The world’s mountain and glacier regions are facing unprecedented challenges due to climate change, imposing a crippling effect on the people and economies that rely on them, the UN’s weather agency explained on Tuesday [29 October 2019], ahead of a summit to address the world’s rapidly-changing water systems. *
UN News/Daniela Gross | Cordillera Huayhuash in August 2019. The Andes contain 99% of the world’s tropical glaciers and 71% are in Peru.
The earth’s glaciers, snow, permafrost and associated ecosystems, collectively known as the cryosphere, provide drinkable water for half of the world, but as the earth gets warmer, the supply is becoming unpredictable.
DAYLESFORD, Australia, 30 October2019 — About 12,000 years ago, late stone age humans precipitated the neolithic (agricultural) revolution that marked the start of the steady rise to civilization.
Robert J. Burrowes
Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time as the beginning of what is now known as the Holocene Epoch, the geological epoch in which humans still live.
However, since the industrial revolution commencing in about 1750, just 270 years ago, humans have been destroying Earth’s biosphere with such tremendous ferocity that the Earth we inherited at the beginning of the Holocene Epoch is vanishing before our eyes.
24 October 2019 (FAO)* — For as long as he could remember, Benito González from western Mexico had struggled to make ends meet and lived on the margin of society. As many indigenous peoples – anywhere – do.
His life started to change for the better in 2016, when the Government of Mexico and FAO made it possible for Benito and others in his community to grow their own food.They started off with a 200-square-metre greenhouse, a drip irrigation system, and a 5 000-cubic-meter water tank.
24 October 2019 (UN Environment)* — Without nitrogen, most of the world’s crops wouldn’t exist. Nitrogen is to corn, wheat and rice, what water is to fish.
Yearly, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen are applied to crops in the form of fertilizer, helping them grow stronger and better.
But issues arise when nitrogen run-off occurs, polluting air, water and land in the process. It is estimated that nitrogen discharge accounts for a third of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Spearheaded by Sri Lanka, United Nations member states endorsed a proposed roadmap for action on nitrogen challenges called the Colombo Declaration on Sustainable Nitrogen Management
Colombo, 24 October 2019 (UN Environment)* – At a time when the world grapples with the menace of air pollution killing 7 million people prematurely every year, Sri Lanka, with support from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), convened a two-day event at which member states came together to adopt what is being called the “Colombo Declaration” with an ambition to halve nitrogen waste by 2030.
28 October 2019 (World Meteorological Organization)* — The world’s highest peaks, ranging from the Andes to the Alps and the Third Pole to the tropics, are being hit hard by climate change, and the impacts of this are cascading down to some of Earth’s most densely populated areas.
As the candidates needed 45 percent of the vote to avoid a second round, the 47 percent obtained by the Fernandez-Fernandez ticket has been enough to give them the win.
Argentina’s presidential candidate Alberto Fernandez and his running mate, former President Cristina Fernandez, greet supporters during a closing campaign rally in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on October 24, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (posted here fromteleSUR).
27 October 2019 (teleSUR)* — With almost 90 percent of votes counted, Argentinian opposition progressive ticket Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner have won over right-wing incumbent President Mauricio Macri with 47,75 over 40,76 percent respectively in Sunday’s general elections.
22 October 2019 (UN Environment)* — The environmental interest in nitrogen (N2), an essential component of the air we breathe, focuses on the conversion of N2 into other chemically reactive forms. Some are vital for life itself and some cause costly and dangerous nitrogen pollution.
Photo by Lynn Betts/ Wikimedia Commons.
“Altogether, humans are producing a cocktail of reactive nitrogen that threatens health, climate and ecosystems, making nitrogen one of the most important pollution issues facing humanity,” the 2018-2019 Frontiers report warns.
“Yet the scale of the problem remains largely unknown and unacknowledged outside scientific circles.”
28 October 2019 (UNHCR)* — In the mid-1970s, Marta Duque’s father sent her from her home in the Colombian city of Pamplona, tucked into a far eastern range of the Andes, to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to work as a live-in maid. She was 12 years old.
STOCKHOLM/ROME, Oct 24 2019 (IPS)*– On October 11, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced that this year´s Peace Prize is awarded to Ethiopia´s prime minister Abiy Ahmed: “For his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.”1 Let us hope that Abiy remains a worthy Peace Prize winner and that warfare and human suffering on the Horn of Africa will finally come to an end.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 