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	Climate crisis is the most serious challenge that our civilisation has ever faced by Al Gore USA   I think that the climate crisis is by far the most serious challenge that our civilisation has ever faced. Arousing a sufficient understanding of and appreciation for how serious this crisis is an important part of the debate. But it must be done accurately and with a sound scientific basis.   The North Polar ice cap is one of the principle ways that our planet cools itself. The very fact that 40 per cent of it has already disappeared is a serious problem and the prospect of all of it disappearing in the summer months is even more serious, not least because when the Arctic Ocean, thus uncovered, begins to absorb much more of the solar radiation, it warms up the frozen tundra surrounding the Arctic Ocean and we"ve already seen the beginning of methane releases and CO2 releases as the tundra thaws.   There"s so much frozen carbon and methane in those frozen tundra areas that it could lead to the doubling of the amount of global warming pollution that is in the atmosphere already. And that would make the challenge doubly difficult, and that"s one of the principal reasons why the scientists have long said we don"t have the luxury of a lot of time to address this crisis.   We have to move before we’ve push the earth"s system past these tipping points beyond which it would be infinitely more difficult to pull back a stable climate that is conducive to the prospering of human civilisation.   But sadly there has long been a mismatch between the politics and the science, in part because this problem is unprecedented. Since this crisis has never happened before, nothing like it has ever happened before; we are naturally vulnerable to our tendency to think that if something is unprecedented then it"s improbable. That"s often a safe rule of thumb but the exceptions can kill you and this is the most prominent exception.   It"s unprecedented because we have quadrupled the number of people on earth in less than 100 years and multiplied the power of the technologies we use a million fold. So the impact of humanity on the ecological system of the earth is far greater now than ever before in human history.   The most vulnerable component of that ecological system is the very thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet. We"re putting 90 million tonnes of global warming pollution into it every single day, as if it"s an open sewer. And as predicted all of that extra global warming pollution is trapping more heat, raising temperatures, melting the ice, causing deeper droughts and triggering the other consequences that the scientists have long warned about.   And yet the political system has difficulty coming to grips with a challenge this large, not only because it"s unprecedented but also because CO2 is ubiquitous in the global economy.   Now the good news is that, when we shift away from the century-old technology likes coal-fired generating plants and internal combustion engines that are horribly inefficient and wasteful - and adopt the 21st century new green technologies that are much more efficient and far less polluting - we"re going to create millions of good new jobs, reduce our dependence on oil, and discharge our moral duty to our children and grandchildren and future generations. Visit the related web page
	Africa: Drying, Drying, Disappearing.. by Paul Virgo Inter Press Service   Dec 2009   Lake Chad was bigger than Israel less than 50 years ago. Today its surface area is les than a tenth of its earlier size, amid forecasts the lake could disappear altogether within 20 years.   Climate change and overuse have put one of Africa"s mightiest lakes in mortal danger, and the livelihoods of the 30 million people who depend on its waters is hanging by a thread as a result.   An unprecedented crisis is looming that would create fresh hunger in a region already suffering grave food insecurity, and pose a massive threat to peace and stability, experts say.   "If Lake Chad dries up, 30 million people will have no means of a livelihood, and that is a big security problem because of growing competition for smaller quantities of water," Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, executive secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) tells IPS in Rome. "Poverty and hunger will increase. When there is no food to eat, there is bound to be violence."   The lake, which shrank 90 percent between 1963 and 2001 from 25,000 square kilometres to under 1,500, is bordered by Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria.   Four more countries, the Central African Republic, Algeria, Sudan and Libya, share the lake"s hydrological basin and are therefore affected by its fortunes.   "Lake Chad has experienced shrinkage," Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said at November"s World Food Security Summit at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome. "If it dries up, it will be a real disaster. I want to warn the world about this imminent disaster."   That disaster has already started. Villages that used to be thriving lakeside ports are now stranded miles from the water, and have been swallowed by the advancing Sahara desert. Fishers and farmers are struggling to survive.   "The dramatic situation is already taking place," Maher Salman, a technical officer with FAO"s land and water division tells IPS. "It"s clear that the consequences have started. There is outward migration. People are looking for water, so they leave the basin area."   Fishers have seen once massive catches frequently reduced to half-filled buckets. The FAO says the lake"s fish production has fallen 60 percent, and the variety of fish caught has dramatically declined too.   Farmers who rely on lake waters for irrigation are having to move nearer to the water or abandon their activities. Lack of water has caused pasture lands to shrivel up and led to plummeting livestock production.   This is the sort of situation former World Bank vice-president Ismail Serageldin was worried about in 1995 when he said that "the wars of the 20th century were fought over oil, and the wars of the next century will be about water" - a view echoed in reports by several organisations including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.   Little can be done at the regional level about climate change, which is attacking the lake on two fronts - reducing the rainfall that feeds it, and accelerating evaporation of its waters due to higher temperatures. Visit the related web page
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