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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category loss and damage.
  • Where the Oil Runs Deep, Water Turns Foul

    ›
    Guest Contributor  //  August 31, 2020  //  By Elena Bruess
    A farmer with his animals near the Gir Zero facility on Rmeilan oil fields

    This article originally appeared on Circle of Blue.

    When Farhad Ahma returned to his native country last year on a work trip, his first thought was of his small daughter back home. The air around him was so thick with pollution, he couldn’t imagine she would survive the climate in this region of northeastern Syria. Ahma himself struggled to breathe almost as soon as he arrived, nauseated by the heavy smell within a couple hours. He was born and raised nearby, in a city called Qamishli, but he had lived in Berlin for some time now. Returning was a shock to his system.

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  • China’s Post-Pandemic Water Woes

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    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  July 20, 2020  //  By Scott Moore
    11792197813_ba004f60a5_o

    Few places have suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than southern China, the region where the novel coronavirus was first detected in the city of Wuhan. But it turned out that the pandemic is not the only calamity to befall south China this year. The region has been inundated by heavy rainfall since late May, creating a risk of catastrophic flooding. While southern China typically sees heavy rainfall in the summer months, state media reported that this year’s precipitation has been roughly 20 percent higher than normal. Other outlets report that flooding has affected over 30 million people across dozens of provinces and resulted in over 120 deaths. 

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  • A Plague of Ravenous Locusts Descends on East Africa, Jeopardizes Food Security

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    May 18, 2020  //  By Wania Yad
    shutterstock_1729788955

    Weeks before most of the world began to take the spread of COVID-19 seriously, Africa was already threatened by another plague, the biggest locust outbreak in the last 70 years. Locusts swarmed into Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, and South Sudan in January and February this year. Those hordes of voracious locusts laid eggs, and now the second wave, 20 times the size of the first group, is arriving. According to Locust Watch, “The current situation in East Africa remains extremely alarming as more swarms form and mature in northern and central Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and probably in Somalia.”

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  • To Fight for a Living Planet, Restore its Biology

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    Guest Contributor  //  Uncharted Territory  //  February 25, 2020  //  By Thomas E. Lovejoy

    We face the greatest environmental challenges ever relating to climate change, biodiversity, land use, and more. Humans are driving 1 million species to extinction, according to a report by the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Some $44 trillion of annual global economic product that depend on nature are in jeopardy. Fires have ravaged large swathes of the Amazon—Brazil and Bolivia in particular—and Australia.

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  • Why Climate and Conflict Are Shaping the Crises of Our Time (And What To Do About It)

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    Guest Contributor  //  Uncharted Territory  //  February 24, 2020  //  By Janani Vivekananda

    vivekanandaHumanitarian need is increasing. Crises are becoming more complex through the interactions between climate change, disasters, and conflicts. Not only are humanitarian crises on the rise, but the nature of crises is changing, largely due to climate change-driven extremes such as floods, droughts and typhoons. Over 90 percent of disasters are believed to be related to climate.

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  • Pig Disease is Creating a Mountainous Solid Waste Problem

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    China Environment Forum  //  February 20, 2020  //  By Karen Mancl
    shutterstock_791332966
    This article originally appeared on U.S.-China Focus.

    On a rainy July afternoon in 2017, I was in Jinhua, China, a city just south of Shanghai, to visit a pig farm. This was not just any pig farm—the Mebolo farm grows pigs that become the prized Jinhua Hams, a Chinese delicacy for nearly 1500 years. Long before Italians produced prosciutto and the Spanish their Jamón serrano ham, Marco Polo discovered Jinhua ham in the 13th century and brought ham-making techniques back to Europe.

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  • Disasters Have Changed. So Must Our Response.

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    Guest Contributor  //  Uncharted Territory  //  January 28, 2020  //  By Frederick M. Burkle

    BurkleAs disasters have changed over the years, so must the personnel who manage these crises.

    In 1932, sociologist Lowell Carr first described a predictable pattern of how disasters impact society. Refined over the decades by many researchers, the “disaster cycle” includes four phases: prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and rehabilitation.

    This disaster cycle helped define the way societies respond to each disaster. Today, highly trained emergency personnel using many research, management, and epidemiological skills have helped improve survival and health outcomes after disasters. “Disaster medicine” now defines a sub-specialty for highly skilled professional health specialists. However, their many activities and skill sets primarily focus on only the response phase of the initial disaster cycle.

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  • Community Input Improves Climate Change-Induced Resettlement Effort

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    Guest Contributor  //  January 7, 2020  //  By Volker Boege & Ursula Rakova
    Tulun_ISS002-E-6439

    This article, by Volker Boege and Ursula Rakova, is adapted from a Toda Peace Institute Policy Brief, “Climate Change-Induced Relocation: Problems and Achievements—the Carterets Case.”

    In the Global South, climate change-induced resettlement requires a holistic and integrated approach, involving all stakeholders—state institutions, local customary and civil society institutions—and in particular respectful engagement with local traditional actors and networks. In a policy brief for the Toda Peace Institute, we examined climate change-induced resettlement from the Carteret Islands in the Pacific, a case which encompasses a broad range of issues relevant to future relocation efforts elsewhere. Those who seek to make this type of resettlement possible would do well to heed these lessons.

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