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2011: Year of unprecedented environmental woes
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Garry Welch/Released
Happy New Year, everyone!
Best wishes for 2012. Hopefully it will not be the year of environmental catastrophe that 2011 was. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, even if it would slightly reduce my own personal CO2 output.
Let’s have a quick rundown of the stresses and bad headlines that dominated eco-news in 2011.
Firstly:
• The global population reached 7 billion.
• The second worst nuclear incident in history occurred in Fukushima as the result of a catastrophic tsunami.
• Greenhouse gases rose to record levels, Arctic sea ice went down and global temperatures went up.
It was marked on the ground by unparalleled extremes of heat and cold in the US, droughts and heat waves in Europe and Africa and record numbers of weather-related natural disasters.
–Guardian
While Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Pakistan suffered extreme weather in 2010, North American took the cake in 2011, with bills well exceeding $40bn US (over $50bn, according to some sources) in the United States alone. Flooding, tornadoes, drought, blizzard conditions and Hurricane Irene hammered the USA this past year.
Read more about the US’s record breaking environmental troubles in 2011 here.
In Asia and Australia it was devastating floods that caused the most damage, panic and loss of life, while Somalia and the Horn of Africa suffered its worst drought in 60 years. There were also plenty of major earthquakes around the world to shake things up.
But don’t worry too much – there was some good news too. Read more about that and all about 2011, the year of environmental records, in the Guardian.
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Yes, there is some connection between climate change (for example) and oppression. When a dictatorial or oligarchical regime (most, in reality) makes policies that only benefit a few at the expense of the rest you get both environmental and human tragedy. At least some people are fighting back – from Syria to Wall Street – and this is something to offer a bit of hope.
What is very astonishing was the fact that the events were entirely global, every continent had its fair share of ordeal, such as economic, political, and environmental…But I would like to pick one significant and which I think a very positive one. That is the show of people power, example of that was the 18 days non-stop rally and demonstrations of the people of Egypt and Libya to oust and to end the tyranny of their leaders. Then the death of the terrorist leader…For me those were monumental coz those side of the world where people were gagged for the longest time , finally have spoken their minds and somehow redeemed themselves. And of course the fight of the 99% against 1% , which is still on going and probably will takes a lot of time….