Common Dreams reports: Record carbon dioxide levels are set to surpass the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM) this year and will likely never fall below that line again in our lifetimes, according to a new study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change by scientists at the UK Met Office ….
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Neither the US nor India has committed to a formal ratification of the Paris agreement by the end of 2016 in the much-hyped joint statement on climate change. The political imperatives before US President Barack Obama, domestic legal requirements in India and the procedural complications of the Paris agreement collectively ensured that the two didn’t….
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Madhavan Nair Rajeevan, secretary of the Union ministry of earth sciences, tells Nitin Sethi in an interview, “We did an analysis of observational data of temperatures in different parts of the country. We found that the frequency of heat waves is increasing in the key April-June season. Duration of the heat waves is also increasing.”…
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Rina Chandran reports: India’s worst drought in decades is hurting women and lower caste Dalits disproportionately, with impacts ranging from malnutrition to early marriage to prostitution, activists say. The government estimates the drought has affected more than 330 million people – almost a quarter of India’s population – across 13 of the country’s 29 states….
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Chaitanya Mallapur reports: Forest fires over the first four months of 2016 surged 30% –20,667 fires were reported as on April 21, 2016 compared to 15,937 over 2015– according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha on April 26, 2016. This is 40% more than the 3,185 hectares burnt in Uttarakhand since February 2, 2016….
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The Maharashtra government has sent out a resolution that declares drought in 29,000 villages, most of them in Marathwada and Vidarbha, adding that wherever any official reference is made to a “drought-like situation”, it should be treated as “drought”. The government was responding to petitions in the Bombay High Court on the state’s water crisis….
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Naveen Thukral reports: Nearly a decade after a spike in global food prices sent shockwaves around the world, Asia’s top rice producers are suffering from a drought that threatens to cut output of the staple for half the world’s population. World rice production is expected to decline for the first time this year since 2010….
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The fact remains that India has a terrible track record when protecting people from heat wave – a record that’s only been growing worse over the years. Since 1992, there have been 22,562 deaths due to heat waves. In the last 23 years, India has had no fewer than 393 deaths in a single year….
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The Hindu reports: Water levels in major reservoirs of the country are alarmingly low, weekly data released by the Central Water Commission shows. Data from CWC, which monitors live storage status of 91 major reservoirs in the country, show that only 23 per cent of capacity is available, and this is well below last year….
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Sayantan Bera reports: Data from the ministry of water resources show that in end March, water levels in 91 major reservoirs in the country was at just 25% of capacity—30% lower than last year, and 25% less than the average storage in a decade. The situation is acute in the western parts of the country….
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Nikhil Dey & Aruna Roy writes: The cynical attitude towards the MGNREGA is an example of how policymakers are deliberately — by squeezing funds and subverting the legal mandate of the law — causing immeasurable misery and suffering. Through the fund squeeze, the government has consciously crippled the MGNREGA’s ability to help people facing drought….
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The Centre has proposed modification of green laws to impose a fine up to Rs 20 crore on major environment violators, who would also have to pay a daily fine of Rs 1 crore if the damage continues. Another green law will prevent violators from taking shelter under a legal cover for non-payment of fines….
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Nihar Gokhale reports: Rainfall across India in March has been 300-500% higher and often were accompanied by hailstorms. As a result, winter crops across six Indian states – Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra – stand destroyed. Rain and the accompanying hail has damaged upto 60% standing winter crops across the country….
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The Guardian reports: According to a new NASA study, the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before. The unprecedented leap led scientists, usually wary, to label the new record a “shocker” and warn of a “climate emergency”….
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Bill McKibben reports: On March 3, across the northern hemisphere, the temperature, for a few hours, crossed a line: it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded history and likely for the first time in the course of human civilization. Two degrees Celsius is the must-not-cross red line….
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Sukumar Muralidharan reports on Catch News: This year’s economic survey is a catalogue of crises. For one thing, it records that the situation in agriculture has been dismal on account of two successive years of poor monsoons. This is only the fourth time in 115 years that such a misfortune has hit the Indian economy….
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January was the globe’s most unusually warm month ever recorded, and the past three months have been the most unusually warm three-month period on record as well, according to NASA. It is the combination of manmade global warming and a record strong El Niño that’s bumped up temperatures to never-before-seen levels since at least 1880….
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Common Dreams reports: A new analysis, published in Science Advances journal, reveals that global water scarcity is a far greater problem than previously thought, affecting 4 billion people—two-thirds of the world’s population. Previous analyses looked at water scarcity at an annual scale, and had found that water scarcity affected between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people….
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Decision On GM Mustard Deferred *Mining interests and tribal rights on collision course *Former atomic energy regulator says India needs to pause nuclear plans *Lesser water recorded in Indian reservoirs than last year *Sikkim Organic Mission: We Need To Dig Deeper *Hydro dam boom threatens freshwater fish *Radioactive Water From Fukushima Leaking Into the Pacific…
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India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas, released last month, shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….
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