Scientists' Global Forecast: Hotter and Drier

by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service

The National Weather Service has forecast a significant drought across much of the US this summer.

This could mirror 1999, when the US experienced one of its worst droughts ever recorded: Almost two thirds of the country suffered severe and persistent heat waves, killing 257 Americans and thousands of cattle in July alone.

In addition, the four-month period of January through April this year was the warmest such period on record in the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said.

As the Earth seems to be heating up, President Clinton admitted recently that economic growth can be achieved without increased use of fossil fuels, and the US and China and the US and India signed agreements to curb global warming. At the same time, environmentalists are saying that heavy use of fossil fuels in the developed world may be a primary cause of environmental catastrophes in the developing nations.

So far this year, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC, almost 70 percent of the US has been warmer than normal. Climate change may significantly reduce future crop yields in some US agricultural regions, says a new report by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University and Iowa State University.

The report revealed potential increases in outbreaks of crop diseases, pests, and weeds. The economic costs of agricultural production may rise in response to extreme weather events like heat waves, torrential rains and flooding, and droughts.

Across the globe, land and ocean temperatures in April continued to average well above the long-term mean.

President Clinton said: "[A] huge portion of decision makers still believe you cannot have economic growth unless you pour more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.... It is not true anymore."

Clinton said the US must take the lead on addressing climate change and other environmental problems, and to persuade other countries to do the same.

"There's no way we'll be able to convince our friends in India or China, which over the next 30 years will become bigger emitters of greenhouse gases than we are, that they can take a different path to development, and that we're not trying to keep them poor, unless we can demonstrate that a different way will work," said Clinton. He concluded: "We will reverse the course of climate change while enhancing, rather than eroding, economic growth with new technologies and new sources of alternative energy."

Greenhouse gas emissions in the northern hemisphere may have contributed to environmental catastrophes in the Southern hemisphere. For example, the United Nation's Children's Fund said that low rainfall during the last two years has caused severe drought conditions in 11 Indian states. An estimated 130 million people--15 percent of the country's population--in more than 70,000 villages and 230 urban centers are at risk.

Apart from economic loss due to low agricultural production, loss of animal wealth, inadequate nutrition and primary health care, the impact of the drought is likely to retard the developmental process in children, UNICEF warned.

In East Africa and South Asia, tens of millions of people are at risk from persistent droughts. Across vast areas of both continents, crops have wasted away, wells are dry, livestock are dying and the land has become a desiccated sprawl of dust.

In April, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proposed the creation of a global alliance for water security, warning that the squeeze on global water resources will tighten as populations grow, demand increases, pollution continues, and climate change accelerates.

"Polluting industries say that it will cost too much to tackle the problem of global warming," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director for the US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG). "If we fail to curb global warming pollution, we are flirting with disaster. The costs will only continue to increase."

In April, US PIRG released a report illustrating the high costs of global warming. For example, in the US, weather related natural disasters in the 1990s took almost 4,000 lives and caused almost $200 billion in economic loss, including 450 lives and $14 billion in economic loss for 1999. Worldwide, the weather disaster toll was more than 330,000 lives and more than $625 billion in economic loss, including 52,000 lives and $68 billion in economic loss for 1999.

Meanwhile, the US and China have signed a joint statement pledging stronger cooperation on a range of efforts to protect the environment and promote sustainable development.

A joint statement said the US and China "recognize that countries can achieve sustained economic growth while protecting the environment and taking actions to combat climate change."

The two countries also expressed their willingness "to entertain new and creative thinking and approaches to cooperation between developed and developing countries on climate change." They also affirmed 'strong support" for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol.

The U.S.-China statement comes two months after a joint statement by the United States and India that also pledged stronger cooperation to address climate change and other environmental concerns.

Nader Lauds Wind and Sun Power

Ralph Nader's statement to Earth Day celebrants in Washington DC this year: "My belief in your theme--"Clean Energy Now!"--is steadfast and will remain so. The destruction of the vital resources of our planet will not stop unless we acknowledge and adopt the now well-known alternatives to fossil fuel, including wind and solar energies.

"How much closer to the brink of catastrophe will we travel before Earth Day's dramatic focus upon the link between clean forms of energy and human survival finally transforms the empty promises and regrettably few accomplishments of our nation's leaders into efficient ecological sustainability and health?

"To all those who share in this celebration... this message: Our nation's leaders and the leaders of other nations have failed to replace destructive technologies with renewable technologies. But the people, informed and organized, shall prevail!"