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US droughts may eclipse Dust Bowl
Todd Neff, Daily Camera
Global warming could — in the coming decades — bring Colorado and neighboring states 12-year droughts more severe than the 1930s-era Dust Bowl, says a study that Boulder scientist Martin Hoerling presented Tuesday.
Hoerling said the work, presented at a drought conference hosted by the Geological Society of America, is the first to translate the results of global-warming models into regional drought predictions.
Those predictions are dire. Between now and 2050, half of the interior West — including Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — could experience droughts more severe than the 1933-1936 Dust Bowl at any given time, Hoerling said. For comparison, from 1950 to 2005, droughts on average covered 13 percent of the region.
In addition, Hoerling said the length of a given drought could stretch to 12 years in the coming decades, more than four times the region’s average drought from 1950 to 2005. ..
“In 25 years, there won’t be enough water to meet 2005 demands,” Hoerling said.
(20 Sept 2006)
Forest Fires Sweep Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra
Chad Bouchard, Voice Of America
Officials in Indonesia say illegal burning to clear land has caused rampant wildfires across Borneo and Sumatra. Fires have destroyed millions of hectares of forest and farmland over the last month, and environmentalists and the government disagree over who is responsible for the destruction.
Officials of Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry say eight million hectares have gone up in smoke over the last month, and fires are still burning out of control on the island of Borneo.
Government officials point to small farmers who use fires to clear land quickly and cheaply. But environmentalists blame Indonesia’s failure to enforce logging controls and a ban on land-clearing fires. ..
(11 Sept 2006)
See also Indonesia may charge 75 over forest fires -police and Indonesia says forest fires to disappear in 2 yrs.
Voice of America is funded by the US government.
Illegal logging costing nations billions
Mail and Guardian/Reuters
Illegal logging is threatening the livelihoods of millions of the world’s poor, robbing governments of billions of dollars in revenue and undermining legitimate logging businesses, the World Bank said on Saturday.
In developing countries, illegal logging of public lands alone causes estimated losses in assets and revenue in excess of $10-billion a year, the Bank said in a report released on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings in Singapore.
A further $5-billion in revenue was lost each year through tax evasion and loss of royalties on legal logging. ..
(16 Sept 2006)
China taps into foreign water solutions
Antoaneta Bezlova, Asia Times
BEIJING – As the World Water Congress meets this week in Asia for the first time, the choice of the Chinese capital couldn’t be more appropriate. The 1.3 billion people of the world’s most populous country have at their disposal only a quarter of the water per person that is available on average around the world.
But China’s water woes go far beyond the scarcity of water resources. Pollution has left nearly half of the water in the country’s rivers suitable only for agricultural and industrial use, making fresh drinking water a luxury for many of China’s 800 million peasants. ..
Currently, 312 million Chinese villagers are facing water shortages and unsafe water supplies that have been contaminated with fluorine, arsenic, high levels of salt or other industrial pollutants, Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng told the state news agency Xinhua.
China’s urban water environment is worsening too. About 400 of China’s 600-odd cities are short of water, according to the Water Ministry. In Beijing and some 100 other cities, the shortages are deemed “extreme”. ..
(12 Sept 2006)
