent speakers included, Lingaraj Azad and Kumuti Majhi of Niyamgiri Surakshya Samiti, Satya Mahar and Giridhari Patra of Kalahandi Sachetan Nagarika Manch, Rajendra Bharati and Sidharth Nayak (advocates) as well as former MLA sarangdhar Kadraka. Sarangdhar Kadraka, himself a Dongaria Kondh, described Niyamgiri Hill as a Kamadhenu which protects and nurtures the local people and compared Vedanta with an Asur (demon) whose efforts to despoil Niyamgiri will destroy everything. Prafulla Samantra, the President of Loka Shakti Abhijan, a key figure in effort to save Niyamgiri, also spoke to the assembled people.

The main support of the programme came from CPI( ML) New Democracy and its leader Bhala Chandra Sadanngi . The president of the Loka Sangram Manch the leading tribal organization of South Orissa, Budha Gamang was also present. The convention was presided over by the local tribal leader Haribandhu Kadraka and president of the local unit of Lok Sangram Manch. Bhalla Sadangi of Loka Sangram Manch pointed out that this was the first local mass event totally organized locally. He also said that “the Mahayudh against Vedanta has started- the people have united against Vedanta to oust it and never to allow mining of Niyamgiri”.

The people handed over a memorandum to Chief Minister through the BDO in which the following demands were raised

• Cancellation of mining lease in Niyamgiri
• Allotment of rights to forest dwellers and tribals in Niyamgiri as per FRA 2006
• Issue of BPL cards to the poor, Widow allowance, old age pension in Niyamgiri and Muniguda area
• Provision of a school in every revenue village in and around Niyamgiri
• One hospital for 10 revenue villages in Niyamgiri
• Minimum 100 days work at Rs 100 wage per day to the poor in the region under NRGES
• Minimum Support price for forest produces in Niyamgiri
• Fair price and good marketing support for produces collected by tribals in Niyamgiri

The programme was highly successful despite rains and bust strike. heavy force deployment had made by the state though it was one of the most peaceful events one witnessed in the area. This event today has visibly demoralized the Vedanta camp who had made relentless efforts to stop it happening by undertaking a propaganda war against the rally and the convention.

(With inputs from Satyabadi Naik; Picture by Satyabadi Naik)

Introduction to global warming

I shouldn't be lifting it from a blog wholesale - but this is a wonderfully informed and data/information rich post on "catastrophic global warming". The original blog, which again is very useful.

Regards

Kundan

http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/22/an-introduction-to-global-warming-impacts-hell-and-high-water/

An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water

March 22, 2009

This is for readers who wanted one-stop, updatable introductory posts on various key topics.Please do add any key impacts you think I’ve missed — but focus on those with a scientific source.

In this post, I will examine the key impacts we face by 2100 if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path. I will focus primarily on:

• Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 10°F over much of the United States
• Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
• Dust Bowls over the U.S. SW and many other heavily populated regions around the globe
• Massive species loss on land and sea — 50% or more of all life
• Unexpected impacts — the fearsome “unknown unknowns”
• More severe hurricanes — especially in the Gulf

Equally tragic, as a 2009 NOAA-led study found, these impacts be “largely irreversible for 1000 years.”

The single biggest failure of messaging by climate scientists (until very recently) has been the failure to explain to the public, opinion makers, and the media that business-as-usual warming results in impacts that are beyond catastrophic. For these impacts, terms like “global warming” and “climate change” are essentially euphemisms. That is why I prefer the term “Hell and High Water.”

Business-as-usual typically means continuing at recent growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions, which we now know would take us to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide greater than 1000 ppm (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” — 1000 ppm). We are at about 8.5 billion metric tons of carbon a year (GtC/yr) and, until the recent global economic recession, were rising about 3% per year.

What is less well understood is that even a very strong mitigation effort that kept carbon emissions this century to 11 GtC a year on average would still probably take us to 1000 ppm — a little noted conclusion of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (see “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution“).

The scientific community has spent little time modeling the impacts of a tripling (~830 ppm) or quadrupling (~1100 ppm) carbon dioxide concentrations from preindustrial levels. In part, I think, that’s because they never believed humanity would be so stupid as to ignore the warnings and simply continue on its self-destructive path. In part, they lowballed the difficult-to-model amplifying feedbacks in the carbon cycle.

