Warming Andes stymies Peruvian potato farmers

Eliza Barclay | San Francisco Chronicle

Coyllur, Peru — For the first half of his life, potato farmer Gregorio Huanuco used the same formula that had dictated the survival of his ancestors for generations.   Huanuco, 48, waited for rains to fall on his small parcel of land to sustain his crops of potatoes as well as various tubers and quinoa. When ripened, his family ate what they needed and sold the surplus in the nearby central city of Huaraz.

But by 1990, Huanuco began noting strange climatic patterns in this village of 500 residents at 11,000 feet in the Andean Cordillera Blanca. They included battering hailstorms, months without rain and warmer winters. By 2005, the quirky weather became more consistent and included a fungus that blanketed his potato crops. Huanuco now worries about earning enough to put food on the table and buy school books for his three children.

“Before, we planted all year long, any month we wanted to,” Huanuco said while eyeing a tiny potato plot. “Now we only get water a few times a year and cannot plant as much, and the pests and diseases keep coming.”

Most climatologists blame global warming for Huanuco’s woes.

“Climate change is bringing new and more frequent diseases during the harvest,” said Cesar Portocarrero, a civil engineer who has been studying the effects of global warming on the Peruvian Andes for decades. “As plagues and temperatures increase, farmers are forced to go higher and higher up the mountains to avoid them. Eventually they’ll have nowhere to go.”

One of the big losers is the 1.8 million potato farmers like Huanuco, who depend on predictable climate. Most are ill prepared to handle new pests and diseases that have materialized as temperature and rainfall patterns have shifted, agronomists say.

A 2006 study published in the journal Science, showed that between 1939 and 1998 temperatures in the Andes increased more than two times the global average. And according to a September 2007 study on climate change by the Overseas Development Institute, a British think tank, countries like Peru can avoid a decline in exports and living standards by shifting technical support from produce vulnerable to climate change like potatoes to more drought-resistant crops.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia, however, has opted to stick with the potato as a way to alleviate poverty by increasing production for domestic and external markets, and has pledged to provide more technical assistance for potato growers. Even though small farmers’ yields have decreased because of climate change, the Garcia administration is pushing farmers both large and small to grow more potatoes. As a result, Peru produced 3.2 million tons in 2007, up from 2.9 million tons in 2004, according to the Exporters Association of Peru.

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Houston, America’s “Energy Capital,” Takes On Global Warming

by Meg Hamill | Red Green and Blue

Responding to the frustratingly slow federal response to climate change, the mayor of Houston revealed his plans to slash the city’s carbon emissions.  Houston’s dense concentration of industry, heavy dependence on cars, and weather, make the southern city into one of the nation’s smoggiest.

Mayor Bill White’s target emission plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 11 percent below 2005 levels by 2010. The target has been described as conservative by some, but the general opinion seems to be that it’s an extremely important step in the right direction.

The goal of this plan is to reduce the city’s impact on the climate by buying renewable power and hybrid cars, replacing lightbulbs, and increasing the energy efficiency of existing buildings, among other strategies.

Neil Carman, an Austin-based air quality specialist for the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter, said  “I think it’s great that the city of Houston is making such a major stab at getting a comprehensive plan in place, even if 2005 is the baseline.”

Under the mayor’s plan, the largest reductions in emissions would come from Houston’s shift to wind energy.  Currently the city already purchase 1/3 of its energy for its municipal facilities from wind-driven sources, and the contract calls for increases over time.

Under the plan, the city would slash emissions of nitrogen oxides to 16 percent below 2005 levels, while emissions of volatile organic compounds would remain the same, despite Houston’s increasing population.

Global Warming – Climate Change – Overview

 

Today we’ll begin a series that looks at important environmental issues. First we’ll examine the rather complicated subject of global warming. This is one debate that is as volatile as politics and religion to many. And it’s not hard to understand why people get worked up about Global Warming. The concept of Global Warming is scary to anyone. The idea that man has become powerful enough to actually “screw up” nature is alarming. We’ll do our best to take a look at this sensitive issue and try to examine both sides of the argument.

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Japan to monitor impact of global warming on 3 World Heritage sites

 

News.Balita.ph

TOKYO, Oct. 4 — The government plans to start establishing a monitoring system next April on the impact of global warming on three World Heritage sites in Japan, government sources said Saturday.

 

The three sites the Environment Ministry and the Forestry Agency plan to monitor are Hokkaido’s Shiretoko Peninsula, the Shirakami mountain range in Aomori and Akita prefectures and Yaku Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, the sources said.

By accurately and promptly assessing changes at the sites, the ministry and agency intend to take various measures, such as expanding protected areas, to limit the harmful effects on nature, they said.

Subject to the monitoring will be various life forms and natural phenomena vulnerable to global warming, the sources said.

Among monitoring targets under consideration are the arrival time of drift ice in waters around the Shiretoko Peninsula, the harvest volume of beechnuts and the situation of bears eating them in the Shirakami mountain range and the locations of plants growing on Yaku Island, they said.

There are concerns that beech forests in the Shirakami mountain range could disappear within 100 years if temperatures continue to rise at the current pace.

The adverse effects of global warming, such as changes in rainfall patterns, are also a cause for concern in Shiretoko and Yaku Island.

The ministry and agency plan to make a final decision on monitoring targets by March 2013 after conducting field surveys and analyzing research data at home and abroad, the sources said.

An increasing number of UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites around the world are in danger due to the impact of global warming, as seen in melting ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain.

Last year, signatory countries to the convention concerning the protection of cultural and natural heritages around the world agreed to monitor World Heritage sites experiencing the impact of climate change. (PNA/Kyodo)

Pennsylvania: DEP Adopts Voluntary Registries for Businesses to Track Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Offsets

PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX

Following the recommendations of the Pennsylvania Climate Change Advisory Committee earlier this week, Acting Secretary John Hanger announced today that the Department of Environmental Protection has taken a critical step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enabling businesses to create solutions that will limit climate change.

During the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, the 21-member panel recommended that DEP officially designate registries, or systems, that businesses can use to voluntarily collect information about their greenhouse gas emissions and document their successes in reducing or offsetting emissions.

DEP accepted the recommendation and adopted The Climate Registry as the emissions registry and three different organizations for offset registries.

“Identifying the sources and amounts of greenhouse gas emissions is essential to creating a robust program to combat climate change,” said Hanger. “This information can provide a roadmap for Pennsylvania businesses to voluntarily participate in national and international programs that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help provide the climate stability Pennsylvania’s economy and infrastructure depend on.”

Pennsylvania joined 30 other states last year in becoming charter members of The Climate Registry, which is a tool that measures, tracks, verifies and publicly reports greenhouse gas emissions accurately, transparently and consistently across borders and industry sectors. DEP has actively worked to create and develop The Climate Registry and its general verification and reporting protocols.

The registry will support voluntary, market-based and regulatory greenhouse gas emissions reporting programs.

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