Catastrophic droughts in Africa are the norm, claim scientists

 

Researchers believe the drought that struck parts of Northern Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions more, may have been the result of a natural climate cycle. In the past, many scientists thought the drought in the Sahel zone – a band that runs just below the Sahara – was caused by humans overusing natural resources in the region.

But a new study in the journal Science shows that they are a natural part of weather pattern of the area for the last 3,000 years.

If anything the droughts were less severe than those seen historically, with previous periods without rain lasting more than a century.

Catastrophic droughts in Africa are the norm, claim scientists - Telegraph

Britain in 2009: A nation of bullied social networkers who don’t believe in global warming

 

The annual Social Trends study published by the Office for National Statistics presents a revealing portrait of the way we live now.

Nearly two million men aged between 20 and 34 still live with their parents, almost twice the number of women of the same age. The proportion of young adults who are reluctant or unable to leave home has increased by about 300,000 since 2001. Far more are continuing with their studies, while others are unemployed. The lack of affordable housing is the chief deciding factor in living with parents. The proportion of single-person households has doubled since 1971, from 6 per cent to 12 per cent, while the number of marriages in England and Wales – 237,000 in 2006 – was the lowest for more than a century. The average age at which people tie the knot is 31.8 for men and 29.7 for women. In the past 10 years, the number of women under 25 giving birth has overtaken the number marrying by that age.

EDUCATION   LAW and ORDER  EMPLOYMENT   POPULATION

LIFE STYLE   WEALTH  HEALTH   HOUSING   TRAVEL  ENVIRONMENT

and SOCIETY

Britain in 2009: A nation of bullied social networkers who don’t believe in global warming - This Britain, UK - The Independent

UK goes into ecological debt on Easter Sunday

 

Britain is living beyond its environmental means and is increasingly dependent on the rest of the world for its natural resources, a thinktank study has revealed.The recession may have slowed consumption but the New Economics Foundation (Nef) says we are now drawing deep on the cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries of other countries. The research also shows that by tomorrow the country will have used the levels of resources it should consume in an entire year if it were to be ecologically self-sufficient.

 

UK goes into ecological debt on Easter Sunday | Environment | The Guardian

Water shortages go global | Sin aqua non | The Economist

 

THE overthrow of Madagascar’s president in mid-March was partly caused by water problems—in South Korea. Worried by the difficulties of increasing food supplies in its water-stressed homeland, Daewoo, a South Korean conglomerate, signed a deal to lease no less than half Madagascar’s arable land to grow grain for South Koreans. Widespread anger at the terms of the deal (the island’s people would have received practically nothing) contributed to the president’s unpopularity. One of the new leader’s first acts was to scrap the agreement.

Three weeks before that, on the other side of the world, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California declared a state of emergency. Not for the first time, he threatened water rationing in the state. “It is clear,” says a recent report by the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, “that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis.”

Water shortages go global | Sin aqua non | The Economist