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climate change adaptation

CLIMATE CRISIS

Cleaning up India’s air pollution — damned if we do, damned if we don’t?

11th May 2019

Chirag Dhara writes: There is no disputing how urgently India – and the rest of the world – need to clean up its air. Unfortunately, therein lies a cruel twist. A rapid decontaminating of the air of aerosol pollution –assuming it was possible– itself raises the prospect of serious health consequences. The reason: how aerosols interact with climate….

ALTERNATIVES

Cuba embarks on a 100-year plan to protect itself from climate change

27th March 2019

From Science Magazine: Cuba has become the latest country to enshrine the fight against climate change in its constitution. A team of Cuban experts has just finished drafting a $100 million proposal that the government plans to submit early this year to the Global Climate Fund, an international financing mechanism set up by the U.N….

Sea level rise has washed away more than 50% of Ghoramara island, Sunderbans

Daesung Lee

CLIMATE CRISIS

Taking India’s climate migrants seriously

17th March 2019

Given the scale of the problem, India’s response to climate migration has been woefully inadequate. Administrative lethargy or the lack of foresight and planning will only exacerbate the suffering and plight of climate migrants. This is particularly unjust to them, as they are least responsible for the mess we find ourselves in, writes Nandan Sharalaya…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The unseen driver behind the migrant caravan: climate change

21st January 2019

From The Guardian: Thousands of Central American migrants trudging through Mexico towards the US have regularly been described as either fleeing gang violence or extreme poverty. But another crucial driving factor behind the migrant caravan has been harder to grasp: climate change, even if migrants don’t often specifically mention “climate change” as a motivating factor….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The study on climate-collapse they don’t want you to read – yet

30th September 2018

A research-paper concluding that climate-induced collapse is now inevitable, was recently rejected by an academic journal, citing the emotional impact that it might have on readers. The paper offers a new framing to make sense of the disaster we face, called “deep adaptation.” It has now been released online by the author, Prof. Jem Bendell….

ALTERNATIVES

Madhav Gadgil: A people’s campaign to rebuild Kerala

14th September 2018

From The Hindu: It’s imperative that we abandon business as usual. We cannot just focus on man-made capital; but enhance the sum total of man-made, natural, human and social capital. The new regime that we usher in should acknowledge that it is local communities that have a genuine stake in the health of their ecosystems….

Bookshelf

Book review: The Water Will Come

24th May 2018

‘As the waters rise,’ Jeff Goodell writes, ‘millions of people will be displaced, many of them in poor countries, creating generations of climate refugees that will make today’s Syrian war refugee crisis look like a high school drama production.’ There’s no longer any doubt that the rise in global sea levels will reshape human civilisation….

Volunteers taking readings to map the shoreline

ALTERNATIVES

A tide turns: Coastal community resilience in the age of climate change

21st March 2018

From ICSF: In the face of climate change and disastrous development projects like Sagarmala, stewardship of coastal land is the primary challenge for coastal communities. Sea level rise and increasing climate unpredictability require local communities to play an active role in creating knowledge-bases for appropriate action, to reduce disaster risk and recreate a healthy coastline….

ALTERNATIVES

The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: ‘There is reason for hope’

3rd January 2018

From The Guardian: A series of fast-moving global megatrends, spurred by trillion-dollar investments, indicates that humanity might be able to avert the worst impacts of global warming. From those already at full steam, including renewable energy, to those just emerging, such as plant-based alternatives to meat, global trends show that greenhouse-gas emissions can be halted….

eft: November 2017, courtesy Utpal Giri. Right: January 2014

Nagraj Adve

CLIMATE CRISIS

In a Bengal school swallowed by the sea, a lesson for the world

30th December 2017

When a group of us visited Boatkhali Kadambini Primary School four years ago, classes were on in full swing. This primary school is at one edge of Sagar island in the Sunderbans. That entire stretch, including the Boatkhali school, has now been swallowed up by the sea, including the house in which we had stayed….

CLIMATE CRISIS

This Indian student’s video on climate change won a global competition

25th December 2017

From The Third Pole: In 2004, the world’s second largest mangrove forest, Pichavaram in Tamil Nadu, helped moderate the tsunami wave and protected 18 villages. ‘Let mangroves recover’, a film on Pichavaram by Adarsh Prathap, a 23-year-old from Kerala, has won one of two prizes in the 2017 global youth video competition on climate change….

Michael Safi

CLIMATE CRISIS

How India’s battle with climate change could determine the planet’s fate

2nd December 2017

From The Guardian: Of all the most polluting nations –United States, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc– only India’s carbon emissions are rising: they rose almost 5% in 2016. India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet….

WWF

CLIMATE CRISIS

The strange future Hurricane Harvey portends

1st October 2017

Peter Brannen writes: Climate change is pushing more water into the atmosphere—with bizarre consequences. We’re headed toward a more arid world but one with unprecedented bursts of floodwaters. And in the tropics, a coming deluge unlike any witnessed by humanity. Also, James Hansen, Naomi Klein and others on climate change and hurricanes Harvey and Irma….

CLIMATE CRISIS

In the eye of Hurricane Irma lie the fingerprints of global warming – and inequality

19th September 2017

From The Wire: The recent hurricanes have made some raise an obvious question: to what extent does global warming have a role to play? To which I would add one voiced less frequently: why should those least responsible for global warming have to constantly face its effects? And what does it bode for the future?…

Flooding in Assam, India in 2012

Oxfam International

CLIMATE CRISIS

Nagraj Adve: When the floods hit

13th September 2017

From Jacobin Magazine: Increasingly, extreme weather events including the annual floods are being recognized as the new normal. Less commonly noted is how this “new normal” tends to disproportionately hit the underclasses—the urban poor, agriculturalists, coastal communities, and poor women. In short, the greatest victims of global warming will be those least responsible for it….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Want to talk climate change amidst floods? Show some compassion first.

31st August 2017

From Grist.org: Yes, we should be having the conversation about climate change and the unprecedented floods, and anyone who tells you otherwise probably has ulterior motives. But before we go there, we need to show the victims that we genuinely care about them. Could our shared value be the lives of those who are hurting?…

ALTERNATIVES

Civil society comments on NITI Aayog’s draft National Energy Policy

30th July 2017

From Vikalp Sangam: NITI Aayog has invited suggestion and feedback on its Draft National Energy Policy. Here’s the detailed response sent by a group of civil society groups. Also linked here is energy expert Bhamy Shenoy’s critique of the draft Policy, which he says does not reflect the crucial recent transformations in the energy sector….

ALTERNATIVES

Bernie Sanders and Al Gore on solving the climate crisis

26th July 2017

From The Guardian: In 2006, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore triggered a worldwide debate about climate change with his Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Now, he’s back with a rousing follow-up for the age of climate change denial under Trump. Fellow climate champion and U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently discussed the film with Gore….

Introduction to the University of British Columbia's climate change basics course

ALTERNATIVES

Module 1: Climate Change – Challenges and Solutions

19th July 2017

Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….

New York Magazine

CLIMATE CRISIS

Viral essay: The Uninhabitable Earth

15th July 2017

It is not often that an article about climate change becomes the most hotly debated item on the internet. But David Wallace-Wells’ lengthy essay published in New York Magazine did exactly that. The full text of the essay –admittedly a worst-case scenario- which has kicked up a firestorm of debate online, along with selected responses….