Issue 52 Vol III, November 30, 2007

T H I S  O U R  N O R T H  A M E R I C A

Global Warming- Blame the Cows
Khushwant Toor

GOD created this beautiful earth for the animals to inhibit. Now the deadliest of all the animals, man! finds that the Livestock is a major threat to the environment. It seems humans want to share their responsibility for global warming with other natural inhabitants of mother earth. Instead of taming the humans, and controlling global warming created by developments done by mankind; scientist would be now much better off in their works by finding ways to control global warming effects produced by livestock.

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization titled Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation. “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” say the authors of the report.

Actually the report targets the commercialization of Livestock for human consumption. With the increase in affordability around the globe, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes. Hence the global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector.

One wonders how the animals produce these harmful gases. It is the manure which puts the blame on the Livestock. Livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 emission related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. More over it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

The report also blames the Livestock, for the deforestation done by humans to largely accommodate increase in Livestock. It is estimated that the Livestock uses 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, and 33 percent of the global arable land is used for producing feed for livestock. Deforestation in Latin America has consumed about 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon to grazing grounds for Livestock.

The report further warns the businesses that the increase in livestock business is taxing the already scarce water resources of the world, among other things contributing to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, which is responsible for biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Most of all the report highlights that with the increase in Livestock business, Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

The report also suggests some remedies to the Livestock increase problem and the global warming effects produced by it. Primarily it suggests to supports soil conservation methods and promotes controlled livestock exclusion form sensitive areas. Improve animals’ diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure. It also recommends to; improve the efficiency of irrigation systems so as to reduce water contaminations and introducing full-cost pricing for installing water management systems together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

Practical workability of these recommendations seems feasible, however, still depends upon how drastically the governments take steps to implement them. On an individual basis one can help by being consuming fewer non-vegetarians if not becoming a full vegetarian.

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A Final Warning to Humanity
Jyotika J Thukral

“Scientists have finally spoken, clearly and in one voice," was the comment of the  U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on the latest report of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). After a rigorous multi-stage review process that includes 2,500 scientific expert reviewers, 800 contributing authors, and 450 lead authors representing 130 countries, the IPCC warns that "all countries" will be affected by climate change if carbon emissions continue to spiral. By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could lead to an eventual rise in sea levels of up to 1.40 meters. With "strikingly" blunt language, the report reads like "a final warning to humanity," notes Time magazine. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment," declared IPCC chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri.

Worldwide awareness is reached new levels should be clear from the verdict which the Australians delivered past fortnight in defeating the anti environment party, the Conservatives. Australians entered a new political era after electing a Chinese-speaking former diplomat as their first new prime minister in more than a decade, and handing four-term leader John Howard a humiliating loss. Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd's emphatic victory swings Australia toward the political left after almost 12 years of conservative rule, and marks a generational shift that will result in a greater focus on issues such as global warming. Rudd has declared that he would sign the Kyoto Protocol immediately that thus leaves America the only country yet to support this important declaration to end the environment degradation.

This weekend, Grist and Living on Earth sponsored a presidential candidate forum to discuss ways to tackle climate change, in partnership with the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, California LCVEF, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, and the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy. The event was attended by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), former senator John Edwards, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). "[R]educing oil dependence and global warming is the second most important issue among independent voters," states Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress. With "little disagreement among them" on the urgency of climate change, Clinton and Edwards emphasized the need to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050, consistent with the goals of the IPCC, along with a mandatory cap on greenhouse emissions. Such plans to combat global warming can be undertaken with a very modest reduction in global annual GDP growth of 0.12 percent, notes Pachauri.

Earlier this year, the IPCC said it was "more than 90 percent likely" that global-warming was man-made. It now reports "increased confidence in climate science," leading to the conclusion that "the time for doubt has passed. The IPCC has unequivocally affirmed the warming of our climate system, and linked it directly to human activity." This increased consensus pours water on right-wing insistence that there is still debate on climate change science. "The scientific definition of that [climate change] is lacking," maintains White House environmental adviser Jim Connaughton. The traditional media are also at fault in going against the scientific consensus. For example, ABC and CNN regularly air segments claiming global warming is not human-induced.

The IPCC report notes that the effects of climate change are "becoming evident already," and without due action, will be "abrupt or irreversible." The United States is seeing these ramifications today. The normally wet southeastern United States is currently suffering from the worst drought of the past 100 years. Recently, the IPCC reported that the last three decades have seen "a spring/summer warming of 0.87 degrees Celsius," caused by global warming, and "earlier spring snowmelt has led to longer growing seasons and drought." Furthermore, Arizona is currently entering into its second decade of extensive drought. The intensity of hurricanes the recent California wildfires has also been linked to the warming earth.

The IPCC concluded that "reductions in greenhouse gases had to start immediately to avert a global climate disaster," calling on the United States and China to play "a more constructive role." "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said Pachauri. The White House cites the need for "the technology that will make a lasting solution possible" but pushes only "voluntary" emissions reductions. The upcoming Bali conference, which the United States will attend, "is tasked with launching a two-year round of negotiations for intensifying cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2012, when current pledges run out under the Kyoto Protocol." "We cannot afford to leave Bali without such a breakthrough," Ban said. Furthermore, the White House and EPA should cease their "unprecedented obstructionism" and allow California's request that the federal government allow the state to regulate automobile greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act. Finally, Congress can reduce greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2030 compared to business as usual by passing a comprehensive energy bill after Thanksgiving recess.