So I pieced together those impacts from available studies and from discussions with leading climate scientists for my book, Hell and High Water. But now as climate scientists have sobered up to their painful role as modern-day Cassandra’s, the scientific literature on what we face is much richer. Let me review it here.

TEMPERATURE

Two of the best recent analyses of what we are headed towards can be found here:

• M.I.T. joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C
• Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path

As Dr. Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice for the Met Office’s Hadley Centre explains on their website (here):

Contrast that with a world where no action is taken to curb global warming. Then,temperatures are likely to rise by 5.5 °C and could rise as high as 7 °C above pre-industrial values by the end of the century.

That likely rise corresponds to roughly 9°F globally and typically 40% higher than that over inland mid-latitudes (i.e. much of this country) — or well over 10°F.

[Note: The MIT rise is compared to 1980-1999 levels see study here). So you can add at least 0.5 C and 1.0°F for comparison with pre-industrial temperatures.]

Based on two studies in the last few years:

By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. Much of Arizona would be subjected to temperatures of 105°F or more for 98 days out of the year–14 full weeks.

Yet that conclusion is based on studies of only 700 ppm and 850 ppm, so it could get much hotter than that.

And the Hadley Center adds, “By the 2090s close to one-fifth of the world’s population will be exposed to ozone levels well above the World Health Organization recommended safe-health level.”

The Hadley Center has a huge but useful figure which I will reproduce here:

SEA LEVEL RISE

A 5.5°C warming would likely lead to the mid- to high-range of currently projected sea level rise — 5 feet or more by 2100, followed by 10 to 20 inches a decade for centuries. The best recent study is

• Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100

Needless to say, a sea level rise of one meter by 2100 would be an unmitigated catastrophe for the planet, even if sea levels didn’t keep rising several inches a decade for centuries, which they inevitably would. The first meter of SLR would flood 17% of Bangladesh, displacing tens of millions of people, and reducing its rice-farming land by 50 percent. Globally, it would create more than 100 million environmental refugees and inundate over 13,000 square miles of this country. Southern Louisiana and South Florida would inevitably be abandoned. And salt water infiltration will only compound this impact (see “Rising sea salinates India’s Ganges“). As will hurricanes (see below).

The scientific literature has been moving in this direction for a couple of years now — too late for the IPCC to consider in its latest assessment. For instance, an important Science article from 2007 used empirical data from last century to project that sea levels could be up to 5 feet higher in 2100 and rising 6 inches a decade (see Inundated with Information on Sea Level Rise)!

Another 2007 study from Nature Geoscience came to the same conclusion (see “Sea levels may rise 5 feet by 2100“). Leading experts in the field have a similar view (see “Amazing AP article on sea level rise” and “Report from AGU meeting: One meter sea level rise by 2100 “very likely” even if warming stops?“).

Note: Since global warming deniers and delayers like to hide behind the IPCC’s 2007 sea level estimate — even though they really don’t believe most of what the IPCC says or most of the scientific literature on which it bases its conclusion — you’re going to be hearing the IPCC estimate for another several years, until the IPCC does a new report and puts in a more realistic estimate. That said, while the delayers never acknowledge it, even the 2007 IPCC report “was the first to acknowledge that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet from rising temperature [which would raise the oceans 23 feet] could result in sea-level rise over centuries rather than millennia,” as the NYT put it (see “Absolute MUST Read IPCC Report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly“).

Yet even a major report signed off on by the Bush administration itself was forced to concede that the IPCC numbers are simply too out of date to be quoted anymore:

• US Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections

DESERTIFICATION

Then we have moderate drought over half the planet, plus the loss of all inland glaciers that provide water to a billion people.

“The unexpectedly rapid expansion of the tropical belt constitutes yet another signal that climate change is occurring sooner than expected,” noted one climate researcher in December 2007. A 2008 study led by NOAA noted, “A poleward expansion of the tropics is likely to bring even drier conditions to” the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, Australia and parts of Africa and South America.”

In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California. And they were only looking at a 720 ppm case! The Dust Bowl was a sustained decrease in soil moisture of about 15% (”which is calculated by subtracting evaporation from precipitation”).

