Praying
to the Gods for Rain
4
February, 2015
Brazilian
graffiti artist Paulo
Ito in São Paulo
While
capitalist carbon man clings to his position atop the billions
of energy slaves constructed over shifting sands of
geologic time, the stable weather regime of the Holocene is being
pulled right out from under our feet.Governments
pray to the gods for rain as
the Earth’s glaciers melt away and climate chaos unfolds
around us:
…In
2015, the party in power, the Workers’ Party (PT), still thinks the
divine will provide for everything, making it rain so that
hydroelectric plants can generate power for the people. This is not
surprising for a government whose minister of science, technology and
innovation believes that global warming is a tool used by imperialism
to control the poor countries. For the current Government, any
intervention by man in nature seems mysterious and unpredictable in
its consequences…
What
impresses most in government pronouncements is their view of nature
as indomitable and wholly unpredictable. Any measure involving future
projections is absolutely absurd and unfeasible for the government,
which works in cycles of four years (up to the next election). If
hydroelectric plants run out of water, we can only pray for rain to
restore the dams to their usual levels. If potable water runs out,
only nature can replenish the reservoirs. Like tribesmen for whom any
human interference in climate is anathema, every solution proposed by
the government is an appeal to fortune and divine grace.
…Brazilian
politicians should be wary, however. Divine grace periodically
answers the call for rain. And with the gift of rain, periodically
Brazilian cities are flooded, hundreds die, and thousands are
displaced. Even though that happens anually, without fail, the
government floods are absolutely unpredictable, too. Well, what can
we do? Let’s pray for rain. But not a lot.
Three
primary elements have converged to make the present drought in
Brazil the worst in its recorded history, threatening to bring
the megacity down:
- anthropogenic global warming(AGW)
- rampant deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
- gross mismanagement of water resources and government corruption
The
first factor is planet-wide and beyond the ability of any one
state, no matter how powerful, to solve alone. The accelerated
warming that is happening twice as fast in the Arctic as any
other region is known as Arctic
amplification.
This runaway warming of the Arctic is a result of the radiative
forcing of GHGs, water vapor, and dark aerosol particles combined
with increased solar absorption from loss in Arctic albedo.
Consequently, the equator-to-pole temperature gradient is being
weakened, meridional
heat transport is decreasing,
and sea levels are rising. These changes are altering the polar jet
stream and affecting such things as ocean salinity, currents and
oxygen levels. A recent study revealed that within a matter of 100
years, the Earth’s oceans have undergone extensive
and abrupt changes in oxygen levels when the ice caps melted in
the past. The early phases of a mass extinction level event are
taking place right before our eyes, but humans view the world
through anthropocentric rose-colored glasses, oblivious to such
dangers happening on a time scale of more than a few decades.
Ten
years before Jennifer
Francis’ work on
the effects of climate change to jet stream patterns, scientists
had predicted that
the loss of Arctic sea ice would warm the oceans and give rise to
heated air columns which would act as powerful blocking patterns,
altering jet streams and preventing rains from reaching California.
The findings of their models are eerily similar to the recent weather
phenomenon called the “ridiculously
resilient ridge”
which has continued to block any significant amount of moisture from
reaching California for the past two years. Weather reports from
Brazil describe similarly persistent formations of warm air columns:
Similar
to last year, a giant dome is now forming over the heartland of
Brazil that is blocking moisture out in eerily the same manner as it
did a year ago. The
reason for this may have little to do with natural occurring weather
patterns, but climate change from deforestation from the Amazon,
where experts have warned this could be the outcome and that drought
could occur with increased frequency. Rather than regular rainfall,
the areas directly impacted are getting both extremes with intense
drought followed by above average rains and then turning dry again.
– Jan
2015
Droughts
are persisting in both Brazil
and California,
as well as many
other parts of the world.
It has been known for a long time that global
warming would result in drought and crop failures,
an enormously destabilizing factor to any government. To
compound the problem, humans are pumping water
from aquifers much faster than natural processes can replenish them.
Both El Niño and La Niña weather phenomenon are projected to double
in frequency:
…The
paradox is that global warming could also increase the intensity of
not just hotter-than-usual seasons but also cool or cold episodes
that would trigger unusual or extreme weather responses far from the
ocean’s cool centre.
So
some parts of the world are likely to experience blazing drought,
followed by catastrophic floods, while across the ocean, other
nations will have torrential rain and then unseasonal drought, every
13 years or so.
Brazil
drought as of Dec 2014:
The
second factor of deforestation is also planet-wide and its
effects are not confined to the area in which it takes place.
A recent
study indicates
that a denuded Amazon will have international ramifications:
…The
researchers report in
the Journal of Climate that an Amazon stripped bare could mean 20
percent less rain for the coastal Northwest and a 50 percent
reduction in the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water
for cities and farms in California. Previous research has shown that
deforestation will likely produce dry air over the Amazon. Using
high-resolution climate simulations, the researchers are the first to
find that the atmosphere’s normal weather-moving mechanics would
create a ripple effect that would move that dry air directly over the
western United States from December to February…
…”The
big point is that Amazon deforestation will not only affect the
Amazon — it will not be contained. It will hit the atmosphere and
the atmosphere will carry those responses,” Medvigy said.
“It
just so happens that one of the locations feeling that response will
be one we care about most agriculturally,” he said. “If you
change the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, where most of the
irrigation for California’s Central Valley comes from, then by this
study deforestation of the Amazon could have serious consequences for
the food supply of the United States.”…
40%
of the Amazon has already been clear-cut or degraded to
some degree, putting Brazil’s rainmaker well within the
tipping point for irreversible die-off as discussed in the prior
blog post.
