The reef is rapidly deteriorating

A new report reveals that under the Federal Government’s watch the long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef has gone from “poor” to “very poor” for the very first time.

“This report makes it abundantly clear that climate change is the major factor driving the deterioration of one of our most precious natural icons,” said the Climate Council’s CEO Amanda McKenzie.

The Government’s caretaker of the reef – the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority – releases a report every five years that provides an assessment of the reef’s health, the pressures it’s under and its likely future. 

The report states: “Climate change is escalating and is the most significant threat to the Region’s long-term outlook…The challenge to restore Reef resilience is big, but not insurmountable. However, it requires mitigation of climate change.”

Read the story from The Climate Council - “The reef is rapidly deteriorating.”

Farmers are getting ready for climate change

Son La is a poor and underdeveloped province in North-western Vietnam, bordering Laos and 350km away from Hanoi. It has a population of 1.696 million, of which 87% live in rural areas and 94% are ethnic minorities. Son La has a mountainous landscape with over 87% of land on steep slopes of at least 25 degrees. Son La has a tropical monsoon mountainous climate, with cold dry winters and hot rainy summers. The geography and climate of the region makes it highly vulnerable to climate change and prone to natural disasters such as droughts, floods and frosts.

Mr. Cường’s in front of his rice field. He shared
some of his challenges from climate change
  impacts, and his methods for rice production. 

Son La’s people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods with 58% of land used for agriculture or forestry. Rice is the main food crop, but farmers generally do not produce enough rice for their own consumption, or to sell at nearby markets. To generate a supplementary income, farmers grow corn, coffee and plums or raise chickens and pigs. Low incomes and income instability due high reliance on agriculture and weather reinforce high poverty rates which are equal to 40–58% at the project sites.

Farming communities are poor and lack technical knowledge and methods to sustainably manage the land and the biodiversity. It leads them to not have enough food between the rice seasons and it reinforces barriers to development.

Read the Medium story by Thuân Sarzynski - “Farmers are getting ready for climate change.”

Pope Francis declares 'climate emergency' and urges action

Pope Francis has declared a global “climate emergency”, warning of the dangers of global heating and that a failure to act urgently to reduce greenhouse gases would be “a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations”.

‘Future generations stand to inherit a greatly
spoiled world,’ the pope said at a meeting at the Vatican.

He also endorsed the 1.5C limit on temperature rises that some countries are now aiming for, referring to warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of “catastrophic” effects if we crossed such a threshold. He said a “radical energy transition” would be needed to stay within that limit, and urged young people and businesses to take a leading role.“Future generations stand to inherit a greatly spoiled world. Our children and grandchildren should not have to pay the cost of our generation’s irresponsibility,” he said, in his strongest and most direct intervention yet on the climate crisis. “Indeed, as is becoming increasingly clear, young people are calling for a change.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Fiona Harvey and Jilllian Ambrose - “Pope Francis declares 'climate emergency' and urges action.” 

Bill Gates is forever optimistic

Bill Gates’ optimism must be admired.

Bill Gates - no 'poor countries by 2035.

He and his wife, Melinda, through their Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have done some wonderful work kin easing the lot of millions of people around the world.

But now, apparently flushed by the foundation’s success and subsequent praise, the billionaire software baron has boldly predicted that the world will be free of poor countries by 2035.

Writing in story headed: “Bill Gates predicts almost no poor countries left by 2035 in annual letter” the ABC reported on his optimism in the Australian Network News.

In discussing riding nations of poverty, Mr Gates’ emphasis appears focussed on a “business-as-usual” paradigm and takes no countenance of the rigours nations of the world will encounter as climate change enlivened weather events, be they droughts, storms, floods and the resultant deterioration of top soil begin to influence outcomes.