The Belo Monte Dam: Destroying The Amazon

Belo Monte Dam: Amazon Watch

Help preserve their culture.




How unconscienable is this! The Brazilian government is now moving ahead on a project that will result in the construction of the third largest dam in the world in one of the most diverse and ecologically rich areas of the world: the Amazon. It is to be constructed on the Xingu River which is home to the Paquacamba and Arara indigenous peoples.

It will divert 80% of the river from its original course, thus leaving swaths of indigenous land in drought while flooding over 100,000 acres of rainforest and displacing 20- 40,000 people. Once again we see shortsightedness at a time when we need to see the big picture. Hydroelectricity in areas such as this in an age of global warming and drought is a short term solution that will only bring long term consequences to environment, economy, culture, and also the climate balance of the planet.

Solar energy is the one renewable energy source that is most viable here that will also preserve the environment, water resources and culture of the indigenous peoples who call this area their home. This action will then in turn spawn multiple dam projects all the way up the Amazon that will only displace more people when it is not necessary.

It is heartbreaking to see what is being done to the last vestiges of ecological richness that we must preserve for the future. There is still time however to tell the Brazilian government you oppose this. I will post a link below where you can do this.

Thanks.

There are other ways!

Stop The Belo Monte Dam

Earth: What I am thankful for today and everyday

I have devoted my life to caring about the biodiversity and health of our planet and will continue to do so until the day I die. This Earth, this beautiful amazing orb in a vast universe, the source of all life, is what I am most thankful for today and every day.

I am thankful for its mighty water that is its lifeblood and ours
I am thankful for its soil that preserves and sustains the miracle of our sustenance
I am thankful for the sun that warms us body and soul
I am thankful for the wind that reminds us of its fury and power
I am thankful for all creatures who live in harmony with man
I am thankful for the seed, the most miraculous wonder on Earth.
From one tiny seed we can cultivate life for millions.

May we as humans truly see how much we have to be thankful for every day and come together now to understand that in order to show that thankfulness and to be one with this living Earth, we must treat her with kindness and respect.

Additions/Update

At the top of the page you now see the most popular posts displayed on the blog. I will also try to add other new features and more stories. I have been busy and am currently starting the second chapter of my book which will be titled:

Dry Planet
(How The Global Water Crisis Effects Our Future)

I thank you all for your support and patience.

Overpumping Drawing Down World's Groundwater Reserves

Overpumping Drawing Down World's Groundwater Reserves

This is why it is so crucial to have investment in water infrastructure, drip irrigation, rainwater catchement, strict penalties regarding private companies depleting gorundwater resources for profit such as as Coca Cola in India. And also, a climate treaty that takes into account water issues and climate change issues that are intertwined such as glacier melt, floods, and sea level rise as well as drought. What is even more important is educating people as to the hydrologic cycle and how we as humans are now changing its course which must spur conservation. This is the moral crisis of the 21st century.

Blog Action Day: The Global Water Crisis Looms Large Over Our Planet

It is a tragic scenario we see playing out on our only home. With new predictions from scientists that Arctic glaciers may be gone within 30-40 years and other glaciers around the world melting three times faster than worse case scenarios what are we going to do to preserve the dwindling freshwater resources we are certain to see strained in the next fifteen to twenty years even more than they are now? These glaciers are the water source for over two billion people on our planet and they are shrinking faster every year not only through glacier melt but a melting will to do the right thing and to face this crisis head on.

One-third of the world’s population is now in need of potable water which was a scenario not predicted to happen until around 2025 and which is now predicted to get worse unless things change drastically. There are 2.6 billion people on our planet without even basic sanitation! What does that say about our moral conscience and our priorities? We are nearly twenty years ahead of predictions on the effects of this crisis and yet we are woefully unprepared for the consequences. There is no other way to state this: unless we work to solve this global water crisis now in an equitable way, many of the poor and malnourished in our world where this crisis is most dire will die.

We are reaching the breaking point in many areas of our world due to waste, pollution, mismanagement, lack of water infrastructure, dams, inadequate water infrastructure and privitization which is an inhumane abridgement of global human rights. And now, the ever encroaching spectre of climate change threatens our very relationship to the planet we call home in ways we could not have imagined just thirty years ago. So what accounts for the lack of will in taking this on fully? Apart from political/ideological rancor, I believe it is basic misunderstanding by people (especially in America) that water is an infinite resource that we can continue to use without any concern for tomorrow.

It isn't. And we can't.

Therefore, areas where the poor are looking for a way to not only lift themselves out of poverty but also have a chance at survival must be shown ways to conserve water such as rain catchement, rain agriculture, and effective conservation. This also then ties into people in these areas having information about the climate crisis and its effects and how they can best deal with those effects. The Yellow River basin in China which feeds literally millions of people is just one example of resources exhausted to the point where they can no longer sustain life. Where would those millions of people go?

Just what are we doing?

Is it really that hard to bring better agricultural techniques to farmers in these countries? Is it really that hard to teach them how to deal with the effects of climate change? Is it really that hard to actually do as we say must be done?

* rain water agriculture- cheap, efficient, and saves water.

* rain water catchment (off houses and roads)- cheap, efficient, and saves water. And of course, the health and safety of those using it must also be taken into consideration.

* less water intensive crops farmed sustainably that yield more to give farmers more for their planting.

* pressure bought to bear on governments to shore up water infrastructure and work to eliminate corruption and mismanagement.

* planting trees in the most deforested areas to bring water to the source and provide sustinence.

* also providing information and services for women and men in third world countries regarding birth control and health and basic sanitation.

* and one very important goal, to include water and this crisis in any global climate negotiations!

These are just some ways to begin which are all possible, but like with anything else those involved in it must also feel hope for the future.

As to how that should happen, we need a "Global Water Marshall Plan" (reference to the Honorable Al Gore's term from his book Earth In The Balance) in our world where that truly holds polluters accountable and where we also work to bring water saving energy sources to areas that are parched, drought stricken and in need of water to grow food and live. This brings me to the subject of dam projects which are increasing exponentially in many developing countries in an effort to provide energy, only all they are doing in the process in many instances is taking away water sources from those who need it most to live and displacing millions of people from their homes and cultural centers.

Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal) and sustainable agriculture could go hand in hand in saving many people from starvation and death in these areas, but dams are not always the answer nor are they "green." Instead of simply jumping to this as a solution in order to make governments and contractors profit, we need to assess more accurately the true needs of the areas in question and work with the people of these areas taking their imput into account. There is too much emphasis on profit and not enough emphasis on caring about life.

The climate/water crisis will change our relationship to the planet and action must begin now or the need for water globally will far exceed capacity to provide it. By doing the moral thing we could actually decrease global demand by half. And part of this is in declaring water a GLOBAL human right which we are getting closer to as seen just recently in Geneva. That is crucial to equitable access and keeping scarce resources out of the hands of greedy corporations looking to make a profit off the hardship of others.

NO ONE in this world should have to die due to a lack of clean potable water!

However, before we can accomplish this we must admit to our human frailty, take responsibility for it, and work together as a global community in understanding that when our water resources are polluted, toxified, misused and used in violation of the rights of others that is in direct antithesis to our purpose on this planet. As I look out on the future of water even with the crisis we see before us, I do see countless people who revere it, cherish it, respect it and work diligently to preserve it. In this age we live in now where those forces making profit from doing the opposite become stronger, we must stand firm against them. We are being given a choice and we are at a crossroads as a species.

