Humans: The Deadliest, Most Malevolent Species on Earth

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FIRE-EARTH Report: Humans Pose the Biggest Threat to Life on Earth

[Report includes evidence obtained from 64 countries and regions.]

Prepared and presented by FIRE-EARTH Science and affiliated scientists.

• Details are available via FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

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Half of Syria’s Prewar Population Have Fled Their Homes

Civil war displaces 11.6 million Syrians

Syria’s bloody civil war has forced half of the country’s prewar population to flee their homes.

At least 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, and an additional 4 million have fled the country, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).  The population at the start of the civil war was 23 million. Countries hosting the largest number of refugees are

• Turkey: 1.8 million
• Lebanon: 1.1 million
• Iraq: 230,000
• Egypt: 140,000
• Jordan: 600,000 (Jordan insists there are 1.4 million Syrian refugees in the country, a figure equal to 20 percent of the kingdom’s population, said a report.)

In 2013, 9,500 Syrians were displaced per day on average. By July 2014, the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached 6.4 million, a third of the entire population of the country. An additional three million Syrians have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. A stable middle-income country that hosted refugees from all over the region and beyond just four years ago, Syria is now experiencing a displacement and protection crisis of a magnitude the world has not seen for many years. [internal-displacement.org]

“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” said UN refugee chief.

A large number of Syrians have been killed in the four-and-a-half year bloody civil war; however, the figures suggested are unreliable.

Weak Monsoon Threatens Drought in India

UPDATED

Indian Govt Downgrades Monsoon Forecast to 88%

Rainfall below 90% is considered as drought year: IMD

India’s June-September monsoon rains will most likely be “deficient” this year and India Meteorological Department (IMD) has revised its earlier forecast from 93% to 88%, said the country’s earth sciences minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday.

A five-day delay in the arrival of the monsoons has also been forecast, as large parts of the country experience a searing heatwave that has killed more than 2,500.

“The rain-bearing system, that typically begins its four-month journey across India on June 1 in Kerala, is also crucial for power, drinking and irrigation. A bad monsoon hits power production since hydropower accounts for a quarter of India’s electricity output, critical for industry and households alike,” said a report.

Rainfall in NW India is likely to be 85 percent of the Long Period Term Average (LPA), 90% of LPA over the Central region, 92% of LPA over South Peninsula and 92% of LPA over the Northeast, with a margin of error of ±8%,  the minister added.

The monthly rainfall over the entire country is forecast at 92% of LPA during the month of July, and 90% of LPA in August (margin of error of ±9%).

Minister Blames Climate Change

“Let us not fool ourselves that there is no connection between the unusual number of deaths from the ongoing heat wave and the certainty of another failed monsoon. It’s not just an unusually hot summer, it is climate change,” said Vardhan.

India is Asia’s third-largest economy and world’s 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

The world’s second most populous country [pop: more than 1.2 billion,] India is home to 194 million hungry people—the highest number globally.

 

India’s Population Up 28 Percent Since 2000

India’s population hit 1.272 billion

Based on the available data and best estimates, FIRE-EARTH projections show that the total population of India may have reached 1.272 billion as of posting, a rise of 27.6% since 2000. [In comparison, U.S. population will reach 315,780,000 today; was 313,933,954 on July 4, 2012.]

India’s population was 350 million in 1947 and grew to 996,944,000 (0.9 billion) in 2000.

The population as of March 1, 2011, was 1,210,726,932, according to the latest census.

In 2012 the population reached 1,259,721,000 according to PRB 2012 World Population Data Sheet (mid year), which also placed the  world population at 7,058,000,000 for the period.

As of May 1, 2013 India’s population comprised about 18 percent of total world population.

About 76 percent of the people in India live below US$2.0 (world average: 48%).

Other Populations Today (best estimates)

World: 7,082,336,000
China : 1,359,800,000

China Quake Death Toll Nearly 10,000

UPDATE # 1 – China Quake

TOWNSHIPS COLLAPSE

Most farmers’ homes in two townships have collapsed and there is no word from the three townships nearest the epicenter, which have a population of 24,000. (Source)

Local residents search for their belongings in the debris of a collapsed house after an earthquake in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province May 12, 2008, in this picture distributed by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. REUTERS/Xinhua/Chen Xie (Caption: Reuters)

Video: Powerful quake strikes China

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Canceling Your Life Insurance Policy with Nature

WILD FACTS SERIES

Ice and Snow

Humans are in a great hurry to cancel their life insurance policy with nature, melting the snow and ice. As a result of climate change, mountain snow and glaciers are melting earlier, in the spring instead of summer, resulting in water scarcity during the hotter summer months when the precious water is most needed.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 (Image credit: Luca Galuzzi via wikimedia commons)

“This is just a time bomb,” said hydrologist Wouter Buytaert at a meeting of geoscientists in Vienna.

Areas most at risk from water shortages include the United States, South America, Australia, the Middle East, southern Africa, and the Mediterranean.

The most vulnerable places are earth’s sub-tropic zones, where 70 percent of the world’s population live. Report

The following information is mirrored from the USGS Webpage

Ice caps influence the weather

Just because water in an ice cap or glacier is not moving does not mean that it does not have a direct effect on other aspects of the water cycle and the weather. Ice is very white, and since white reflects sunlight (and thus, heat), large ice fields can determine weather patterns. Air temperatures can be higher a mile above ice caps than at the surface, and wind patterns, which affect weather systems, can be dramatic around ice-covered landscapes.

Some glacier and ice cap facts

• Glacial ice covers 10-11 percent of all land.
• According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet (70 meters).
• During the last ice age (when glaciers covered more land area than today) the sea level was about 400 feet (122 meters) lower than it is today. At that time, glaciers covered almost one-third of the land.
• During the last warm spell, 125,000 years ago, the seas were about 18 feet (5.5 meters) higher than they are today. About three million years ago the seas could have been up to 165 feet (50.3 meters) higher.
• Largest surface area of any glacier in the contiguous United States: Emmons Glacier, Washington (4.3 square miles or 11 square kilometers)

ice caps and global water distribution

Even though the amount of water locked up in glaciers and ice caps is a small percentage of all water on (and in) the Earth, it represents a large percentage of the world’s total freshwater. As these charts and the data table show, the amount of water locked up in ice and snow is only about 1.7 percent of all water on Earth, but the majority of total freshwater on Earth, about 68.7 percent, is held in ice caps and glaciers.

One estimate of global water distribution

Water source	Water volume, in cubic miles	Water volume, in cubic kilometers	Percent of total water	Percent of total freshwater
Ice caps, Glaciers, & Permanent snow	5,773,000	24,064,000	1.7%	68.7%
Total global freshwater	8,404,000	35,030,000	2.5%	—
Total global water	332,500,000	1,386,000,000	—	—
Source: Gleick, P. H., 1996: Water resources. In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2, pp.817-823.

Related Links:

• Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities