- And what about the millions of U.S. citizens that will be leaving the coasts, too? - Editor
Climate change linked to possible mass Mexican migration to U.S
Scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States.
Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week. The number could amount to 10% of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.
For the study- http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/16/1002632107
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/26/nation/la-na-immig-climate-20100727

- We all have idols, and last week, I got to listen to one of mine. It was partly the ground-breaking Club of Rome work that influenced me away from my intended career and on to population, environment, and climate change. With such an important message, why weren’t all the City decision makers there at the talk? How do we get other cities to listen? Dr. Meadows had read our Sustainable Santa Fe Plan- great! - and while he congratulated us on its importance and value, he said that if population and consumption levels are not included in a climate plan, we can not become sustainable. It’s true. If we cut our emissions, for example 50%, but double the number of people, we have not become more sustainable.

For those of you who have been reading Climate Today for at least a year will not have had any surprises- his talk covered Peak Oil, population growth, the lag time of climate change, the need for local adaptation and relocalization, voluntary simplicity with reduced consumption, etc.

Here are a few gems from his talk that are worth remembering and sharing:
- 50% of all the oil consumed by humans has been consumed since 1984, creating a world we now view as normal, but this high energy usage can not continue.
- We are moving into the “Post Petroleum Age.”  In 2006, 9 billion barrels of oil were discovered, but we consumed 31 billion barrels that year. World consumption of oil is currently 5 to 6 times the amount that is being discovered, so we are using up our savings account, which can not continue.
- Prepare yourself for less available energy. It appears now that the government in the coming years will have to resort to some kind of rationing or quotas, similar to World War II. Just raising prices harms the poor.
- The “biocapacity” of the earth has been surpassed, and we are currently overshooting, which, if continues, is always followed by collapse. We are now consuming 140% of resources with demands accelerating against the world’s ecosystems. These trends include not only fossil fuels but also groundwater, greenhouse gases, the destruction of agricultural soils, the degradation of natural resources, the gap between the rich and the poor, the supply of fish, etc.
- Embodied energy is the energy used to create and ship the things that we import. We have to fully recognize the energy and resources used in other places like China if we are to reach sustainability.
- The world’s population will be going back down this century. It is only a matter of how.
- It is unlikely that waiting for the Federal government will work. Politicians want to get re-elected, and therefore fail to make the essential significant structural changes required to convert to sustainability.
Thank you Dr. Meadows for speaking so frankly. - Editor

QUOTE
“It’s always been obviously that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions – the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down as we want, while the population keeps shooting up.”
Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the London School of Economics

‘Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change’
Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of Economics. Every $7 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of $32 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says. The report, Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tons) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total.
Report at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/reducingemissions.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6161742/Contraception-cheapest-way-to-combat-climate-change.html

QUOTE

“…as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal (350 parts per million CO2).
What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be
 really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a
 350 target.”

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

- How could we actually use this oil in good conscience?  Maybe the people who made this decision need to spend some time first with the Native Americans who are watching their ecosystems go under the bulldozer, and then go live with the Nile Delta farmers for a few days. That might fix this disaster. - Editor
U.S. State Department OKs Pipeline From Canada’s Oil Sands
The U.S. State Department has issued a permit for a multibillion-dollar pipeline to carry crude oil from Canadian oil sands to refineries south of the border, triggering a court challenge from environmental and native groups. On Thursday, the State Department issued a Presidential Permit for the Alberta Clipper - a 1,000-mile/1,607-kilometer crude oil pipeline that will run between Alberta, and Wisconsin. With supply of crude oil from Western Canada oil sands developments expected to grow by as much as 1.8 million barrels per day by 2015, the industry has asked for more capacity out of the oil sands and into the U.S. Midwest markets. But an international coalition of environmental and Native American groups said the pipeline would carry “the dirtiest oil on Earth” and vowed to challenge it in court. The environmental and native groups point out that “Tar sands development in Alberta is creating an environmental catastrophe, with toxic tailings ponds so large they can be seen from space and plans to strip away the forests and peat lands in an area the size of Florida.”  “In addition,” they argue, “greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands production are three times that of conventional crude oil and it contains 11 times more sulfur and nickel, six times more nitrogen and five times more lead than conventional oil. These toxins are released into the U.S. air and water when the crude oil is processed into fuels by refineries.” “Tar sands crude is causing massive environmental degradation in Canada and results in significantly more greenhouse gas emissions. This is the absolute wrong step to take if we want to create a greener energy future.”
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2009/2009-08-21-091.asp