I think the choice is clear, and it is a choice we all have to make.

Water is sacred

Water is the lifeblood of our Earth

Water is life!

October 15: Blog Action day: Water

October 15, this Friday is Blog Action Day when thousands of voices across the Internet speak out for one important issue affecting us all. This year the issue is water, and it could not be a more important and crucial issue. From climate change, pollution, to privitization water is quickly becoming a resource we will have less of if we continue to ignore this defining issue of our future and that will leave us without a future.

This blog will be participating in this and I hope if you have one you will sign up as well.

Writing book about water

Well, I've done it. I have started writing my book on climate change and its effects on global water resources. I had made an announcement a couple of years ago that I was beginning this and had, but got sidetracked by work and activism. I am determined to finish it now because the more voices we have out here talking about water and what is happening to it due to our behavior, the more awareness we create and hopefully then the more solutions we implement to deal with it. Of course, moral will is the one important factor to all of this that must be present to see the real changes we need, but that too can come with information, education and seeing reality.

As those reading this well know climate change is upon us. It is wrecking havoc from melting glaciers, to floods, to droughts, to ocean acidification, to extreme weather events. We can no longer deny that there are drastic changes occurring in climate systems that are affecting water resources which is in turn affecting crops and water availability. How we approach this crisis but also unique opportunity to grow as a species is something that will shape our fate for decades to come.

However, this crisis is still not something you hear about in the mainstream media of America as water is simply not sexy enough. The real threats to our global water resources through pollution, climate change, water waste, population increases, agriculture and privitization are now shaping a world where those to come will find it harder and harder to survive.

So in the book I hope to look at the origins of water, examine how we are water, how our behavior is affecting its current state and availability, and solutions for us to preserve this elixir of life for generations to come. There are those who also state that they see wars for water on the horizon as we now see wars for oil. I am one who is optimistic in hoping that water can actually be used to bring peace, and will seek to explain this in the book as well. I will also add a litle poetry as well, because the beauty of this spiritual substance must be shared ;-).

I already know this is a huge task for me as it is the first time I am attempting to write a book. However, this is one way I believe we can also be a part of a new movement globally in bringing truth and action to preserve our planet for our own survival.

There is no life on this planet without water. There is no us without water. This is then a true labor of love for me in not only speaking out about a crisis that deserves our attention, but writing about the love I have for this most beautiful expression of life.

Thanks for your support.

Water shortages to hit 1/3 of U.S. counties by mid century

Water Scarcity Facing 1/3 of U.S. Counties



















One out of three U.S. counties is facing a greater risk of water shortages by mid-century due to global warming, finds a new report by Tetra Tech for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

For 412 of these counties the risk of water shortages will be "extremely high," according to the report, a 14-fold increase from previous estimates.

In the Great Plains and Southwest United States, water sustainability is at extreme risk finds the report, which is based on publicly available water use data from across the United States.

"This analysis shows climate change will take a serious toll on water supplies throughout the country in the coming decades, with over one out of three U.S. counties facing greater risks of water shortages," said Dan Lashof, director of the Climate Center at NRDC. "Water shortages can strangle economic development and agricultural production and affected communities."

"As a result," he said, "cities and states will bear real and significant costs if Congress fails to take the steps necessary to slow down and reverse the warming trend."

Counties shown in dark red are at greatest risk of water shortage by 2050. (Map courtesy Tetra Tech)

The report, issued Tuesday, finds that 14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050.

These areas include parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Sujoy Roy, principal engineer and lead report author, Tetra Tech, said, "The goal of the analysis is to identify regions where potential stresses, and the need to do something about them, may be the greatest."

"We used publicly available data on current water withdrawals for different sectors of the economy, such as irrigation, cooling for power generation, and municipal supply, and estimated future demands using business-as-usual scenarios of growth," Roy explained.

"We then compared these future withdrawals to a measure of renewable water supply in 2050, based on a set of 16 global climate model projections of temperature and precipitation, to identify regions that may be stressed by water availability," Roy said. "These future stresses are related to changes in precipitation as well as the likelihood of increased demand in some regions."

The report also is based on climate projections from a set of models used in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change work to evaluate withdrawals related to renewable water supply.

Water withdrawal will grow by 25 percent in many areas of the United States, including the arid Arizona-New Mexico area, the populated areas in the South Atlantic region, Florida, the Mississippi River basin, and Washington, D.C. and surrounding regions, the analysis projects.

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Hmm, do you think it might be a good move to stop building golf courses in the desert? We already see the signs of this with the Colorado River no longer flowing to the Gulf, and with drought hitting California Georgia and other Southwestern states. Conservation is a word that cannot be stressed enough. It isn't just poor countries that can feel the effects of water waste combined with climate change. Our water future is of our own making.

Hydroelectric Dams Pose Threat To Tribal Peoples, Report Warns

Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru and Guyana will devastate tribal communities by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International today.

The first global assessment of the impact of the dams on tribes suggests more than 300,000 indigenous people could be pushed towards economic ruin and, in the case of some isolated Brazilian groups, to extinction.

The dams are intended to provide much-needed,low-carbon electricity for burgeoning cities, but the report says tribal people living in their vicinity will gain little or nothing. Most of the power generated will be taken by large industries, it concludes.

At least 200,000 people from eight tribes are threatened and a further 200,000 people will be adversely affected by the Gibe III dam on the Omo river in Ethiopia. Ten thousand people in Sarawak, Malaysia, have been displaced by the Bakun dam,which is expected to open next year, and a series of Latin American dams could force many thousands of people off their land.

The authors say enthusiasm for large dams is resurfacing, driven by a powerful international lobby presenting them as a significant solution to climate change. Lyndsay Duffield, said: "The lessons learned [about the human impact of large dams]last century are being ignored, and tribal peoples worldwide are again being sidelined, their rights violated and their lands destroyed."

The report says the World Bank is one of the biggest funders of destructive dams, despite worldwide criticism in the 1990s for supporting such projects. Its portfolio now stands at $11bn, with funding up more than 50% on 1997.

The UN now subsidises dam building via the clean development mechanism (CDM), which allows rich countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in clean energy in poor countries. The watchdog group CDM Watch says more than a third of all CDM-registered projects in 2008 were for hydropower, making them the most common type of project vying for carbon credits.

Concern is growing over the role of China, now the world's largest builder and funder of big dams. The Three Gorges Corporation, firm behind the controversial Three Gorges dam, which has displaced more than a million people from around the Yangtze river in the last 20 years, has been contracted to build a dam on the land of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. China's biggest state bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, may fund Gibe III in Ethiopia, to be Africa's tallest. The Chinese government has financed the majority of dams built in China, which account for about half the global total of large dams.

The report says tribes have borne the brunt of the development over the last 30 years. In India, at least 40% of people displaced by dams and other developmentprojects are tribal, though they make up just 8% of the country's population. Almost all of the large dams built or proposed in the Philippines have been on the land of the country's indigenous people.

The report accuses banks and dam builders of consistently underestimating the number of tribal people affected. "There is an endemic tendency within the dam industry to significantly underestimate the number of people to be affected by their projects," it says.

"The World Bank's review of big dam projects over 10 years found that the number of people actually evicted was nearly 50% higher than the planning estimates."