Deforestation of Amazonia will lead todesertification
of the major agricultural regions in the south-east of Brazil.
Speaking of Brazil’s drought counterpart to the north, alarming
news was recently reported that California
has lost half of its big trees since 1930.
The following GIF image spanning the years 2001 through 2013
illustrates deforestation in Latin America(Brazil/Amazon). It was
compiled by me from data at Global
Forest Watch.
The spreading pink color represents tree cover loss:
And
a closer look at Amazon deforestation with NASA
landsat imaging:
Brazil’s
leading climate scientist, Dr Antonio Donato Nobre, is calling for a
wartime effort to restore the Amazon and reverse the drought effects
caused by its deforestation which equates to 184 million football
fields worth of rainforest. While I’m not optimistic, small
miracles have happened in Brazil such as the replanting
of Tijuca Forest by hand.
Nonetheless, the devastation wrought by man swamps all his
restoration efforts. Virtually all of the Atlantic forests that once
extended along the entire Brazilian coastline have been cut
down since colonists arrived in the 1500s.
Humans are wrecking the Earth in myriad ways, and sea
level rise will become the ultimate destroyer:
The
third factor of gross mismanagement of water resources and government
corruption is truly what exacerbated the drought problem for the
city of São Paulo. Since the 1970s, there were professors
of ecology and hydrology at São Paulo University and in the
government who warned of a future water crisis if steps were not
taken to conserve and recycle water as well as plan new
infrastructure for adequate water supply, as
this article reveals.
Some suspect that the problem with São Paulo’s water supply
really began whenSabesp,
the company that manages the city’s water, was partially privatized
in the 1990s (i.e. profits over long-term planning). Sabesp is owned
50.3% by the state and the rest by private investors who have made
excellent returns over the years. Investments in infrastructure
appear to have been sacrificed for shareholder payouts. With
the Cantareira system starting to fail in 2012/13, billions of
dollars in dividends were still being paid out to shareholders, yet
nothing was done to stop the unfolding collapse of São Paulo’s
water system. In fact, government and Sabesp officials continued
to deny the seriousness of the problem until just
recently when
they were planning to scrape the bottom of the Cantareira
System for the last
drop of brown sludge.
Is it any surprise that disaster capitalism had a role in this
crisis? An article entitled ‘Cantareira:
a new word for when politics is put ahead of public interest‘ sheds
light on much of the corruption, mismanagement, and privatization
of water:
…São
Paulo produces 60% of Brasil’s Ethanol, and Agencia
Publica attempted to use a freedom of information request to
force SabeSP to reveal details of their contracts of supply with the
biggest industrial & agricultural companies in the state. SabeSP
have so far refused…
…A
United Nations report placed the responsibility for the crisis
squarely on Sao Paulo state government & SabeSP’s shoulders, a
report which Geraldo Alckmin attempted to make them alter,
exonerating his administration, a
request they refused...
…Geologists
have also been studying
plans to
open up the enormous Guarani
Aquifer to
exploitation in order to alleviate the crisis. The World Bank already
funded research in the late 1990s on the underground system, during
the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Their contract with
Brazil to support this research stipulated that any future use as a
water resource had to be privatised, but once that contract expired a
decade later, Brazil refused to renew on the same terms…
With
no time left to properly prepare for a megacity of 20 million people
without water, São Paulo’s plan is to divert
a river from another area hit by drought and
that will take nearly 2 years to complete. The training
for riot control that
São Paulo’s military police received from the FBI last year may
come in handy for more than just the World Cup.
Brazil
Cities Cancel Carnival Because of Drought
Brazil's
worsening drought has been linked to both climate change and
deforestation which have limited rainfall, say experts.
7
February, 2014
Several
cities in the southeast of Brazil have called off Carnival this year
due to a serious drought that has plagued the region for months and
shows no signs of abating.
Brazil
is famous for its Carnival, a week-long street festival where people
party day and night, bringing Samba music and elaborate colorful
costumes to the street, to mark the beginning to Lent. This year's
Good Friday, which marks the beginning of Carnival, lands on Friday,
Feb. 13.
However,
at least 15 cities and towns in the southeastern states of Minas
Gerais and San Paolo have already called off all or parts of their
Carnival festivities because of the region's water crisis. Both
states have been suffering from drought for more than a year, with
the water situation worsening. This has been the regions' worst
drought in at least eight years.
In
December, authorities warned that the city of San Paolo in San Paolo
State – Brazil's largest and most populous city – had
already tapped
into its emergency water reserves
and had merely two to three months left of guaranteed water supply.
Though
Carnival is still set to go ahead in San Paolo, many city counselors
have called for its cancellation. However, other cities in the state
have chosen to air on the side of caution.
“We
have canceled the street Carnival to stop tourists coming to the
city, so the city is quieter during Carnival. We don’t have good
conditions to have a big celebration and one of the reasons is the
water crisis,” said Marcelo Daniel, the Secretary of Culture in the
town of Araras, San Paolo.
Larger
areas such as Oliveira, Minas Gerais also canceled their Carnival
celebrations, which usually attracts about 20,000 tourists.
“Never
in the history of our city has something like this happened,” said
Antônio Penido, chief of staff and president of Oliveira’s
Carnival Commission. “With broken hearts, we made the decision.”
Brazil's
worsening drought has been linked to both climate change
anddeforestation in
the Amazon. According to Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist
at Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE), these two
issues combined are drastically reducing the release of billion of
liters of water into the atmosphere by rainforest trees, reducing
rainfall in the south.
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