Dear Friend,
The ocean warming is killing the kelp beds in the waters by the island of Tasmania. Australia’s giant kelp beds are literally being cooked by the ocean. The kelp rising in 30-foot high stalks has been habitat for rare ocean life through recorded history. Once present along the whole length of Tasmania’s east coast, now little is left — just in the cooler waters bordering the southern tip.
Dr Binoy Kampmark writes from Australia, "Australian towns are starting to sound like besieged forts and desperate holdouts. The Victorian seaside town of Mallacoota has been elevated to something like a First World War Verdun against the onslaught of fire. Thousands had gathered on Tuesday at the boat ramp. Pictures of a blood red sky have been taken, most notably that of Allison Marion’s picture of her son, Finn. But will the flames pass? The question is never far away from those engaged. For those directly fighting the flames, deaths are accumulating. Men like
Sam McPaul of the Morven Rural Fire Brigade have become the fallen warriors of hoses and salvation."
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Warming Ocean Currents Affect Weather and Environment
Co-Written by Meena Miriam Yust & Arshad M. Khan
The ocean warming is also killing the kelp beds in the waters by the island of Tasmania. Australia’s giant kelp beds are literally being cooked by the ocean. The kelp rising in 30-foot high stalks has been habitat for
rare ocean life through recorded history. Once present along the whole length of Tasmania’s east coast, now little is left — just in the cooler waters bordering the southern tip.
Co-Written by Meena Miriam Yust & Arshad M. Khan
If one can imagine looking at our globe from the South Pole end, one can observe the ocean currents circulating water across the oceans.
First one would notice a current all the way around the perimeter of the Antarctic. A surface current circulates clockwise but there is also a deep undercurrent in the same direction. Branches then lead off towards the different oceans serving as a global conveyor belt mixing the waters.
A deep current pushes its way between the east coast of Africa and Madagascar emerging as the monsoon surface current across the Indian ocean to India before looping back to supplement another current along Africa’s west coast. This eventually crosses the Atlantic to form the Gulf Stream drift recrossing the Atlantic to warm Britain and southern Scandinavia. Currents also loop the Pacific.
In an early Islamic map the system is clarified. The currents serve as global arteries that redistribute heat, salt and carbon around the globe. Is it climate change slowing the system, mitigating its tempering effects? It has slowed by about 15 percent in the last half-century.
One consequence is the worsening Indian Ocean dipole effect where contrasting sea surface temperatures in the warmer western (Arabian Sea area) and cooler eastern end near Indonesia affect climate. This year has seen one of the strongest dipoles on record, a 2C difference. The result is more storms for East Africa leading to cooler, wetter weather, while at the other end Australia suffers extreme heat and raging bush fires far worse than usual. No ordinary fire but a 50-meter high firewall engulfed the homes, according to a shocked homeowner in a vivid description of what happened. The uncontrollable fires continue with the hope they will burn themselves out.
The ocean warming is also killing the kelp beds in the waters by the island of Tasmania. Australia’s giant kelp beds are literally being cooked by the ocean. The kelp rising in 30-foot high stalks has been habitat for rare ocean life through recorded history. Once present along the whole length of Tasmania’s east coast, now little is left — just in the cooler waters bordering the southern tip.
And the effects of global warming are everywhere. The Arctic tundra’s permafrost is melting from Alaska through Russia’s Siberia. At 57 degrees Fahrenheit, Chicago has just experienced the second warmest Christmas on record i.e. since 1871; the day following was 56 F and the hottest December 26 ever. New Jersey’s winters are so warm, its lakes no longer freeze.
Fish follow their instincts but are also in trouble. When the water turns too warm, they move, collapsing known fisheries. Worse, an abrupt change can decimate numbers. Fisheries in widely separated countries such as Japan, Angola and Uruguay are affected.
While the Philippines suffers a dozen and more severe storms annually, this year it has been hit by Super-Typhoon Mangkut in September with winds gusting to 255 km/h (160 mph). That is equivalent to a Category 5 (most severe) Atlantic storm. Then on December 3, it was struck by Typhoon Kammuri, followed not long thereafter by Typhoon Phanfone … tragically on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day turning celebration into anguish. Aside from the loss of crops and damage to infrastructure, the typhoons kill dozens of people, if not more, and can displace hundreds of thousands who take time to repair their lives.
Climate change (or more accurately warming) and the weather and its consequences remain inextricably linked. So are we humans, the principal catalysts of this Anthropocene age
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Australia Burns: Fireworks, Bush Fires and Denial
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
The Morrison government, despite the calamities, would not let up in its boastful assertions on environmental soundness. Energy minister Angus Taylor, who is Australia’s de facto environment minister (that portfolio has little relevance in Australia, except for granting mining approvals) took to The Australian to claim that the country had a record that should make people proud. “Australia meets and beats its emissions-reduction targets, every time.” The Kyoto targets were outdone by 129 million tonnes; the 2020 targets will be met by 411 million tonnes.
As 2020 approached, the sense that the barbarians were not only at the gates but had breached the walls of indifference had come to the fore. But these were not conventional human forms; rather, they were the agents of conflagration, driving people to the sea, forcing them from homes and consuming territories the size of small countries. Australia was burning.
Then it became clear that the barbarians might have been among us all along, the dedicated wreckers of the biosphere, the climate change denialists who cling to a tradition highlighted by the smug authors of Genesis 1:26: that the non-human world is there for the conquest of humanity. Unfortunately for the smug scribblers of the Bible, the earth has not been too compliant in this regard.