Survival International called for all hydroelectric dams on tribal peoples' land to be halted unless the tribes have given full consent. "In the case of isolated or uncontacted tribes, where consultation is not possible, there should be no development of hydroelectric dams on their territories," it said.
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Greed has killed humanity. And hydropower is the new "scheme" for companies to back through banks to gain "carbon credits" in order for them to keep doing business as usual as they push indigenous peoples off their land. How ironic. . Hydropower is not renewable, especially in lands where drought is prevalent, agriculture and fish stocks suffer through diversion or flooding, culture and history is destroyed, and environmental degradation is a part of it. Mega dams are also detrimental to the stability of the Earth's crust, and dam building is a source of CO2 emissions, with waste built up in dams contributing to climate change/ global warming, (or pick the term of your choice) through methane emissions. Insanity.
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Hydropower- Not As Clean As You Think

The sun shines over our rivers every day, let's use it!

International Rivers

You have a voice. Speak out for our rivers and the indigenous people of our world!

UN vote declares right to clean water and sanitation a human right: U.S. abstains

The United Nations General Assembly declared today that clean drinking water and sanitation are human rights.

Rights to water have been included in conventions on the rights of women, children and those with disabilities, but never as a general human right.

Of the 192 member states: 122 voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, zero against and 41 abstained, including the United States.

John F. Sammis, Deputy Representative to the Economic and Social Council, explained in a statement that the U.S. felt the resolution potentially undermines work being done by the Switzerland-based Human Rights Council to situate a right to water within the body of international law.

According to Sammis’ statement: “The United States regrets that this resolution diverts us from the serious international efforts underway to promote greater coordination and cooperation on water and sanitation issues. This resolution attempts to take a short-cut around the serious work of formulating, articulating and upholding universal rights. It was not drafted in a transparent, inclusive manner, and the legal implications of a declared right to water have not yet been carefully and fully considered in this body or in Geneva.”

The U.S. mission to the U.N. declined to elaborate on the statement.

In 2008 the High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed an independent expert, Portuguese lawyer Catarina de Albuquerque, to investigate and clarify international human rights obligations pertaining to the rights to water and sanitation and to document best practices. Submitted last year, De Albuquerque’s first report focused on sanitation.
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"John F. Sammis, Deputy Representative to the Economic and Social Council, explained in a statement that the U.S. felt the resolution potentially undermines work being done by the Switzerland-based Human Rights Council to situate a right to water within the body of international law."

*****
Well gee, what a coincidence. Nestle's global headquarters are in Switzerland too. This is shameful to me. One vote does not negate another. Voting yes to this would simply verify that the U.S. stands up for clean water and sanitation as a human right. This constant obfuscation regarding interference with other work is just a cop out.

I would say it is a combination of self importance and arrogance mixed in with greed and selfishness that doesn't make for a very good recipe for human survival as it stands now. As far as water is concerned, it is the new commodity for rich countries, governments, militaries, and corporations to exploit. There is now a water market, and a water exchange coming into being much like the carbon exchange, which inflates value for profit at the expense of those who need it. The poor of this world are being bombarded by this corporate mentality that does not know what morals are. All they know is personal gain while making false choices.

I think that ultimately the decisions they make will come back to them personally, which they are blind to as well living in their little money bubbles. That is the one piece of this puzzle they are missing or refuse to see... that they too are part of the very world they are exploiting and sooner or later it will reach them. Perhaps that is then truly what needs to be seen on a global scale in order to see a real change in this world.

The bottomline is that WATER is the substance of life and it is being polluted, toxified, wasted, HYDROFRACKED, PRIVITIZED and now evaporated by climate change in the form of desertification, water evaporation, sea level rise, and glacier melt (along with erratic and changing rainfall patterns that are causing massive floods) at a pace that will see an exponential rise in unliveable, water scarce and drought stricken areas by 2030. That in turn will cause a mass migration of refugees looking for water to live. Which in turn will increase terrorist activity ( as we now see in Pakistan) and conflict which we see between India and Pakistan (as the Indus Water Treaty breaks down) China and India, African states, Israel and Palestine, Turkey and Iraq and as a matter of fact the whole MIddle East and perhaps to come the U.S. and Canada, and as predicted, a mass migration from Mexico to the U.S giving a whole new spin to the immigration "problem."

Protecting our most precious resource is now our primary moral imperative.

BP ecocide: cap on gusher removed, oil flows freely

Cap On Gusher Removed, Oil Flows Freely

Robotic submarines removed the cap from the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, beginning a period of at least two days when oil will flow freely into the sea.

It's the first step in placing a tighter dome that is supposed to funnel more oil to collection ships on the surface a mile above. If all goes according to plan, the tandem of the tighter cap and the surface ships could keep all the oil from polluting the fragile Gulf as soon as Monday.

BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the old cap was removed at 12:37 p.m. CDT on Saturday.

"Over the next four to seven days, depending on how things go, we should get that sealing cap on. That's our plan," said Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president.

It would be only a temporary solution to the catastrophe unleashed by a drilling rig explosion nearly 12 weeks ago. It won't plug the busted well and it remains uncertain that it will succeed.

The oil is flowing mostly unabated into the water for about 48 hours — long enough for as much as 5 million gallons to gush out — until the new cap is installed.

The hope for a permanent solution remains with two relief wells intended to plug it completely far beneath the seafloor.

Engineers now begin removing a bolted flange below the dome. The flange has to be taken off so another piece of equipment called a flange spool can go over the drill pipe, where the sealing cap will be connected.

The work could spill over into Sunday, Wells said, depending on how hard it is to pull off the flange. BP has a backup plan in case that doesn't work: A piece of machinery will pry the top and the bottom of the flange apart.

On Friday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen had said the cap could be in place by Monday. That's still possible, given the timeline BP submitted to the federal government, but officials say it could take up to a week of tests before it's clear whether the new cap is working.

The cap now in use was installed June 4, but because it had to be fitted over a jagged cut in the well pipe, it allows some crude to escape. The new cap — dubbed "Top Hat Number 10" — follows 80 days of failures to contain or plug the leak.
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My question is, why the wait of two days or more to replace the cap thus allowing millions more gallons of oil to flow freely into the sea? Why not have the new cap ready to place on once the old one is taken off?

There has been much I have been reading on this, and I can say with sureness that the amount of methane mixed with other chemicals and toxic Corexit have made the Gulf Of Mexico a toxic stew that over time and even now will be lethal to live near. All the way up the food chain from micro organisms to whales, this toxic soup has affected the web of life. Yet, no moral outrage from this government or the people en masse.

How BP is even being allowed to take this cap off without replacing it the same day is ludicrous. It seems however, that words are not having effect anymore, so perhaps song is where we need to go:



I'm beginning to think this wasn't an accident.

Millions Face Starvation As Niger Prays In Vain For Rain

Millions Face Starvation As Niger Prays In Vain For Rain

To the north of Niger, the creeping Sahara; to the south, oil rich and agriculturally lush Nigeria – this nation straddles the Sahel – dry, hot and cruel. It has suffered catastrophic droughts – 1974, 1984 and 2005. And now, another.

Five times the size of the United Kingdom, Niger is one of the poorest nations on earth with child mortality worse than Afghanistan. The absence of regular rainfall throughout 2009 has led to poor harvests, lack of grazing for animals and food reserves exhausted.

