FIRE-EARTH Report: VENEZUELA 02

• CJ Members
• EAC
• OC Teams

[Prepared by an affiliated team of political scientists.]

• Report available from FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

 

FIRE-EARTH Report: VENEZUELA

• CJ Members
• EAC
• OC Teams

[Prepared by an affiliated team of political scientists.]

• Report available from FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

FIRE-EARTH Alert: YEMEN 2

CJ Members

FIRE-EARTH Alert: Crisis in YEMEN

• Details of the Alert are available from FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

 

Worst drought in living memory gripping Horn of Africa

Parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions: UN

At least 10 million people in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda are currently faced with severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with  parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, and the situation is worsening, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) said.

“Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones,” a spokeswoman of the UNOCHA reported.

“There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012,” she said.

Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas exceed 30 percent- more than twice the emergency threshold of 15 percent, according to UNOCHA.

As food prices continue to surge in the region, more of the moderately poor households are being pushed over the edge, UNOCHA said.

Two consecutive poor rainy seasons in the eastern Horn of Africa since last year have resulted one of the driest years since 1950/51  in many pastoral areas. “The impacts of the drought have been exacerbated by high local cereal prices, excess livestock mortality, conflict and restricted humanitarian access in some areas,” said ReliefWeb.

Eastern Africa: Drought – Humanitarian Snapshot (as of 28 Jun 2011)

Source: UNOCHA. Click image to enlarge. Click here to view the original map (PDF)

Related Links

• Mass Die-offs

 

More Droughts in 2009

Argentina’s 2009 crop production was 40-70 lower than in 2008, depending on the crop

Drought in Argentina

NASA Earth Observatory Image: acquired February 23, 2009

NASA Earth Observatory Image: acquired February 22, 2008

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) reported a severe drought in southern South America, which had severely affected corn, cotton, and soybean crops in Argentina. Total rainfall since December was far below normal in most areas, and the rain that did fall often did not coincide with key points in crops’ growing cycles. Dust storms occurred in January and again in February, despite some late-to-arrive rains.

[NOTE: Dust storms destroy topsoil and accelerate land erosion. According to estimates made by our colleagues at EDRO, by 2012 critically low levels of top soil will have been reached at which point significant crop failures would occur worldwide.]

This pair of natural-color (photo-like) images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite contrasts 2009 conditions (top) in southern Buenos Aires province with the conditions in 2008 (bottom), a more normal year. The province is one of the country’s major corn-growing areas. The difference in overall greenness is dramatic. In 2008, the area was a checkerboard of lush green, a sign that crops were healthy. In the 2009 image, the landscape was pale green and tan, reflecting the struggle that natural and cultivated vegetation was having with the hot, dry summer.

FAS analyst Denise McWilliams said 2009 crop production was 30-60 percent of what it was in 2008, depending on the crop. Drought stress made the corn crop susceptible to insect pests, and in some fields, farmers simply baled the stunted corn crop for use as livestock forage. Likewise, extreme heat and drought struck the season’s first soybean crop during its flowering and seed pod development phase. Meanwhile, the drought and heat caused wide differences in the height and maturity level of cotton crops, even within the same field, which was expected to complicate the harvest.

References:

• USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Office of Global Analysis. (2009, February). World Agricultural Production. (pdf) Accessed February 23, 2009.

NASA images by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey [with minor editions made by FEWW], with input provided Denise McWilliams, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

Instrument:  Terra – MODIS

Related Links:

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• Topsoil
• Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities

• Food Crisis
• Drought and Deluge
• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

One Step for Life; 6,400 Leaps to Extinction

For every single step taken to restore ecosystems services, humans take 6,400 giant leaps in the opposite direction, destroying the planet’s ability to maintain life, ensuring extinction. —EDRO

As 99.98 percent of human effort goes to destroying Earth’s life support services, the planet experiences anthropogenic antiphase!

Original Entry:

• Earth’s Human Induced Antiphase Nears Completion

Related Links:

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• Early “Dividends” of Climate Change
• 500 Weather-Related Disasters A Year [and counting]
• Is a Future Possible?
• The Death of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Part 1)
• Food Crisis
• The Land of Plenty [of hungry people]
• Failing Ecosystems
• A Most Powerful Mechanism of Collapse
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
  

Malnourished Up by 44 million in 2008

[At least] 15 percent of the world population is [severely] malnourished

Food and Fuel Crisis Will Increase Malnourished by 44 million

The number of malnourished people has reached nearly 1 billion, or about 15 percent of the world population, an increase of about 5 percent (44 million) in 2008 caused by high food and fuel prices, the World Bank said.

Food prices are much higher than before and show no sign of declining to previous years levels.

Hunger persists. A severely malnourished 4-year-old in Ethiopia is typical of thousands of children around the world whose health and lives are devastated by lack of adequate food. image credit: Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures. Image may be subject to copyright.  Caption: Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP)

“While people in the developed world are focused on the financial crisis, many forget that a human crisis is rapidly unfolding in developing countries. It is pushing poor people to the brink of survival,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “The financial crisis will only make it more difficult for developing countries to protect their most vulnerable people from the impact of rising food and fuel costs.” More…

Related Links:

• Food Prices (Index page)
• Poverty Index

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