A NOAA-led study similary found permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe on our current emissions trajectory (and irreversibly so for 1000 years). And as I have discussed, future droughts will be fundamentally different from all previous droughts that humanity has experienced because they will be very hot weather droughts (see Must-have PPT: The “global-change-type drought” and the future of extreme weather).

I should note that even the “moderate drought over half the planet″ scenario from the Hadley Center is only based on 850 ppm (in 2100). Princeton has done an analysis on “Century-scale change in water availability: CO2-quadrupling experiment,” which is to say 1100 ppm. The grim result: Most of the South and Southwest ultimately sees a 20% to 50% (!) decline in soil moisture.

SPECIES LOSS ON LAND AND SEA

In 2007, the IPCC warned that as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C [relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe. That is a temperature rise over pre-industrial levels of a bit more than 4.0°C. So a 5.5°C rise would likely put extinctions beyond the high end of that range.

And, of course, “When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans.” There aren’t many studies of what happens to the oceans as we get toward 800 to 1000 ppm, but it appears likely that much of the world’s oceans, especially in the southern hemisphere, become inhospitable to many forms of marine life. A 2005 Nature study concluded these “detrimental” conditions “could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously.”

A 2009 study in Nature Geoscience warned that global warming may create “dead zones” in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia (see Ocean dead zones to expand, “remain for thousands of years”).

UNEXPECTED IMPACTS

If we go to 800 ppm — let alone 1000 ppm or higher — we are far outside the bounds of simple linear projection. Some of the worst impacts may not be obvious — and there may be unexpected negative synergies. The best evidence that will happen is the fact that it is already happened with even a small amount of warming we have seen to date.

“The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada” notes Doug McArthur, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The pests are “projected to kill 80 per cent of merchantable and susceptible lodgepole pine” in parts of British Columbia within 10 years — and that’s why the harvest levels in the region have been “increased significantly.”

As quantified in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” (subs. req’d), while just looks at the current and future impact from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:

… the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000–2020 will be 270 megatonnes (Mt) carbon (or 36 g carbon m^-2 yr^-1 on average over 374,000 km² of forest). This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:

Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.

And the bark beetle is slamming the Western U.S. and Alaska, too (see “Oldest Utah newspaper: Bark-beetle driven wildfires are a vicious climate cycle“).

The key point is this catastrophic climate change impact and its carbon-cycle feedback were not foreseen even a decade ago — which suggests future climate impacts will bring other equally unpleasant surprises, especially as we continue on our path of no resistance.

HURRICANES

Even if we don’t see an increase in the worst hurricanes hurricanes, the rising sea levels alone would put a growing number of coastal cities below sea level. Such cities are particularly hard to protect from major hurricanes as we saw with New Orleans. And that suggests in the second half of this century, we will be increasingly reluctant to rebuild cities devastated by major hurricanes.

That said, the literature suggests we will see an increase in severe hurricanes (see “ Hurricanes ARE getting fiercer — and it’s going to get much worse“). A 2008 Nature studied concluded:

The team calculates that a 1 ºC increase in sea-surface temperatures would result in a 31% increase in the global frequency of category 4 and 5 storms per year: from 13 of those storms to 17. Since 1970, the tropical oceans have warmed on average by around 0.5 ºC. Computer models suggest they may warm by a further 2 ºC by 2100.

Well, actually, those are the old computer models running old scenarios of emissions without much consideration of amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks. On our current emissions path, key parts of the tropical oceans are likely to warm considerably more than 2°C by century’s end.

For a longer discussion of why future hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico are likely to become far more dangerous in the future, see (Why global warming means killer storms worse than Katrina and Gustav, Part 1 and Part 2).

CONCLUSION

We can’t let this happen. We must pay any price or bear any burden to stop it.

And let me make one final point. I think it is increasinly clear the “middle ground” scenarios are unstable in that once you hit 500 ppm (or possibly lower), the amplifying feedbacks kick in: These feedbacks include:

• The defrosting of the permafrost
• The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
• The destruction of the tropical wetlands
• Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees — thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
• Wildfires and Climate-Driven forest destruction by pests
• The desertification-global warming feedback
• The saturation of the ocean carbon sink

As Dr. Pope puts it, “If the climate turns out to be particularly sensitive to increases in greenhouse gases and the Earth’s biological systems cannot absorb very much carbon then temperature rises could be even higher.”