Hungry people have started adding "bitter" berries to their diet – this is survival food, normally unpalatable but when starving, the unpalatable becomes welcome – essential.

The tipping point, according to one expert is about a week away – 15 July. That is when the rainy season is expected. But the starving livestock may nibble away whatever green-shoots push through.

Ten leading aid agencies launched a joint appeal yesterday, warning that up to 10 million people across the eastern Sahel, faced acute hunger. The United Nations agrees, it says that the situation is of a magnitude not previously seen. Niger is at the centre of this crisis, with half of its population – 7 million people – going hungry.

The statistics, generally, for this West African country, are overwhelming – less than a third of the people are literate: boys spend on average five years in school; girls, just three. Two-thirds of the people of Niger live beneath the poverty line, 85 per cent on less than $2 – or £1 – a day.

But set that against these great ironies: Niger has uranium aplenty and sells it to France's burgeoning nuclear power industry. The fruits of this trade are hard to see. And there is oil, as in northern neighbour Libya. The partners are the Chinese who will begin production soon. Again, there is little hope the benefits of geological
benevolence will bless these beleaguered people. Half of Niger's government budget derives from donor aid. The proceeds of its natural resources will benefit Paris and Beijing before Niamey.

Heading east, into the badlands, we pass acres of planted millet and the occasional pool of orange, muddy water from the recent short, sharp rains. Two glaring truths are evident: the curative, durable work can and is being done; but the vicissitudes of climate makes it all a gamble at the edge of survival.

The "swollen-tummy" syndrome may not have taken root everywhere yet but with real fears that the harvest of 2010 will be a frighteningly small affair. And by then, for thousands, it will be too late.

At a health centre in Goumbi Kano, established by the charity Care International, one of those taking part in the appeal, and part-funded by the Niger government, I meet two women who had walked 8km, with their malnourished babies, to see Dr Moustaphe Chaibou.

Hasana and Maimouna, and babies Farida and Saredja, have been regulars for six weeks.

"I have no milk. When the baby cries, I give her millet," Hasana says.

The babies are showing signs of improvement. They get their regular prescription of a "plumpy nut" product, antibiotics and anti-malarial drugs. Still frighteningly underweight for their age, the 17 -month old was still a babe in arms, the 10-month old like a newborn – both about 20 per cent under the expected weight for their ages.

They left their village after prayers at 5.30am and arrived at opening time, around 8am. Then they headed back before the noon heat.

I asked the doctor what would happen if the rains failed: "Catastrophe, désolé," he said in perfect French.

The drought of 2009 made the September harvest poor – what it yielded was cornered by speculators – poor people had very little to see them through and it is now gone. The "biscuit-barrel" grain stores are empty and have been for weeks.

It has already been a long, hungry wait ameliorated by aid workers, the World Food Fund and other UN agencies. But they have got their sums, by all accounts, badly wrong. They budgeted for 1.7 million hungry souls but find themselves $97 million short . The aid community say the numbers in need are closer to 7 million – and about 3 million are in desperate need now. The target, recently raised, was too low, the budget inadequate and still under-funded.

The people still have until September to wait for handouts and hope.

In 1973 the community of N-Guigmi hardly existed. It now has a population of about 15,000 – people who were driven there from a pastoral existence in the countryside by drought and famine to a town, and a new way of life.

It is a terrifying template for this country unless a lasting solution is found. Those souls gave up waiting and gave up hope.

We meet Ishan Ila Gamma, a widow with eight dependents, in Tajae Nomade village. "I used to have more than 30 animals," she says. "Now I only have one good one remaining. I have been forced to sell all the others at cheap prices. I was forced to go to the city, I beg and sell herbs."

Again, the people of Niger are playing the waiting game – waiting for rain and for an autumn harvest; waiting for the UN and the World Food Programme to get their sums right and attract the donations to pay for the food aid; or waiting for the world to add Niger to the desperate list of Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea.

cont.
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If I truly believed praying for rain would bring it to these people to see their crops grow, I would. This is truly a human catastrophe. Global warming is now gravely affecting these areas. Per scientists this will be the warmest year on record. Animals are already dying, and many of all species will follow the longer we continue to think this is just a political grandstanding game in this country. Drought is now affecting close to 40% of our world, and as global temperatures increase it will become more common as will starvation. If their rains do not come soon, as was said in this article it will be "catastrophe, désolé." And this is just the beginning. But there are things you can do...


Tree Nation In Niger

Tree Nation is a wonderful organization I am proud to be a part of that is dedicated to planting 8 million trees in the shape of a heart in the heart of Niger to provide mitigation and adaptation to climate change, fight poverty, hunger and deforestation, and bring water back to the roots of this land.

You can plant a tree in Niger from your modem and make a difference in the lives of many people. Solving this crisis will not come from politicians, it will come from us.

Moringa Oleifera is the answer!

Number of dams by country

I will try to find a more updated source, but as of 2008 Africa had 1269 dams. Could be one reason why so many countries there are now experiencing drought as well. Using solar power in Africa on a massive scale and breaching the dams that are unnecessary and were only built to make government officials and construction companies richer would also go very far in bringing back agricultural lands to Africa and mitigating global warming, hunger and poverty.

Just as a point of reference, according to this list China had 22,000 dams (yes, thousand) and Australia 486. Two more places where drought is pronounced and life threatening with failing crops. The correlation between excessive dam building that causes environmental devastation, exacerbation of CO 2 emissions, loss of fish stocks and agricultural land and diversion of water sources in my view cannot be denied.

Iraq's Marshes Reborn

Iraq's Marshes Reborn

One of Saddam Hussein's greatest acts of ecological destruction – the draining of the Mesopotamian marshes – has been reversed as birds and rivers return to the region

Iraq's marshes drained by Saddam in the 90s to punish rebellious marsh inhabitants are now thriving once more. Photograph: Korsh Ararat, Omar Fadil and Mudhafar Salim/Nature Iraq

Saddam Hussein's draining of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq – recorded as the Garden of Eden in the Bible - was one of the most infamous outrages of his regime, leaving a vast area of once-teeming river delta a dry, salt-encrusted desert, emptied of insects, birds and the people who lived on them.

But nearly two decades later the area is buzzing and twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi conservationists have restored much of what was once the world's third largest wetland to some of its former glory.

The story of this once almost impossible restoration is told in an exhibition of photographs that has opened in the UK. They show the huge expanses of reeds and open water – now at least half the size of the Florida Everglades – where plants, insects and fish have returned, creating a vast feeding area for migrating and breeding birds, including the majestic Sacred Ibis, the endemic Basrah Reed Warbler and the Iraq Babbler, along with most of the world's population of Marbled Teal ducks, bee-eaters and many more.

"We call them stop-over sites, refuelling sites," said Richard Porter, Middle East advisor for the conservation group Birdlife International, who has helped train biologists and other experts for the local Birdlife partner Nature Iraq. "They are as important as the breeding and over-wintering grounds for species; if you have got to make a journey from central Africa to norther Europe and Asia, and you've got nothing to feed on, you're stuffed."

The Mesopotamian marshes originally made up an area more than three times the size of Norfolk, where the exhibition is showing, in Holt. It sprawled across thousands of square kilometres of floodplain where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers divided into a network of tributaries meandering and pulsating south to the Arabian sea. They were home to more than 80 bird species, otters and long-fingered bats, and hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs who grew rice and dates, raised water buffalo, fished and built boats and homes from reeds.

