3rd September 2010

This week basically sees the end of the school holidays or summer vacation. We took the opportunity therefore to take our grandson to the coast. The English coastal resorts are usually a lot of fun. This visit was no exception. But having returned just over 2 weeks ago from 10 days or so in Sweden it was hard to restrain ourselves from making some comparisons. So we didn’t! But what is it about the English today, I say the English as the problem seems to be much more of an English problem than a Welsh or Scots one, but here is a popular English seaside resort which the town council do their best to keep clean but their efforts are not helped by the amount of rubbish that people just throw down regardless Even birds will clean out their nests, but the English? It just doesn’t seem to happen. The kind of thinking that generates this attitude carries on over into the cleanliness and quality of public facilities, public transport, shopping precincts, our schools and on into local and then national government. If we, as a people, don’t change our attitudes and approach then those mental attitudes are going to see us run into some very big trouble.

THE CLIMATE

PAKISTAN – The Independent – 3rd August – A humanitarian disaster at home, a diplomatic crisis abroad. Floodwaters bring risk of cholera to compound misery of the displaced. Rescue teams battled to get drinking water, food and medicine to hundreds of thousands of disease-prone people caught up in Pakistan’s worst flooding in decades even as a new cycle of monsoon rains threatened to spread the devastation to the country’s south. With massive devastation in north-west Pakistan leaving up to 1,400 people dead and affecting a further 2.5 million, according to the Red Cross, experts said there was a crucial need to avoid the spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases. There have already been several reported outbreaks, as drowned livestock rots amid the slowly receding waters.

The scale is a lot bigger than we thought. The biggest issue is still lack of access. A U.N. aid official said.

The Independent – 24th August – It will take years to repair the flood damage in Pakistan warns Zardari. Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, said yesterday that his country will need at least three years to recover from the worst floods in its history and warned that Islamist militants could exploit the “disarray”.

The Guardian, 25th August – After the deluge comes despair at finding nothing left, nothing at all. Sirajuddin stares at the shallow muddy pool of water. He had come to salvage whatever he could from his home. There is nothing, nothing at all. “This was our house,” said 30 year old Sirajuddin, pointing to the pool. Before the great flood came at the end of July there were some 120 homes in the village of Drab Korona, in the Charsadda district in north-west Pakistan. Today, only a mosque, two schools and the odd brick wall of other buildings have survived. The rest of the buildings were made mostly of mud. A torrent of freezing cold water, which eventually went roof-high, had come in the dead of night and by the next afternoon, almost everything was washed away. …. Further south in the country, the floods continue to eat up more land …. Drab Korona looks like a muddy refuse site, a jumble of battered remains encased in thick sludge. Strewn around are broken furniture, trucks, rafters that had been used to support houses … evidence that homes once stood here.

Our comment: Yet a further disaster to add to those occurring right around the world today. In the case of Pakistan however it is compounded by the fact that the western world is not contributing money at the same level as other disasters. The reason being that Pakistan is regarded somewhat of a rogue nation. A nation which, it is believed, if it can support a nuclear weapons programme and actually develop nuclear bombs, then it can take care of its own people.

INDONESIA – The Independent – 30th August -- Thousands evacuated as Indonesian volcano erupts. Thousands of Indonesians were evacuated from the slopes of a volcano yesterday after it erupted for the first time in more than 400 years, spewing out lava and sending smoke and dust 1,500 metres into the air. …. This is the first time since 1600 that Sinabung (the volcano) has erupted and we have little knowledge in terms of its eruptive patterns,” said Mr Surono, the head of Indonesia’s vulcanology centre.

Our comment: These disturbances and events are happening with increasing intensity and frequency and form part of what is a worldwide trend.

CHINA AND NORTH KOREA – The Guardian – 23rd August – 100,000 evacuated as China-N.Korea border floods. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated and at least four killed as the worst floods in

a decade inundated the border between China and North Korea. After downpours in south and west China
took 3,900 lives earlier this summer, it was the turn of the north-east to take a battering this weekend when torrential rains swelled the Yalu river. …. 94,000 people in the city of Dandong have been relocated. An additional 30,000 have been moved from outlying regions where the river burst its banks in 158 places.

RUSSIA – The Guardian – 10th August. Moscow death rate doubles as smoke shrouds capital. Senior health official says 700 Muscovites dying every day amid pollution and brutal heatwave. An acrid cocktail of smoke and pollutants has forced many Muscovites to flee their homes or workplaces in search of air-conditioned malls, cinemas and cafes. But the weak and elderly have struggled to escape the smog and debilitating heat. …. Scientists say levels of carbon monoxide peaked at six times acceptable norms late last week and other toxic particles have clogged the city’s air….. Staff at Moscow’s morgues confirmed to the lifenews.ru website yesterday that deliveries of bodies had risen sharply. “It’s awful,” said an employee at Hospital No.59. “The refrigerators are full. Yesterday there were 17 bodies, and the day before that 17. Normally it’s two or three a day.” Seltsovsky said 1,300 out of 1,500 places in morgues were occupied.

Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago. Russia – experiencing worst drought since records began 130 years ago. Heat, wildfires and dehydration have killed an area of crops larger than Hungary. The grain harvest is expected to be down from 97million tons in 2009 to 67 million tons this year. So far, 52 people have died in fires and more than 3,000 have been made homeless.

AFRICA -- The Guardian – 10th August. – A severe drought is causing increasing hunger across the Eastern Sahel in west Africa, affecting 10 million people in four countries. In Niger, the worst-affected country, most are suffering and are hungry, with nearly half considered highly food insecure because of the loss of livestock and crops coupled with a surge in prices. Last year exceptionally heavy rainfall destroyed crops and devastated this year’s harvest in the region. The resulting fall in production in staples like maize, millet and sorghum has affected much of West Africa’s Sahel – fragile in the best of times – including neighbouring Chad and northern Nigeria.

Our comment: The best comment we can make here is actually a quote from America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which says: The scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable.

SPACE
Man’s Future –Daily Telegraph – 17th August -- Man’s future ‘in space’. The human race must look to outer space within the next century or it will become extinct, Stephen Hawking has warned. The astrophysicist said he feared mankind was in great danger and its future “must be in space” if it is to survive. He told the website Big Think that threats to the existence of the human race such as war, resource depletion and overpopulation meant it was at greater risk than ever. “We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space,” he said.

Daily Mail – 17th August – Colonise space or perish, says Hawking. (Professor Hawking said: “ I am an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries our species should be safe as we spread into space.” Earlier this year, Professor Hawking warned humans should be wary about trying to make contact with other alien life forms as we could not be sure that they would be friendly. If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy we should make sure we survive and continue.”… He continued: “our genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts that were a survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years let alone the next thousand or a million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain on planet Earth but to spread into space. We have made remarkable progress in the last 100 years but if we want to continue beyond the next 100 years our future is in space.

Our comment: It is hard to take Professor Hawking seriously, especially when we are aware of some of the facts concerning space. Distances are calculated in light-years. Some planets and other bodies in the universe that we observe are many light years away. If you set off on a space vehicle today for a particular planet you can have no idea as to where it is as you leave Earth. You are actually looking at history!