By Gilbert Mercier and Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. MLK could easily have built a movement to supply food, blankets, and diapers to needy African Americans. Decades later, as climate change exacerbates life for those already on the edge, the arguments are the same: do we put a band-aid over the lash wounds, or do we stop those who administer the beatings?
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. While Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Caribbean and the US eastern seaboard, Typhoon Son-Tinh tore through the Philippines, China and Vietnam. The dead from the mudslides, floods and violent waves were caught by surprise or lacked the wherewithal to move to higher ground. They were overwhelmingly poor.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Haitian impression of being in the center of a world vortex could not be truer when it comes to climate change. As a result of carbon (mostly carbon dioxide and methane) emissions due burning of fossil fuels by industrialized countries, global sea levels have risen one inch over the last decade alone.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. As linguistic and culturally diversity disappear, so too does biological diversity. This is because the world’s indigenous cultures know best how to create the conditions to maintain species and keep ecosystems functioning in areas where humans also live.
Continue reading →By Patricia Grogg, IPS. The impact of Hurricane Isaac in the Caribbean region highlighted both the fragility of some countries in the face of extreme meteorological events, which are expected to become more intense, and the different strategies adopted to mitigate the risk of disasters. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Patricia Grogg, IPS. The Dominican Republic (DR) could lose about one fifth of its territory to rising sea levels. In the DR, where over 43 out of every 100 people are poor, and over 16 out of 100 are abjectly poor, 70 percent of the cities are on riverbanks and other waterways that are covered by impoverished urban settlements. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office. According to a study by the Department of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with every 1 degree Celsius rise in Earth’s surface temperature, tropical regions will see 10 percent heavier rainfall extremes, with possible flooding in populous regions.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Like a hulking giant, Isaac has stomped across the Caribbean at practically human speed, for days. Ten miles per hour, 14 mph, and Isaac continues its march northwest and west-northwest, for nearly one week, as if for a rendez-vous. Isaac appears set to revisit Katrina’s old haunts. The timing is identical: midweek, near the end of August.
Continue reading →By Patricia Grogg, IPS. Cuba’s national disaster prevention system has made it the country with the lowest number of storm-related fatalities in the area encompassing the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (English | French | Spanish)
Continue reading →By University of Plymouth Scientists, Phys.org. The tropical regions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans appear to act like a heart: accumulating heat and then pulsing it in bursts across the Earth.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haitian government officials finally did something about Tropical Storm Isaac. They gathered 32 boats and 1250 temporary shelters as peace offerings to the storm gods. Then they gave a press conference at which they demanded that all those in charge of safety — whoever they might be — do their jobs, whatever these might be.
Continue reading →By Brenda Ekwurzel, Union of Concerned Scientists | NOAA | Haiti Chery. Scientific evidence links the destructive power of hurricanes to higher ocean temperatures driven by global warming.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Isaac should hit the island of Hispaniola the night of Thursday August 23-24 with rainfall of 8 to 12 inches, dangerous waves, and storm surges that might raise the coastal waters 3 to 5 feet above normal. With less than 24 hours left for preparations to save lives and property, the Haitian government had done nothing except issue general safety warnings. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Alice Marcondes, Tierramerica via IPS | Envolverde. Phenomena that alter the Amazon ecosystem also strongly affect the release of gases from the rivers. When the temperature rises, the emission of gases accelerates. – Paulo Artaxo. (English | Portuguese)
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