In the early 1990s, this way of life came to an abrupt end when Hussein ordered the marshes to be drained to punish the local population for an uprising after his failed invasion of Kuwait, a problem exacerbated by the continued construction of dams upstream.

He ordered the area to be hemmed in by constructing around 4,000km of earthen walls that towered up to 7m above the unbroken flat landscape. The wetlands retreated to as little as 5-10% of their original size, according to a 2001 United Nations Environment Agency report.

After Hussein was toppled by American forces in 2003, Azzam Alwash returned from his adopted home in the US to the area, where he had lived for part of his childhood, and learned to hunt ducks with his father while they inspected the irrigation ditches. Alwash found the local people who had stayed had already begun to break up the walls with shovels or earth diggers, and they have continued to do so. They have destroyed up to 98% of the embankments, he told the Guardian, "not because they are tree-huggers or bird-lovers, but because it's a source of economic income to them, because they can harvest reeds and sell them. They can fish and feed a family or sell them to earn extra income."

Alwash, a civil engineer, set up Nature Iraq and has organised training for graduates who help with monitoring work. "We take guards with us with Kalashnikovs, but the most difficult part is the road between [the capital] Baghdad to the marsh," said Alwash. "Once I'm inside the marshes it's relatively safe."

About half the original marshland has been restored - even more had been reinstated, but there was a setback last year because of a drought. Nature Iraq has now drawn up a plan to cope with the diminishing water flows from dams upstream in Turkey by channelling irrigation water back into the rivers and building a barrage to retain meltwater from the mountains and create a "mechanical flood" of water to replicate the important pulses of freshwater that wash through the marshlands every spring.
end
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Iraq's Marshes and Corporate Control

This was an entry I wrote on the marshlands about four years ago, discussing lack of water in Iraq, corporate control of water in Iraq by Bechtel, and the hope that any restoration of this diverse and beautiful area would be left in the control of the people there and not the corporate beneficiaries of the invasion.
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Hanging Gardens of Babylon

But, can the marshlands compare to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Some dispute their existence but archeologists claim to have uncovered structure that lends to the story of their existence. Just the mechnism used to bring water from the Euphrates to irrigate the mountain gardens is incredible.

Oil still gushes out in the Gulf killing our water

I cannot describe in words to you the pain my soul feels now. I am not even a resident of this area and cannot begin to understand what it is like to lose your livelihood. However, I am a citizen of this world, and a sentient being with a connection to the Earth and a deep appreciation for understanding how it is all connected to us. This hurts us all, and it will affect generations of humans and all species for decades to come. That is why I have been hesitating regarding writing much about this here of late, because it is so emotional for me. To think of the extent of damage environmentally that is now being wrecked upon this area of the world and the ripple effect it will have seems too much to bear.

I don't know how good some of you are at connecting dots in situations, but this is a blatant example of corporate/governmental good ole boy a** covering, and using a situation to its fullest advantage to make a profit. I am going to post an article here that I posted to Current.com regarding the dispersant Corexit that is being used by BP in order to illustrate this point. To say these people are not criminals that should be arrested for crimes against nature is to be one devoid of logic and morality. However, knowing the corrupt system we live in I fear it will have to be the people who take matters into their own hands. I truly do wonder though if we have the moral courage to do so now.

The US is addicted to oil, and we need an intervention. I surely thought this would be it. Yet, I still see people pulling into BP stations (shame on you) as if oblivious to the environmental holocaust being perpetrated by BP and their collusion in it by supporting them. And yes I know, oil on the whole is not good and we should be much more vocal about calling for CLEAN, AFFORDABLE, ALTERNATE ENERGY. SO WHY AREN'T WE? I did notice the SUN shining over the toxic oil sheened Gulf for all of these 42 days that this catastrophe has been allowed to continue that could power our lives. I did notice the WIND blowing in offshore breezes that holds the power we need to light our homes. The dichotomy was actually quite sad in seeing the oil soaked marinelife and wildlife struggling to live as well... just "collateral damage" to the bastards looking to now stall for time until AUGUST when their relief wells will supposedly be done, of course, without any guarantee they too will work to stop this bleeding of our Earth.

The Black Tide of the Gulf is our moral ineptitude and apathy laid out in front of us. It is everything we are, and it is also representative of everything we could be as a species if we finally use this disaster to understand our true place in this world. And it is not to be the arrogant all powerful masters we portend to be (and actually suck at.) It is to be a stewardship species that cherishes and respects the resources given to us as gifts and the species that live in sympatico with us. It is about respecting that most precious resource- Water. There will be no explaining ourselves should we fail in seeking justice for our planet and those who cannot speak for themselves. And perhaps for me, to think that after all that has happened that we as a species will not rise to the task is even more heartbreaking. I surely hope I am wrong. Please, let me be wrong.

BOYCOTT BP, CALL FOR CLEAN ENERGY NOW.

BP oil blog

Some good information here.

Corexit Is Killing The Gulf

A must read.



Phillipe Cousteau: "This is a nightmare"

Pass this on to counter the lies.

BP oil disaster live news

Gulf oil spill killing birds and sealife

Gulf oil spill-pictures


Pictures of the extent of this ecocide as the oil continues to gush out of the well 31 days after the Deepwater Horizon blew... THIRTY ONE DAYS. Scientists estimate that it could well be 100,000 gallons not 5000 gallons per day escaping from this well, which surely explains how it has now created subsurface plumes and become a part of the current loop that will in time more than likely carry it up the East Coast to spread its cancer.

You cannot look at the photos of these animals and not be emotionally struck by them. Our very biodiversity and the ecosystems they and we depend on to live are now in great danger. And yet, all we get from BP are lies, coverups, and one failed attempt after another to plug this well and aggressively seek to save the wildlife and sealife that inhabits this once beautiful part of our country. And all we get from this government is a reshuffling of the incompetence that aided in it and feigned outrage as BP's stock price actually rises.

There is no way to recover the moral conscience lost in regards to this gash that now
bleeds our planet. It is an open wound that reveals to all the price paid when what is less important is given a false value over those things whose value is immeasurable.

I really don't know how much more I can watch of this unfolding. Water is what gives us life, and we are killing it... and my heart is aching. I do know this, however. I know that as someone like so many who cares for the sustainability of this planet and the future of our children, I will not rest until those responsible for this pay.

More to come.

Gulf oil spill

The tragedy in the Gulf that is killing its water has been a preoccupation for me. I am going to put together a posting with various videos, links, pictures, and commentary on this. I cannot in words express my outrage and heartbreak regarding this environmental catastrophe that will most certainly now affect the lives of our children and other species for decades to come. It is now estimated that 70,000 gallons of oil are now continuing to spill daily. It is unfathomable to me how this is not bringing about a sudden change in our behavior and a much louder outcry to move away from this toxic, dangerous and destructive source of energy to alternative fuels and other energy sources that will not doom our survival. When I have put this posting together I will add it here.

Thanks for your patience.