Indeed, some of the best research on this has come from the Hadley Center, since it has one of the few models that incorporates many of the major carbon cycle feedbacks. In a 2003Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) paper, “Strong carbon cycle feedbacks in a climate model with interactive CO2 and sulphate aerosols,” the Hadley Center, the U.K.’s official center for climate change research, finds that the world would hit 1000 ppm in 2100 even in a scenario that, absent those feedbacks, we would only have hit 700 ppm in 2100. I would note that the Hadley Center, though more inclusive of carbon cycle feedbacks than most other models, still does not model most of the feedbacks above or any feedbacks from the melting of the tundra even though it is probably the most serious of those amplifying feedbacks.

So we must stabilize at 450 ppm or below — or risk what can only be called humanity’s self-destruction. Since the cost is maybe 0.11% of GDP per year — or probably a bit higher than that if we shoot for 350 ppm — the choice would seem clear. Now if only the scientific community and environmentalists and progressives could start articulating this reality cogently.

Six degrees to a hotter Planet

Please find this very interesting article. It is again written from a westerner's perspective, but note that our nemesis (i.e. for people from the developing world) is very close if no drastic action is taken.

http://www.marklynas.org/2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-summary-of-six-degrees-as-published-in-the-guardian

'Six steps to hell' - summary of Six Degrees as published in the Guardian 23 April 07

By the end of the century, the Earth could be more than 6C hotter than it is today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We know that would be bad news - but just how bad? How big a rise will it take for the Alps to melt, the oceans to die and desert to conquer Europe and the Americas? Mark Lynas sifted through thousands of scientific papers for his new book on global warming. This is what the research told him...

The following is an article by Mark Lynas based on his book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. It was published in the Guardian on 23 April 2007. The original version is available here.

1ºC

Nebraska isn’t at the top of most tourists’ to-do lists. However, this dreary expanse of impossibly flat plains sits in the middle of one of the most productive agricultural systems on Earth. Beef and corn dominate the economy, and the Sand Hills region – where low, grassy hillocks rise up from the flatlands – has some of the best cattle ranching in the whole US. But scratch beneath the grass and you will find, as the name suggests, not soil but sand. These innocuous-looking hills were once desert, part of an immense system of sand dunes that spread across the Great Plains from Texas in the south to the Canadian prairies in the north. Six thousand years ago, when temperatures were about 1C warmer than today in the US, these deserts may have looked much as the Sahara does today. As global warming bites, the western US could once again be plagued by perennial drought – devastating agriculture and driving out human inhabitants on a scale far larger than the 1930s “Dustbowl” exodus.

On the other side of the Atlantic, today’s hottest desert could be seeing a wetter future in the one-degree world. At the same time as sand dunes were blowing across the western US, the central Sahara was a veritable Garden of Eden as rock paintings of elephants, giraffes and buffalo, also dating from 6,000 years ago, attest. On the borders of what is today Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon, the prehistoric Lake Mega-Chad spread over an area only slightly smaller than the Caspian Sea does now. Could a resurgent north African monsoon drive rainfall back into the Sahara in a one-degree world? Models suggest it could.

Also in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro will be losing the last of its snow and ice as temperatures rise, leaving the entire continent ice-free for the first time in at least 11,000 years. The Alps, too, will be melting, releasing deadly giant landslides as thawing permafrost removes the “glue” that holds the peaks together. In the Arctic, temperatures will rise far higher than the one-degree global average, continuing the rapid decline in sea ice that scientists have already observed. This spells bad news for polar bears, walruses and ringed seals – species that are effectively pushed off the top of the planet as warming shrinks cold areas closer and closer to the pole.

Indeed, it is the ecological effects of warming that may be most apparent at one degree. Critically, this temperature rise may wipe out the majority of the world’s tropical coral reefs, devastating marine biodiversity. Most of the Great Barrier Reef will be dead.

2ºC

In the highly unlikely event that global warming deniers prove to be right, we will still have to worry about carbon dioxide, because it dissolves in the oceans and makes them more acidic. Even with relatively low emissions, large areas of the southern oceans and parts of the Pacific will within a few decades become toxic to organisms with calcium carbonate shells, for the simple reason that the acidic seawater will dissolve them. Many species of plankton – the basis of the marine food chain and essential for the sustenance of higher creatures, from mackerel to baleen whales – will be wiped out, and the more acidic seawater may be the knockout blow for what remains of the world’s coral reefs. The oceans may become the new deserts as the world’s temperatures reach 2C above today’s.

