This Pakistani flooding disaster, really a catastrophe, has been on the front page in the Middle East though it is receiving much less exposure here at home. Recently I was in Abu Dhabi, and had a view of TV news from my hotel that contrasts with what I see here in the S.F. Bay area on the news, and on our local internet.
Al Jazeera (Doha, English) has been on it from the beginning, and suggested that this is an expected part of global heating. They showed how the heated portion of Russia drew the monsoon to the north and shifted the rain pattern in Pakistan and parts of India to the north. Of course, you can't extrapolate from one weather event to climate, but statistically the influence of climate on weather is going to become increasingly visible.
Unfortunately, once society grasps the severity of the challenge, we may be past one or more of the climate tipping points and without the resources to effectively respond, having squandered the resources on stupid consumption.
I gave money to a charity that feeds people in disaster zones, and to Medicins Sans Frontieres, and only wish that I had more to give.
At the beginning of the flooding, extremist groups were trying to exploit the government's inability to effectively help the millions of people who are homeless, lost crops, lost livestock, lost family members, and who are without any food or source of income. This political exploitation of any shock is fairly routine in the west, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that a news organization would suggest that it's occurring here as well. In fact the Pakistani government also uses this argument to ask for money. The magnitude of the crises should be enough to galvanize folks to aid fellow humans- forget inept government, forget inept extremist groups who can't affect the rain, there are millions of folks without and many will perish.
No doubt this is just a wake up call, it may be expected that deserts will become voracious and extend to areas that are now the breadbasket of the world, and that extreme precipitation events will become more numerous. The consequences of such events will become even more serious as the ice mass in the mountains reduces, releasing the flow to the rivers in a sharper peak.
Naturally we can expect huge flows of humanity leaving one disaster for greener pastures, driven by hunger or water (too much or too little) as well.
This event is a wake up call, may we hear and understand, then act with compassion to mitigate the climate heating, to bring relief for fellow beings.
As the proverb goes "we live in interesting times"
Quite scary.
Bruce
