Capturing Somalia’s Climate Calamity

Photographer Nichole Sobecki, along with writer Laura Heaton, spent years documenting parts of Somalia, a country traumatized by over 25 years of conflict and ravaged by climate change.

 As Sobecki put it, “In a generation, parts of Somalia went from being semi-arid to desert, fueling conflict and pushing one of the world’s most resilient communities to the brink.”

Read and take a  look at - “Capturing Somalia’s Climate Calamity.”

NSW EPA critical of conflicts of interest, complexity of native forestry bill

A draft bill to revamp regulations for native forestry in NSW was slammed as "overly complex" and inequitable, and it failed to address "an inherent conflict of interest" in the oversight of state-owned Forestry Corp.

Logging in state forests may be back in the spotlight. 

Documents obtained by Fairfax Media show the NSW Environment Protection Authority found the government's draft native forestry bill unfairly favoured Forestry Corp by remove licensing requirements for the corporation while maintaining them for landholders or industry seeking private native forestry. 

It would also leave the corporation with powers unmatched for a state agency, including its protection from third-party challenges such as from environmental groups. 

"The inherent conflict of interest for a corporation in having a concurrency role for negotiating, revoking or changing the terms of their licence ... and the removal of third party legal rights, exists nowhere else in NSW legislation or regulation," the EPA's leaked assessment made last December shows.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in The Sydney Morning Herald - “NSW EPA critical of conflicts of interest, complexity of native forestry bill.”

Human conflict and climate change linked by academy

Human conflict as long been thought by many as a naturally evolving from climate change.

And now America’s National Academy of Science has made that link.

In a story headed: “Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate Change” draws one of the strongest links yet between global warming According to the story, “Researchers said Monday that an extreme drought in Syria between 2006 and 2009 was most likely due to climate change, and that the drought was a factor in the violent uprising that began there in 2011.

“The drought was the worst in the country in modern times, and in a study published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists laid the blame for it on a century-long trend toward warmer and drier conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean, rather than on natural climate variability,” it was reported.

Democracy and climate change in conflict

Democracy and any moves to resolve the circumstances damaging earth’s atmosphere manifesting as climate change appear to be in conflict.

Climate change advocates argue for swift and sweeping action, but the doubters continually retreat to the cover of democracy and use the mechanism of choice, free speech, balance, and rights to avoid any change from the status quo.

Those of us concerned about climate change have not used democracy well, or at least we have misunderstood it, while those still adhering to the business as usual paradigm have “used” democracy to their advantage.

Democracy is an unusual and troublesome beast for in an ideal world it would lead to a peaceful resolution of climate change, but as we all know nothing is ever ideal, and so the democratic process becomes corrupted and is “worked” best by the doubters.

The Lecturer in Public Sector Management at the University of Canberra, Randal G. Stewart, has explored democracy and climate change in an article on The Conversation headed: “Climate campaigns trip up on democracy at critical points”.

Hotter, wetter and more violent - a natural equation

As the climate worsens,
so does the violence.

Talk about climate change and its impact on just about anything, is complex in the extreme, but if the discussion is expanded to include violence, then conversational chaos results.

However, that has not deterred US scientist who have found that even small change in rainfall or temperatures correlate with an increase in assaults, rapes and murders, along with group conflicts or war.

The BBC reports about these weather induced changes in a story headed: “Rise in violence ‘linked to climate change’”.

Science reporter, Rebecca Morelle, notes the study illustrates that increases in violence around the world are strongly linked to climate change.