Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Red Cross, people suffering the combined effects of climate change and conflict need urgent climate aid.
Regions at war harder hit by climate change
LEONARD BLAZEBY
5:16PM AUGUST 9, 2020Climate change is unfair. Conflict is cruel. Together they’re devastating.
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We need to embrace this responsibility because around the world people will experience climate change differently. Some will be hit harder than others. Some will have the capacity to adapt and respond — others will not. What we know is this: of the 20 countries deemed most vulnerable to climate change, more than half of them are mired in conflict. And conflict reduces the capacity of people to adapt, to respond collectively.
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Around the world, my colleagues with the International Committee of the Red Cross witness the impact of climate shocks on a daily basis in the conflict zones where we work. As an organisation that helps people caught in conflict, we have no choice but to face the challenge of climate change and untangle what it means for our work with people affected by violence. It is increasingly clear that the communities we work with are disproportionately affected by climate change. And while research doesn’t show that climate change causes conflict, there is general agreement that it may indirectly increase the risk of violence by exacerbating existing tensions.
In the west African country of Mali, living conditions are difficult even in peacetime. The hardship of decades of desertification, rare and unpredictable rainfall and a lack of infrastructure is made worse by a long-lasting conflict. When times are good, pastoralists and their herds of cattle would be able to travel far to find grazing land and water. This year, due to the insecurity caused by conflict, they cannot. Trapped in place, their animals perish, and people become destitute. Across Africa, these dynamics can fuel tensions between herder and farming communities as competition for scarce resources grows.
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If conflict and climate change are beyond our lived experience in Australia, we need to broaden our circle of empathy to include those who live that reality every day. We need to encourage climate action to include global communities affected by conflict.
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Read more: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/regions-at-war-harder-hit-by-climate-change/news-story/18794d1200c24a697f8b605f5188d7be
Back in the real world, greening of arid regions through CO2 fertilisation exceeds any damage from the slight warming the world has experienced.
I have no doubt if pastoralists are trapped in place by conflict, this would have a devastating impact on local grassland and on the herds of the pastoralists. Grazing is good for marginal grasslands, but you have to keep moving. However this is not a climate change issue.
The following is a TED talk by African ecologist Allan Savory. Allan organised a program which culled 40,000 elephants, to try to stop overgrazing and desertification. Allan eventually realised he was doing more harm than good. Grasslands in Africa are so adapted to being grazed, they actually suffer severe stress if the grazers are removed.
Update (EW): Added an extra paragraph in which the author identifies his association with the Red Cross.
Teach them what the Neanderthal did. Move to where you’re more comfortable. Why do you think snow birds move a second residence to Florida and Arizona?
Another once venerable institution.
The Red Cross, a once venerable institution, turns into a climate whore.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/24/climate-whores/
The World Economic Forum too!
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/07/27/world-economic-forum-climate-activism/
In America, they are known as holes… climate holes… black holes… black whores h/t NAACP
Brilliant. A fine example of how to play the climate game.
“Climate change is unfair. Conflict is cruel. Together they’re devastating. We need to embrace this responsibility because around the world people will experience climate change differently. Some will be hit harder than others”
Translation
So you don’t forget, send in your donation before midnight tonight.
My last donation has been sent to the Red Cross. There won’t be another.
They are no longer my preferred charity.
Let’s hope this is confined to the Australian Red Cross. “Climate” donations are likely to go to a Greenpeace rather than a Red Cross, but donors who view “climate” priorities as misguided can find many alternatives to a Red Cross.
Yet another international agency that will not be getting any financial support from me in the future.
I suspect that what they are really observing are weather changes, but calling it climate change gets much better press with the hope of cash to follow. It’s the modern thing to do.
add IEA:
VIDEO: 25m15s: 8 Aug: Talk To Aljazeera: Can the post-pandemic world be greener?
International Energy Agency chief, Dr Fatih Birol, urges an environmentally friendly financial recovery for the world.
As millions stayed at home for months, normal life ground to a virtual halt. That meant a major reduction in air and water pollution; some animals even reclaimed their stolen habitats…
This week, Talk to Al Jazeera connects with one of the loudest voices urging an environmentally friendly financial recovery for the world – the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Dr Fatih Birol.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2020/08/post-pandemic-world-greener-200806141111420.html
1 Aug: Aljazeera: ‘Green’ colonialism is ruining Indigenous lives in Norway
Norway continues to allow the construction of wind farms on Saami land, which threatens their herding livelihoods.
by Eva Maria Fjellheim & Florian Carl
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/colonialism-ruining-indigenous-lives-norway-200703135059280.html
3 July: Tribune, Pakistan: More masks than fish
Covid-19 waste is ending up in our oceans and threatening the marine life’s ecosystem
by Eric Shahzar, environmentalist
As the production and demand for face masks and gloves quadrupled, Covid-19 waste is ending up in our oceans and threatening the marine life’s ecosystem, which has already been struggling to cope with pre-existing plastic waste. If no urgent action is taken, we will soon have more face masks than fish in our oceans.
Covid-19 waste has become a new source of pollution as single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) floods our fragile oceans. While conducting a litter exercise in France’s Cote d’Azur coast, Operation Mer Propre, a French non-profit organisation, found numerous gloves, masks and bottles of hand sanitisers in the Mediterranean along with the usual litter of plastic waste. This worrying discovery should be very appalling and embarrassing for the human race.
Covid-19 waste is not only visible in the Mediterranean, but it has become a global problem. The other side of the world faces the same predicament. OceansAsia, marine conservation organisation, discovered a huge number of single-use PPE waste during its plastic pollution research. Millions of masks were found on the Soko Islands, near the coast of Hong Kong.