Two degrees may not sound like much, but it is enough to make every European summer as hot as 2003, when 30,000 people died from heatstroke. That means extreme summers will be much hotter still. As Middle East-style temperatures sweep across Europe, the death toll may reach into the hundreds of thousands. The Mediterranean area can expect six more weeks of heatwave conditions, with wildfire risk also growing. Water worries will be aggravated as the southern Med loses a fifth of its rainfall, and the tourism industry could collapse as people move north outside the zones of extreme heat.

Two degrees is also enough to cause the eventual complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise global sea levels by seven metres. Much of the ice-cap disappeared 125,000 years ago, when global temperatures were 1-2C higher than now. Because of the sheer size of the ice sheet, no one expects this full seven metres to come before the end of the century, but a top Nasa climate scientist, James Hansen, is warning that the mainstream projections of sea level rise (of 50cm or so by 2100) could be dangerously conservative. As if to underline Hansen’s warning, the rate of ice loss from Greenland has tripled since 2004.

This melting will also continue to affect the world’s mountain ranges, and in Peru all the glaciers will disappear from the Andean peaks that currently supply Lima with water. In California, the loss of snowpack from the Sierra Nevada – three-quarters of which could disappear in the two-degree world – will leave cities such as Los Angeles increasingly thirsty during the summer. Global food supplies, especially in the tropics, will also be affected but while two degrees of warming will be survivable for most humans, a third of all species alive today may be driven to extinction as climate change wipes out their habitat.

3ºC

Scientists estimate that we have at best 10 years to bring down global carbon emissions if we are to stabilise world temperatures within two degrees of their present levels. The impacts of two degrees warming are bad enough, but far worse is in store if emissions continue to rise. Most importantly, 3C may be the “tipping point” where global warming could run out of control, leaving us powerless to intervene as planetary temperatures soar. The centre of this predicted disaster is the Amazon, where the tropical rainforest, which today extends over millions of square kilometres, would burn down in a firestorm of epic proportions. Computer model projections show worsening droughts making Amazonian trees, which have no evolved resistance to fire, much more susceptible to burning. Once this drying trend passes a critical threshold, any spark could light the firestorm which destroys almost the entire rainforest ecosystem. Once the trees have gone, desert will appear and the carbon released by the forests’ burning will be joined by still more from the world’s soils. This could boost global temperatures by a further 1.5ºC – tippping us straight into the four-degree world.

Three degrees alone would see increasing areas of the planet being rendered essentially uninhabitable by drought and heat. In southern Africa, a huge expanse centred on Botswana could see a remobilisation of old sand dunes, much as is projected to happen earlier in the US west. This would wipe out agriculture and drive tens of millions of climate refugees out of the area. The same situation could also occur in Australia, where most of the continent will now fall outside the belts of regular rainfall.

With extreme weather continuing to bite – hurricanes may increase in power by half a category above today’s top-level Category Five – world food supplies will be critically endangered. This could mean hundreds of millions – or even billions – of refugees moving out from areas of famine and drought in the sub-tropics towards the mid-latitudes. In Pakistan, for example, food supplies will crash as the waters of the Indus decline to a trickle because of the melting of the Karakoram glaciers that form the river’s source. Conflicts may erupt with neighbouring India over water use from dams on Indus tributaries that cross the border.

In northern Europe and the UK, summer drought will alternate with extreme winter flooding as torrential rainstorms sweep in from the Atlantic – perhaps bringing storm surge flooding to vulnerable low-lying coastlines as sea levels continue to rise. Those areas still able to grow crops and feed themselves, however, may become some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, besieged by millions of climate refugees from the south.

4ºC

At four degrees another tipping point is almost certain to be crossed; indeed, it could happen much earlier. (This reinforces the determination of many environmental groups, and indeed the entire EU, to bring us in within the two degrees target.) This moment comes as the hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon locked up in Arctic permafrost – particularly in Siberia – enter the melt zone, releasing globally warming methane and carbon dioxide in immense quantities. No one knows how rapidly this might happen, or what its effect might be on global temperatures, but this scientific uncertainty is surely cause for concern and not complacency. The whole Arctic Ocean ice cap will also disappear, leaving the North Pole as open water for the first time in at least three million years. Extinction for polar bears and other ice-dependent species will now be a certainty.