As the continent scorched, the annual, exorbitant display of Sydney’s fireworks that mark the opening of the new year seemed a touch vulgar. This was not a time to be solemn or mournful; the bread and circuses had to continue coming. The presenters of the ABC’s New Year’s Eve show attempted to put on a brave face, turning it to a donations run for those who had suffered loss in the bush fires. Even as they did, a floating haze was evident; Sydney could not escape from the reality that it was surrounded by flames.
Australian towns are starting to sound like besieged forts and desperate holdouts. The Victorian seaside town of Mallacoota has been elevated to something like a First World War Verdun against the onslaught of fire. Thousands had gathered on Tuesday at the boat ramp. Pictures of a blood red sky have been taken, most notably that of Allison Marion’s picture of her son, Finn. But will the flames pass? The question is never far away from those engaged. For those directly fighting the flames, deaths are accumulating. Men like Sam McPaul of the Morven Rural Fire Brigade have become the fallen warriors of hoses and salvation.
The Morrison government, despite the calamities, would not let up in its boastful assertions on environmental soundness. Energy minister Angus Taylor, who is Australia’s de facto environment minister (that portfolio has little relevance in Australia, except for granting mining approvals) took to The Australian to claim that the country had a record that should make people proud. “Australia meets and beats its emissions-reduction targets, every time.” The Kyoto targets were outdone by 129 million tonnes; the 2020 targets will be met by 411 million tonnes.
But the technique of such praise is always slanted; Australia was positively virtuous in climate change policy, yet was only “responsible for only 1.3% of global emissions, so we can’t single-handedly have a meaningful impact without the co-operation of the largest emitters such as China and the US.”
Australia had been fighting climate change as dedicated troopers against the odds. Pity that the odds were themselves compounded by his government’s own scepticism at the very idea that disastrous burning events might be an effect of climate change. Selective accounting is the panacea sought in this regard, and Taylor does so by picking figures that exclude, for instance, emissions from the fossil fuels Australia digs and exports. Like an arms exporter with an amoral compass and a mind for the selective, the claim here is that Australia cannot be responsible for what others do with the earth’s loot, despite actually providing them in the first place.
Those actually versed with export and production figures tend to raise their eyebrows when Taylor takes to the podium of praise. Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, was politely damning. “I would characterise [Taylor’s article] as a selective use of statistics that make Australia’s emissions trajectory look good, when in reality it does not look good at all.”
A study by Climate Analytics published in July 2019 does much to shred the Taylor worldview in this regard. As the authors note with severity, “Australia is the world’s largest coal (thermal + metallurgical) exporter, accounting for 29% of traded coal globally in 2016 and will soon be the world’s largest natural gas (LNG) exporter. As a consequence, Australia’s global carbon footprint is very significant, with exported fossil fuel emissions currently representing around 3.6% of global emissions.”
Hardly insignificant, and even more damnable considering that Australia is in the big league when it comes to per capita emissions of carbon, including exports. China, for instance, is surpassed by a factor of 9; the US by 4, India by 37.
The prime minister is proving unconvincing in his efforts to fight the storm. A tweeted statement from Scott Morrison gave the impression that this was merely another housekeeping exercise to complete, the fires manageable interruptions to the perfect Australian life. “Federal Government, especially our Defence Forces, are working together with the Victorian Government to respond to Victorian bushfires. VIC CFA are leading the response.” He noted how both he and the Victorian premier had been in “regular contact” admitting that, “Reports of persons unaccounted for are very distressing.”
His new year address sank like an unprized lead balloon. He conceded that 2019 had not been without difficulties. “But the one thing we an always celebrate in Australia is that we live in the most amazing country on earth and the wonderful Aussie spirit that means we always overcome whatever challenges that we face that we always look optimistically into your future.” Australia remained exemplary as a “place to raise kids”. The disasters, on the other hand, have not been singular. “Whatever our trials, whatever disasters have befallen us, we have never succumbed to panic.” A true man of advertising, to the last.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Who is Archbishop Atallah Hanna, and Why Israel Hates him
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
Hanna has served as the Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem since 2005. Since then, he has used his leadership position to advocate for Palestinian unity in all of its manifestations. Expectedly, Hanna has been on Israel’s radar for many years, as this kind of leadership is problematic from the viewpoint of a hegemonic political and military power that requires utter and absolute submission.
The Guru that never was
by Karthik Ramanathan
Given that Sadguru's video has become part of the propaganda arsenal of the administration, it makes sense to publish my takedown in some greater detail so ordinary people can understand with clarity the crimes and the coverup by Modi and his supporters. I also hope that activists and others concerned about CAA and reaching out to people of India to resist
the legislations, will freely use this response in discussion assuming of course, they find the points raised here to be worthwhile.
State Sponsored Statelessness in India in the Age of ‘Sophia’
by Lirar Pulikkalakath
It was on 9 December 2019, the previous day of International Human Rights Day, the lower house (Lok Sabha) of Indian parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), 2019 with a considerable majority. The upper house (Rajya Sabha) passed the CAB on 11 December 2019, just one day after International Human Rights Day. With this amendment in its citizenship law of 1955, India became one of the few (perhaps the only if excludes Israel) countries to include religion as a criterion for citizenship.
It Is Time For The United Nations To Initiate A Referendum In The North And East Of Sri Lanka
by Kumarathasan Rasingam
Taking into consideration the statements by the Sri Lankan President and the top officials regarding justice to the Tamils seems to be a deadlock. The only way out from this is to initiate a UN sponsored referendum in the North and East of Sri Lanka, for which the co-sponsored countries of the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 and other member countries in the UNHRC should support this move to force Sri Lanka to honor and implement the 30/1 Resolution in good faith and within a short time-frame.
Celebrate Womanhood…!!
by Sonali Chanda
You find her giving your birth,
Even though you try to corrupt her,
She is the most vigorous icon in the Earth,
that may adore you or smash you,
according to your will..