This is the key document on climate change, and from now on you can forget any others you may have read or seen or heard about. This is the one that matters. It is the tightly distilled, peer-reviewed research of several thousand scientists, fully endorsed, without qualification, by all the world's major governments. Its official name is a mouthful: the Policymakers' Summary of the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment. So let's just call it The Synthesis.

The Synthesis has been distilled from more than 3,000 pages of research published in the three separate parts of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, or AR4, during the course of 2007 – on the science of climate change, on its potential impacts, and the possible remedies.

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Nandigram becomes a weapon of the right wing forces
Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver

THE Nandigram tragic episode, mismanaged right from the beginning as it was, has been an acute embarrassment for the communists. It is now a long stick in the hands of the right wing forces to beat the communists with. The Left Front government of West Bengal led by the CPI (Marxist) has come under pointed criticism from both the right wing political parties and the ultra left forces ever since the violence has gripped Nandigram.

The trouble started early this year when the government proposed to acquire agricultural land for industrialization. It wanted to setup a chemical industrial hub for a multinational company. There was a stiff opposition from the peasants who had organized themselves against a possible eviction. The deaths of 14 peasants in a police firing further aggravated the crisis.

A strong opposition by Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee that was formed to challenge any eviction from the land forced the government to shelve the proposal. Despite this assurance the opposition Trinamool Congress and the Maoists tried to exploit the situation that led to violent clashes between the CPI (M) cadres and their opponents. In fact, the Committee was formed by the Trinamool Congress.

Significantly, this all happened at a time when the Left Front government was celebrating 30 years of its rule in West Bengal. The deaths of the peasants in the police firing and the hooliganism of the CPI (M) cadres against political opponents have marred the celebrations and have left a blot on the history of the Indian communist movement. The approach of the communists towards the land acquisition and industrialization has to be different from the bourgeois parties. The land reform policies of the communists are their strength. Apparently, the communists have compromised on these values in Nandigram.

Although Left Front government is morally responsible for Nandigram episode and has to learn from its mistakes, the unfair criticism coming from the right wing forces leaves no doubt that how these forces are using this issue as a weapon to beat the communists with. The Hindu nationalist BJP and some of its allies are asking the central government to dismiss the West Bengal government and bring the state under president’s rule.

A TV commentary even equated the West Bengal government with the Hindu nationalist BJP government of Gujarat. The commentator suggested that the Left Front government was crushing the dissident voice in West Bengal and people are comparing its Chief Minister, Buddha Dev Bhattacharjee with the Narinder Modi.

Modi government had engineered the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. His government has gained notoriety for turning his state into a laboratory of a Hindu fascist state by either marginalizing the Muslims or forcing them to leave. Equating the Left Front government with the communal Modi government by the mainstream media is not only over the line but is a bit of an exaggeration that tries to dilute the crimes of the Modi government.

The BJP allies like Akali Dal and Trinamool Congress who are determined to see the Left Front government dismissed for a few violent incidents in one part of West Bengal did not react similarly when thousands of innocent Muslims were killed and their women raped in Gujarat. Weren’t those crimes offensive enough to call for a dismissal of Modi government?

Akali Dal that claims to be the party of the Sikhs should remember that the communists did not let the Sikhs die in West Bengal during 1984 when the Congress led government in Delhi had engineered anti Sikh riots in different parts of the country. Rather their ally and the Trinamool Congress leader, Mamta Banerjee had tried to disturb peace while being in the Congress then.  Whereas a loss of 14 human lives in Nandigram has no justification and the Left Front government should be ashamed of this episode, yet the magnitude of Nandigram violence cannot be compared with the two massacres separately orchestrated by the Congress and the BJP.

The BJP and its allies are only trying to take advantage of the differences between the communists and the minority Congress led coalition government of the country. The communists are supporting the government from outside to keep the BJP out of power. For them the Congress is a lesser evil compared to the ultra Hindu nationalist BJP, though they do not trust their economic and foreign policies.

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Congress and the BJP share common economic policies and to some extent foreign policies as well. The communists had vehemently opposed the Indo US nuclear treaty putting both the Congress and the BJP in the tight spot. The BJP which is known for its pro USA position was caught in a dilemma, as the Congress was determined to implement the treaty.

Thanks to Nandigram, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh who felt humiliated after the left had forced his government to abandon the treaty got an opportunity to hit back. Nandigram has made the Congress and the BJP friends who are now trying to isolate the communists as a common enemy. After all, the two parties have always wished to form majority governments and thrive on two parties’ system.

Undoubtedly, the communists have become the victims of a larger conspiracy but their own contradictions and weaknesses have pushed them into this situation. The right wing forces are only trying to take advantage of the situation the Left Front government has created. Power can corrupt anyone. The communists cannot be exception. They should do some self criticism to find where they went wrong otherwise there won’t be any difference left between them and the bourgeois parties.

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