The south polar ice cap may also be badly affected – the West Antarctic ice sheet could lift loose from its bedrock and collapse as warming ocean waters nibble away at its base, much of which is anchored below current sea levels. This would eventually add another 5m to global sea levels – again, the timescale is uncertain, but as sea level rise accelerates coastlines will be in a constant state of flux. Whole areas, and indeed whole island nations, will be submerged.

In Europe, new deserts will be spreading in Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey: the Sahara will have effectively leapt the Straits of Gibraltar. In Switzerland, summer temperatures may hit 48C, more reminiscent of Baghdad than Basel. The Alps will be so denuded of snow and ice that they resemble the rocky moonscapes of today’s High Atlas – glaciers will only persist on the highest peaks such as Mont Blanc. The sort of climate experienced today in Marrakech will be experienced in southern England, with summer temperatures in the home counties reaching a searing 45C. Europe’s population may be forced into a “great trek” north.

5ºC

To find out what the planet would look like with five degrees of warming, one must largely abandon the models and venture far back into geological time, to the beginning of a period known as the Eocene. Fossils of sub-tropical species such as crocodiles and turtles have all been found in the Canadian high Arctic dating from the early Eocene, 55 million years ago, when the Earth experienced a sudden and dramatic global warming. These fossils even show that breadfruit trees were growing on the coast of Greenland, while the Arctic Ocean saw water temperatures of 20C within 200km of the North Pole itself. There was no ice at either pole; forests were probably growing in central Antarctica.

The Eocene greenhouse event fascinates scientists not just because of its effects, which also saw a major mass extinction in the seas, but also because of its likely cause: methane hydrates. This unlikely substance, a sort of ice-like combination of methane and water that is only stable at low temperatures and high pressure, may have burst into the atmosphere from the seabed in an immense “ocean burp”, sparking a surge in global temperatures (methane is even more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). Today vast amounts of these same methane hydrates still sit on subsea continental shelves. As the oceans warm, they could be released once more in a terrifying echo of that methane belch of 55 million years ago. In the process, moreover, the seafloor could slump as the gas is released, sparking massive tsunamis that would further devastate the coasts.

Again, no one knows how likely this apocalyptic scenario is to unfold in today’s world. The good news is that it could take centuries for warmer water to penetrate down to the bottom of the oceans and release the stored methane. The bad news is that it could happen much sooner in shallower seas that see a stronger heating effect (and contain lots of methane hydrate) such as in the Arctic. It is also important to realise that the early Eocene greenhouse took at least 10,000 years to come about. Today we could accomplish the same feat in less than a century.

6ºC

If there is one episode in the Earth’s history that we should try above all not to repeat, it is surely the catastrophe that befell the planet at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. By the end of this calamity, up to 95% of species were extinct. The end-Permian wipeout is the nearest this planet has ever come to becoming just another lifeless rock drifting through space. The precise cause remains unclear, but what is undeniable is that the end-Permian mass extinction was associated with a super-greenhouse event. Oxygen isotopes in rocks dating from the time suggest that temperatures rose by six degrees, perhaps because of an even bigger methane belch than happened 200 million years later in the Eocene.

Sedimentary layers show that most of the world’s plant cover was removed in a catastrophic bout of soil erosion. Rocks also show a “fungal spike” as plants and animals rotted in situ. Still more corpses were washed into the oceans, helping to turn them stagnant and anoxic. Deserts invaded central Europe, and may even have reached close to the Arctic Circle.

One scientific paper investigating “kill mechanisms” during the end-Permian suggests that methane hydrate explosions “could destroy terrestrial life almost entirely”. Acting much like today’s fuel-air explosives (or “vacuum bombs”), major oceanic methane eruptions could release energy equivalent to 10,000 times the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Whatever happened back then to wipe out 95% of life on Earth must have been pretty serious. And while it would be wrong to imagine that history will ever straightforwardly repeat itself, we should certainly try and learn the lessons of the distant past. If they tell us one thing above all, it is this: that we mess with the climatic thermostat of this planet at our extreme – and growing – peril.