Water Is Life: Earth Day Reflection

This Thursday April 22, will be the fourtieth Earth Day I have lived through. But I have lived on this Earth approximately 18,697 days and there has not been one day where this Earth has failed to provide for all of my needs in every sense. And because of this, I pledged a long time ago to do my part as a citizen of this Earth to do all I can to preserve its beauty, mystery, and the systems that provide for our sustenance. That is what Earth Day is all about. It is about remembering all our Earth gives to us and paying homage to her and pledging to do all we can to do the same for her.

However, on this Earth Day as on many other days before I am filled with hope yet sadness at seeing how we humans on the whole do not understand this message. Climate change combined with pollution now threaten to place our Earth on a collision course with catastrophe as we push the limitations of the very systems that give us life. We have become detached from Earth even though we live here. The beauty of a sunrise, a clear mountain stream, a tree, and now even the soul satisfying practice of tilling our own soil have been depraved by those who care little for the essence of Earth beyond what they can sell it for.

So on this Earth Day as I have for almost every other of the approxomate 18,697 days I have lived here, I will pay homage to the magnificence of a planet unlike any other. A planet of unsurpassed beauty and potential.

And I will never give up in doing all I can to preserve this giver of all life.

And I will blog. And I will speak out. And I will take action. And I will fight.

For our Earth. Our home.

For without her, there is nothing else.

P.S. to Mother Earth: Thank you.

Happy Earth Day.

Water Is Life: Women and water: a new beginning

2010 West African Women & Water Training Program from Unseen Pictures on Vimeo.

"We are living in a time when Women's voices must be heard, considered and respected at every level. Recognizing women's vital role in the environment...is essential for a future of security and peace."

Dr. Wangari Maathai
Nobel Laureate

In the previous instalment to this series, the struggles and dangers women face regarding collecting water and living in water stressed areas was illustrated. This entry deals with the solutions and one specific group, the Global Women's Water Initiative that is doing something wonderful to tackle this crisis and to provide the training, skills, networking and funding needed to generate water service projects across Africa.

Women not only play a vital role in the environment but also in the social and economic fabric of the globe. When women are given the tools to lead, change comes. The solutions to many of our world's most challenging crises rest on giving women those tools. Clean water leads to education, which leads to economic freedom, which leads to progress, health, food, and peace.

This uplifting video shows the beginning steps of what should spread like wildfire across our planet...turning stories of hopelessness and struggle into stories of hope and triumph.

World Water Day-March 22nd

World Water Day

What will your contribution be?

Excerpt from link:

Water affects every aspect of our lives, yet nearly one billion people around the world don't have clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation. World Water Day, celebrated annually on March 22, was established by the United Nations in 1992 and focuses attention on the world's water crisis, as well as the solutions to address it.

This year, a collaborative of US-based organizations have joined to raise awareness and call for stronger commitments from governments, the private sector, and US citizens for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives in low-income countries.

By deploying the solutions that already exist, we can save the lives of thousands of children each day, advance education and employment - especially among women and girls - and fuel economic growth around the world.

Learn more about the events planned in Washington DC and around the country for World Water Day 2010 and find out how you can take action to help make clean water and sanitation a reality for people around the globe.
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Here is a short listing of water organizations I know of. Of course, as with any charity organization do your own research before donating or getting involved. However, from my knowldege all of these sites are reputable.

Water Partners International
http://water.org

Charity Water
http://www.charitywater.org

Amman Imman
http://www.ammanimman.org

Water Aid
http://www.wateraid.org

One Drop Foundation
http://www.onedrop.org

Food And Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Navdanya
http://www.navdanya.org

Blue Planet Run
http://blueplanetrun.org


What would you do to get clean water?





The Water Is Life Group on Current

http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

I will be joining the world on this day to write Congress regarding this important issue. Instead of spending billions on wars for resources, we should be spending it on what is most important in truly bringing health: our infrastructure and our waterways!

I personally am also doing away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one full month, and placing the money I save in a jar. At the end of the month I will send my savings to a water organization to help them dig wells and give basic sanitation to people in countries that need it. It is reprehensible and immoral to the core to see so many people in our world in this century without the basic necessities of life.

Anyone else interested in taking the same challenge to do away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one month and send the savings on feel free to join in . I will also be posting a listing of different water organizations that are doing good work around the world to provide running water and sanitation to those most in need. Sanitation and clean water for all is the key to an environmentally, economically, and socially healthy world.

Each year we set aside only one day to acknowledge a part of our lives that we cannot live without. One day to bring awareness of our failure to preserve it and provide it. One day to show that we still would rather support money going to wars than going to clean water for all. The year we don't need a World Water Day will be a year of triumph indeed.

Taking The Pulse Of Global Freshwater Issues

http://www.circleofblue.org

By 2030 people worldwide will withdraw more water than the planet can replenish.

March 22, 2010 marks World Water Day, a 24-hour observance held annually since 1993 to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in the world. In recent years it has focused global concern on the dwindling supply of clean water.

With governments from Australia to India feeling the heat of dryness like never before, multinational corporations pledging to become better global water citizens, and a multitude of nonprofit organizations gaining position in the councils of influence worldwide, the global freshwater crisis is steadily becoming a top public priority.

In January, global business and elected leaders assembled in Davos at the World Economic Forum learned one more striking fact that underlies international concern. By 2030, WEF experts said, people will withdraw 30 percent more water than nature can replenish. Unless practices for using and conserving water shift dramatically, shortages will hit communities and businesses, especially agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.

Here is some of what we expect in what promises to be a busy year in the world of water:

Contents

■Awareness and action
■Business of water
■Bottled Battles
■GE: One company’s approach, inside and out
■Water Disclosure Project
■United Nations CEO Water Mandate
■Water and Global Health

Awareness and Action
A team of researchers and advocates that includes the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute and the Stakeholder Forum, have been working with hundreds of smaller groups to rally support for water’s role in international climate change negotiations this year.

The work was prompted by the disappointing outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, when water was left out of the Copenhagen Accord. The non-binding agreement calls for modest action on global warming.

If the international climate treaty doesn’t better emphasize the water-climate intersection, people living in vulnerable coastal nations, such as the island of Maldives, and farmers facing volatile rainfall, such as those in Australia, will be unprepared to face major catastrophes, Stakeholder Forum Policy Coordinator Hannah Stoddart told Circle of Blue.

At the international level, Stoddart and her team work directly with UN officials, and also are coordinating an unofficial international water day in Bonn, Germany in June. They are arranging high-level round table discussions that will rally more support for water issues in the months leading up to the next climate change summit in December, in Mexico.

“The eventual goal is for a recognition on an international level that there are currently no operational international treaties addressing water issues specifically,” Stoddart said. “We’re at the beginning of quite a long journey.”

Garnering local support is an important component of making sure the issue gains global prominence, according to marketing experts who work on environmental issues.

“It’s so hard to make people realize that they have a connection to the issue, to the sources of the problem,” said Joel Finkelstein a senior vice president and head of the environment team for Fenton Communications, a U.S.-based firm.

Water offers an even bigger challenge in some ways, he added. It’s still extremely difficult to illustrate the consequences of our current water consumption in countries like the U.S., where citizens can turn on the tap without thinking twice.

But the consequences of water scarcity are more powerfully conveyed through emotional stories than statistical reports. And Finkelstein believes that social media promises new ways to humanize water and environmental issues.

continued.