It takes one face mask 450 years (??) to decompose in water…
Today, we see face masks lying on the streets, stuck on trees and inevitably ending up in our vulnerable oceans…
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/colonialism-ruining-indigenous-lives-norway-200703135059280.html
Another sell-out to the crass garbage of Klimate Change. Someday there will be an accounting for all those who sold out so easily and so cheaply.
To hell with principles and morals and treating your fellow man with dignity and respect. I recall a sentence stating roughly “imagine a boot in your face – forever”. That’s exactly what these sellouts are wishing on the Proles, as long as they get their piece of the pie, right?
Marxist scum!
From the article: “Around the world, my colleagues with the International Committee of the Red Cross witness the impact of climate shocks on a daily basis in the conflict zones where we work. As an organisation that helps people caught in conflict, we have no choice but to face the challenge of climate change and untangle what it means for our work with people affected by violence. It is increasingly clear that the communities we work with are disproportionately affected by climate change.”
No!
There is *no* evidence that Human-caused climate change is detectable, or is even real. To claim that you see something that has not been shown to exist means you are seriously misguided, or you are a liar.
Alarmists are invited to submit any evidence they have establishing Human-caused climate change. And, as usual, there will be no reply from the Alarmists because they don’t have any evidence. That includes the Red Cross.
Their “evidence” is: Floods, droughts, unpredictable weather. Well duh. Welcome to reality.
Pretty much by definition, these so called aid workers are recent arrivals to the areas of conflict.
How the heck could they possibly know what is or is not normal weather for that region?
About the only charity I will donate to is the Sally Anne. If the Salvation Army starts talking this climate nonsense, then I won’t be donating to them either. No more Red Cross donations now for me if they start talking climate rubbish. Charities should stay out of politics, which is what climate change extortion is all about.
CLIMATE CHANGE
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, humanity has received enormous benefits.
It is now becoming apparent that there are significant degradations of creation which have accompanied this growth: deforestation, species extinction, water degradation, the alteration of atmosphere, increase in toxic chemicals, loss of fertile soil.
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/masic/guidelines-for-salvationists/climate-change/
The title of this piece should be edited: the word is “adaptation”, not “adaption”.
“the alteration of atmosphere”
Oh oh…Some of the monies I made were with the assistance of fossil fuels, so when I donate to the Sally Anne, they are complicit in this alteration of the atmosphere, otherwise they should tell me they don’t want that money. Surely they mean pollution…and I am in favor of reducing real pollution. They are part right on the other items.
I hope Ducks Unlimited hasn’t gone squirrelly. They are the other outfit I still have respect for and did a JV with them.
Apart from planting trees, where have these climate gangs wasted the billions they have taken of people??
Does it always rain on time when the red cross has money? Will the conflicts end if rich organizations get money weekly?
If so, I’ve got a few pennies I found, where do I send them?
” … apart from planting trees, where have these climate gangs wasted the billions they have taken …”
Er – I don’t think any of the climate gangs plant trees. Maybe a few – just for the photo opportunity. They have a record of taking over existing trees, as in the case of those taken at gunpoint that are the home of the Baka people of Cameroon, and in other places. Planting trees (and ensuring that a reasonable number achieve maturity) is hard work.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30173-X/fulltext?rss=yes&utm_campaign=update-lanplh&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=92899856&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_lWMr5wd11v0jbN3WWmueIQHKb42dyCBf24N2pbi_jr2x_hRSvu6eFQqptsZWlEnDbsE9ABDRc-VDlZJHwOfxSVzq4YQ&utm_content=92899856&utm_source=hs_email
We”re happy to help, Red Cross. You demonstrate how the paltry 1° C of warming and ~200mm (~8 inches) of sea level rise measured over the last hundred years has caused suffering that cannot be relieved by simple adaptation, even by the most destitute, and we’ll send you “climate relief”. Good luck proving it.
Meanwhile we Americans are generous and anxious to alleviate suffering. In fact, we are the most generous people on the planet whether you measure by total charitable giving or donations per capita. We think we are incredibly blessed with freedom and wealth and want to lift others. Please send us your plan and we will gladly donate if we think it’s efficacious.
I once supported the Red Cross, National Geographic, orangutans, Medicin sans Frontieres, World Vision but then they all went into full climate crazy so I saved my money and buy chocolate instead.
“Grasslands in Africa are so adapted to being grazed, they actually suffer severe stress if the grazers are removed” Bundy, his cattle and the desert tortoise…..
Again, the enviros screw it up with naive thinking. Cattle replaces Bison, the land needs grazing, and when cattle were taken off the land, tortoise numbers fell.
Climate change , if any, is natural, conflicts are man-made. Only a deluded fool would not know where to start.
Used to give regularly to the Red Cross,
… but as soon as they adopted the “climate change” meme, I sent an email saying they would not get another cent from me.
Translation: Red Cross: “You don’t need to understand what ‘climate adaption aid’ is, just give us more money and we’ll take care of it for you.”
From the above article: “What we know is this: of the 20 countries deemed most vulnerable to climate change, more than half of them are mired in conflict.”
Well, haven’t we been lectured repeatedly by AGW alarmists that the nations at greatest risk of climate change™ are island nations that will be inundated by rising global sea levels (aka SLR). Under that criterion, the above quoted statement is patently FALSE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_island_countries provides a comprehensive listing of “island countries”, many of which are classified as “low lying”, such as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Republic of Maldives*. And the vast majority of which are NOT “mired in conflict”.
* According to Wikipedia, Maldives is the lowest country in the world, with maximum and average natural ground levels of only 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) and 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level, respectively.”
Truth matters.
No more money for the Red Cross then.