- Any progress made can get eaten up by adding more drivers, eaters, buyers on to this finite planet. Even postponing births helps some. Of course, the most consumptive country on this earth also needs to stop its population growth. - Editor
 

India pays couples to put off having children
Thousands of couples in India who agreed to put off having babies for at least two years after their wedding will collect cash payments this month as health officials attempt to curb the country’s rapidly growing population. The country’s population stands at 1.2 billion and is expected to reach 1.53 billion by 2050. Eighty percent of marriages result in the birth of a child within the first year. But increasing pressure on resources means that there is barely enough water and food to go round. The first cheques are to be issued on 15 August, with officials cautiously optimistic about a reversal in the birthrate, which is now down to 16.1 per thousand. Couples who take part are also eligible for family planning advice and free condoms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/india-china-birth-control

- When the news quotes people being very casual about rising global temperatures, it’s clear they know nothing about farming. The year 2030 is a mere 21 years away- not a lot of time. Food system resilience must begin now. And not through genetically modifying plants, either, as suggested at the end of this article. - Editor

Billion people face famine by mid-century, says top US scientist
Famines affecting a billion people will threaten global food security during the 21st century, according to a leading US scientist. Nina Fedoroff, the US State Department chief scientist, is convinced that food shortages will be the biggest challenge facing the world as temperatures and population levels rise. Food security in the coming years, she said, is “a huge problem” that has been met with little more than complacency. “We are asleep at the switch,” she said. Her warning echoes comments by John Beddington, Britain’s chief scientist, last week in which he forecast a “perfect storm” of food, water and energy shortages by 2030. Dr Fedoroff, who advises Hillary Clinton, said famines that strike a billion people are quite possible in a world where climate change has damaged food production and the human population has risen to nine billion. Temperatures, which are rising as a result of climate change, are expected to cause savage reductions in productivity in vast areas of the world’s most fertile lands.  During the 2003 European heatwave, she said, crop yields fell by 20 to 25 per cent in France and this is a pattern likely to be repeated on a much wider scale in the future. Some years will see worldwide heatwaves which will put a great strain on food supplies and, if they take place two years in a row, they could damage crop yields so drastically that they leave a billion people in danger of starvation.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5962238.ece

The most brilliant minds should be directed to solving Earth’s greatest challenges, such as climate change, says Sir David King. The former UK chief scientist will use his presidential address at the BA Science Festival to call for a gear-change among innovative thinkers. He will suggest that less time and money is spent on endeavours such as space exploration and particle physics. He says population growth and poverty in Africa also demand attention.  “The challenges of the 21st Century are qualitatively different from anything that we’ve had to face up to before,” he told reporters before the opening of the festival. Chief among these challenges for Sir David is the issue of climate change. When he was the government’s top scientist, he made the famous remark that the threat from climate change was bigger than the threat posed by terrorism. He said alternatives to fossil fuels were desperately needed to power a civilisation that would number some nine billion people by mid-century - nine billion people who would all expect a high standard of living. “We will have to re-gear our thinking because our entire civilisation depends on energy production, and we have been producing that energy very largely through fossil fuels; and we will have to remove our dependence from fossil fuels virtually completely, or we will have to learn how to capture carbon dioxide from fossil fuel usage,” he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7603257.stm

Mr. Friedman exhorts sacrifice to stem rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss. He wants a green revolution as part of nothing less than “nation building” in America. He also says that renewable energy driven by technology plays to American strengths: great laboratories and entrepreneurs, a start-up culture of risk and reward. “Our addiction to oil,” he writes, “makes global warming warmer, petrodictators stronger, clean air dirtier, poor people poorer, democratic countries weaker, and radical terrorists richer.” If the United States gets serious, it will dominate, creating not just jobs but also whole new industries. Washington should shift current incentives by making the cost of hydrocarbons higher with new taxes until clean industries achieve scale and can compete without subsidies. To Americans who abhor talk of higher taxes, Mr. Friedman asks, would you rather shell out to the Saudi, Russian and Venezuelan treasuries, as you now do, or to the United States Treasury?
1.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/business/07shelf.html?ref=business

Australian farms make more money selling water than growing grain
Across the world, speculators are looking to water as a new profit engine as supplies dwindle, caught between booming populations demanding more water and climate change threatening its availability. Australia has for 25 years had a unique water market to better share supplies among farmers but allocating more water than rivers and dams could spare. With drought gripping some areas for a decade, prices for a megalitre of seasonal water - enough for an Olympic pool - are peaking at over US$ 500 (A$600).
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=565&fArticleId=4588994