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This is the test of our generation. As predictions state, by 2030 we will be drawing out more water than the Earth is able to replenish. Rivers worldwide are drying up and many no longer flow to their source. Glaciers are melting worldwide threatening water sources for millions of people which will in turn affect agricultural output. Privitization continues at a rapacious pace thus perpetuating disease, water scarcity, and an erosion of our freedom. We as humans have affected the hydrologic cycle through contributing to global warming and in also causing scarcity mainly due to mismanagement, wasteful agricultural irrigation practices, water pollution and toxification rendering water unusable and threatening marinelife, and privitization which keeps it in the hands of greedy water barons who refuse to acknowledge that water is a human right.

This is why on this World Water Day this coming Monday we must be resolved as every day to speaking out regarding declaring water a global human right. This action will go far in holding corporations accountable for their pollution and manipulations in commoditizing a resource that is a public trust and is essential to human life. And we must also reach people to make them understand the importance of water in their lives. It is true that especially in the US and other developed countries that people simply turn on a tap and the water comes out, so they don't think about what is going on a world away or how what they do affects that very hydrologic cycle.

We are entering a time in our history as a species where we are being tested as to the limits of our moral courage. We can explore and find new planets, send men to the moon, and yet we still cannot provide adequately for life on Earth. This speaks volumes about our true humanity and if we are to survive we must make the connection of how crucial it is to preserve the life we have here on Earth.

This will be the defining issue and crisis of this century. And people will be fighting over this precious resource as they have been for years as governments position themselves to control the one resource that gives them control of our lives. Are you willing to just allow them to take it? I'm not.

Water Is Life: Women-waterbearers of life

Women all over the world are living in slavery. They are slaves to the backbreaking often dangerous job of providing water for their families daily. In countries whose governments are corrupt, the environment is devastated, and the water is not fresh and in many instances in scarce supply. In households where traditions preclude them from education, economic opportunity, and equality in any form. And they are the missing link in regards to the economic success they and many of these countries could have if only this tragedy were given the attention it deserves.

The typical day of a woman living in one of these countries begins at about 2AM every morning. She awakens to make a trek to a water source with her five gallon Gerry can in order to collect water for the family for the day. It won’t go far depending on the number of children she has, and she may even have to forfeit using any of it in order to provide for their needs first. She treks along rocky terrain with her can sometimes with others, sometimes alone, or with her daughter who doesn’t attend school in order to help with this task. The trek can be dangerous, with them taking a chance on being raped, robbed or worse. Once she reaches the water source she must stand in line waiting for her turn to fill her can of what is many times polluted water that may well give her children dysentery. But it is all they have.

Once she fills her can she must then make the backbreaking trek back to her village once again. Her trip can take her anywhere from six to nine hours a day not including her other chores in bringing up her children, providing for them, many times harvesting any crops grown, feeding them whatever they have, and providing spiritual guidance. This then takes time away from her and her daughter having opportunity in education or in pursuing any sort of life where they can contribute to advancing their own lot in life.

And this is their life, every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, every year.

It is hard for many in this world of plenty to relate to the lives of women who must struggle for all they have and who are denied their identity and their dreams. For us, getting up in the morning and turning on our showers or our taps is something we don’t even think about because the water is always there. We don’t think of the water used for cooking or bathing, or washing, or doing other tasks that people in these countries wouldn’t ever have a chance to do. While we waste water on golf courses, in pools, and to build desert resorts, water is gold to those who live in countries where there isn’t even enough for the basic necessities of life.

Which is why in this age of climate change, global warming, population increases, and agricultural challenges, the plight of women in regards to water and how it relates to global poverty and injustice must be addressed in order for us to begin to see the solutions to the social ills that have plagued all of us for so long to bring us true freedom. It may be hard to think that a toilet or a water pipe could be the key to such freedom. Perhaps that is because it is so simple, so easy, so logical, and so morally right.

No one should go without the basic human right of water, and particularly no one should have to work so hard every day risking death to obtain it. My hope is that in this century, we can finally realize our true potential as humans, and finally recognize why we are here and see the day when no woman has to risk her life to have the basic necessities to live and not just survive.

This is why I am starting this weekly series on Current for the month of February in the Water Is Life Group. To give attention to those in our world who are too often forgotten.

To my sisters around the world who do so much for so many with so little.

This entry has been an introduction with an explanation of what women face in regards to the time spent collecting water. Next week I hope to present some stories of women who live this life, and to end it with showing what some groups are doing through sanitation and access to clean water that then gives them the chance to get the education and opportunity they need to lift themselves out of poverty and into hope.

Edit: This is still a work in progress, not forgotten.

Water is the lifeblood of Haiti now: how you can help

Water in Haiti

On 12 January, Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In September 2009, Water.org announced its commitment to bring safe water and sanitation to 50,000 Haitians over the coming 36 months. We will implement a staged plan to respond to this natural disaster, building on this existing effort.

As part of that plan, our most immediate concern is helping to restore the ability of our local NGO partner and potential partners to respond to the crisis by repairing and expanding water and sanitation facilities for people in need.

Water.org’s strength is long-term water and sanitation projects. Sustainable access to such basic necessities will be the area of greatest need as Haiti recovers from the earthquake.

If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find a list of potential organizations to support at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting Water.org’s efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, we would gladly accept your donation: http://donate.water.org/haiti.

Our heart goes out to all of those affected by yesterday’s earthquake and we thank you for keeping the people of Haiti in your thoughts at this difficult time.

Q&A on Response to Haiti Earthquake
How is water affected during a disaster like this?
Underground water and sanitation pipelines and concrete water storage tanks are highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and will likely need to be repaired or replaced.

What is the response plan to get people safe water?
The short term response typically includes bottled water and the use of high volume purification equipment. While this is expensive, it can be quickly deployed as a short-term solution. There are many relief agencies involved in these types of efforts. The response of organizations like Water.org involves the rehabilitation and expansion of sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure.

What is Water.org doing to help?
We will provide assistance to our local partners so that they can restore and expand water and sanitation infrastructure.

How is Water.org coordinating with other agencies?
Before the earthquake, Water.org was already coordinating with the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, and other agencies. On the ground, Water.org will work with local NGO partner organizations, consistent with our approach over the past two decades.

How has this affected Water.org’s work in Haiti?
It had made the need for safe water and sanitation even more urgent and will likely mean our focus will initially be rehabilitation, and then expansion of water services.

Is Water.org’s staff safe?
Four of our staff members returned from Haiti on Saturday. We’re in touch with our local partner but do not currently know the status of its staff members.

Where can I get additional information and what can I do to help?
A. If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find more information at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, you can donate at: http://donate.water.org/haiti.
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And for those who are rightfully skeptical, water.org is a reputable organziation that has been around for years and proven their dedication and passion for water issues. Water is now critical to the survival of the people of Haiti as well as many other developing countries. Without it there is no food or medical care.

Water is the lifeblood of humanity.

Please do all you can to help no matter how small.

Also, please be careful what organizations you send money to. My rule of thumb is to stick with organzations that are already trusted. Doctors Without Borders is without a doubt the most trusted organization I can think of to get your donations to where they are needed fast. I donated to them in this case as well.

Doctors Without Borders

Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

By Dr. Paul J. Sullivan
Special to Circle of Blue

As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.

About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.

Water is not just income and jobs in Sudan. It is life, most particularly in the dry areas of the country: in Darfur and in the north while most of the wetlands are found in the south. This huge country has many climate and water zones. It has massive underground water reserves that are part of the largest source of freshwater in the world, the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer. It also has the large Umm Rawaba and other aquifers. Sudan has the Nile, the Atbara and many other rivers coursing through it. The country is also blessed with the Nile River Basin, which is a watered, mostly underground area that can stretch to 80 percent of the country. As much as 80 to 85 percent of Sudan’s population used the Nile Basin waters. Most of the rains happen in the south. Much of the Nile water comes from other places, like Ethiopia, Uganda and more. The waters from the White Nile and The Atbara in the south and west rise and flood at different times from the Blue Nile and other sources in the east and central parts of the country — no real efforts have been developed to coordinate and better manage these flows and stocks.

Sudan not only faces down the threats from a potential new civil war, it also faces external tensions that could build over the sharing, use and abuse of the Nile across countries in the region. There is only one agreement between the many nations who share the Nile and that was established in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt. As the other countries along the Nile, including the most likely new Sudan in the south, want to develop, demand on the water of the Nile for electricity production, irrigation, industry and more will grow greater. Sudan also shares groundwater resources and sources with other countries. Though the ground water flows, the data on this is as scarce as good management of it.

Astonishingly little of its recharged groundwater and its surface water are used in this often water stressed country. What is used is often wasted with inefficient irrigation methods and even quite destructive rain fed farming methods, and livestock overgrazing. Meanwhile the extraordinarily destructive mechanized agricultural system that is causing huge deforestation, land and river bank erosion, salinization, and more negative effects. Water treatment is almost unheard of in the country, especially in the south. Water-borne diseases are rampant and pesticide poisoning via the water-food chains are likely quite common in some areas. The growth of the mesquite tree and water hyacinth has also wreaked havoc on the country’s water systems.

The precious water of Sudan is being degraded in many areas and wasted in others. Basin and catchment degradation are the norm in many parts of the country. The country is, on average, water rich, but it is management and maintenance poor.

Siltation near small and large dams is common. Suspended solids and stagnant water are common near the dams. Sudan needs the hydroelectricity — it is constantly in a severe energy crisis, but the dams could be more costly to the water and the environment than many may think.

Then there are the very difficult problems of what to do with the huge numbers of returning IDPs and the possible movement of southerners from the north to the south. Also, how are the north and the south to coordinate their water management and water uses? These are very big issues that need to be resolved, or at least managed better.
end of excerpt.

Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace
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An excellent article on the challenges awaiting Southern Sudan in its referendum. It will be interesting to see if this referendum goes off without fraud and what will then become of the water resources of the Nile. You can find more information on this story at the link for Current.com:


Current: Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

Freshwater Crisis Not Included in Final Copenhagen Accord Despite Calls For Action

By Andrew Maddocks
Circle of Blue

The current climate accord negotiated at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen is dangerously inadequate, asserted a team of international environmental organizations.

During a talk at the Bella Center, where the climate conference was held, the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute, and the Stakeholder Forum teamed up to warn that stakeholders were about to make a dangerous mistake – not mentioning the freshwater crisis at all in the historic negotiating text.

As parties embraced a final climate change accord, water was included in one sentence within the latest draft of the treaty and then dropped entirely in the final text. Over the past few months, water-specific language has appeared and disappeared from drafts of the UN climate change adaptation text. In the last preliminary climate talks in Barcelona, water was eliminated from the negotiating texts.

Vulnerable People

Generations of people living in vulnerable coastal nations or farmers face volatile rainfall and could be left unprepared for decades if the treaty’s language isn’t carefully crafted into the next international climate treaty, said GPPN Secretariat Hannah Stoddart, one of the speakers at the “Bridging the Water and Climate Change Agendas” event. Presenters on the panel explored the disconnect between climate and water contingents in the build-up to COP15, and hoped to apply more pressure to integrate water into the treaty.

In Copenhagen, the GPPN and its allies tried to step up the pressure on leaders by putting water in powerful introductory videos and speeches about climate and water-related damage happening around the world.

Though representatives from the GPPN network — which includes partners from SIWI, the GWP and the World Wildlife Fund —had modest expectations for changes to the UN text, they were determined to stress the connections between water and climate change to the 33,000 accredited attendees at the conference, including more than 120 heads of state that attended the 13-day United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which ended on December 19.

Ainun Nishat, a senior climate change adviser for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, opened the panel discussion with a quick summary of the challenges facing Bangladesh — severe weather events, rising sea levels, shifting rainfall patterns and a fragile food supply.

“I feel very ashamed the international community has not done anything about that,” Nishat said.

Demands For Recognition
Nishat gave first-hand examples that supported the GPPN’s central agenda — urgent demand for action, regional and international guidance on water-related issues and a long-term strategy for adaptation by the United Nations.

The subsequent speakers moved through a series of warnings and guidance measures for climate leaders.

Managing water resources will be critical, Stoddart said. She added that effective management requires broad-based cooperation, which starts at the international treaty level. Identifying a disconnect between climate and water advocates, speakers at the event encouraged everyone at the climate conference to break out of their specialities and engage in interdisciplinary discussions and solutions.

Other organizations like the World Water Council suggested that the Copenhagen Accord and its successor climate pacts include an international fund for water.

Many of the panel members’ goals looked beyond Copenhagen.

John Matthews of the World Wildlife Fund supervises freshwater and climate adaptation issues, and has worked with water across cities, energy sectors and fisheries. The scale of potential problems, Matthews said, will require additional resources that are better integrated amongst regions to local institutions. He highlighted transboundary rivers, such as the Rio Grande, which crosses from the U.S. into Mexico, as a key area to bridge both organizations as well as water issues such as mitigation and adaptation to find comprehensive, exemplary solutions.

Treaty Language Neglected
After the prepared speeches, moderator Mike Muller, Special Advisor to the Global Water Partnership opened the floor for questions, which revealed urgent calls for amended treaty language, all of which were subsequently ignored in the final accord. Negotiators in the room anticipated that water might be left out because environmental ministers, rather than water administrators, usually handle these agreements.

But the sense of urgency and pressure for ongoing planning are strong. Environmental ministers from both South Africa and Uganda who attended the event said they would take these messages back to their private delegation meetings.

“We really have to understand water is a key element for the poor and vulnerable,” said Karin Lexen, a project director with the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). “If you talk to a woman in Mali, the first thing she will probably ask for is water. That’s why we have a commitment to trying to do our best.”
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To say that I am disappointed with the outcome of Copenhagen would be a gross understatement. No real movement forward on GHG emission targets, and no movement forward whatsoever regarding global water scarcity and stress. And to be totally honest, while I believe water is central to any such treaty regarding climate change, I am skeptical as to the reasoning and motives behind certain entities (the WWF for one that also thinks GM soy in Argentina is "responsible") pushing for it, as water needs to be declared a global human right first. Without that action, any such treaty opens the door to more privitization which will only exacerbate the crisis.

It should only be included for the right reasons, and they do not include commoditizing water on the market or allowing water systems of developing countries to be taken over by the World Bank or multinationals with the intent of taking advantage of the crisis for profit. Without this declaration and absolute transparency, it should be looked at with great caution.

The COP 16 is supposedly set for Cancun, Mexico next summer. Let's see if it really is a Cop 16 and not another COP OUT. We can't afford to waste anymore time with political posturing.