Happy birthday dear tragedy

We in the aid business are getting very good at marking the anniversaries of massive tragedies. Heck, we even win awards for it. Tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes - you can rely on the aid agencies to bring out any number of glossy publications and e-products to mark the first month, second month, third month, six months, nine months, one year, two years… five.. ten.. even 25 (yes, the Chernobyl disaster happened 24 years ago, look out for the reports next year).

Our commemorations generally have an “x months (or years) after the storm/quake/eruption/outbreak/flood life is slowly getting back to normal for villagers in etc and so on”. When it isn’t. Or when “normal” means abject poverty. (photo credit to 12 year old Zhao Lei who entered the photo as part of a Red Cross competition to document life 2 years after the Sichuan quake in China, You can read her story about the photo here and view more entries from this youth photo project here).

Why do we do it? What impact does it have? Of course we have to show the sunny side, otherwise it means we have failed, that years after a disaster people are still living without shelter, clean water, food security, education, infrastructure - much like they were before the disaster, in fact.

We also do it in solidarity but even there I’ve something of a bad taste in my mouth. With the technology we have we ought to be able to let the affected communities plan the commemoration themselves, and tell it like it is, for them. If they want to, of course.

But how critical are we of what we did, of how we spent the money? The media is, finally, nipping at our heels like Jack Russels (maybe we need Rottweilers?), sometimes completely missing the point of course, but at the same time waking us up, copping us on.

And how critical are we of each other? Of the communities themselves and the governments who have the first duty to react and care?

Look at the disasters we responded to in the 80s, or the 90s. How much has changed for the pastoralists of Ethiopia, the children of Somalia? How have we failed to improve living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa? In rural Asia? In the remoter parts of the ex-USSR (where life expectancy is falling - actually it’s falling all over, even in the cities due to poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, violence).

What could be done better?

A release on the wonderful Alernet Expresso tells me: “Aid workers have expressed concern that recovery work in cyclone-affected Myanmar may be hampered by the disbandment of a coordinating group set up to oversee aid efforts.”

There’s the problem for you. All we can really do is express concern, because outrage, shock, disgust, despair, vitriol, sorrow, scorn, spleen and so on and so forth would have us out of the country as quick as you can say “the road to Mandalay”.

I’ve had issues (and pints) with John O’Shea from GOAL at times but I watched him with relish on an Al Jazeera report when he was venting about access to Haiti. 

He was advocating one single leader (actually Obama, a non-starter and he knows it) to go in and take charge. While he was in full flight the anchor wailed “bu..but..what about political sensitivities?” O’Shea barely suppressed a mischievous grin and gave a bitchslap of an answer. “I’m sorry, I’m only a rank  and file  journalist and aid worker. I don’t understand words like political sensitivities when two million people need help.”

Granted, being unaware of sensitivities is a recipe for disaster, but you can be sure O’Shea is well aware of them, despite his protests.

So what to do? Fight the good fight, keep up the work, but ask questions all the time. Use the aid to get the access to ask the questions. Use the access to get the aid in, ask the questions. Keep asking the questions, like Bob Geldof did. “Why hasn’t that man got any food” he repeatedly asked an official in Ethiopia, back in the day. And while it’s a cute trick, it’s still a good strategy.

Don’t put up with bad standards, don’t accept “we can’t do any more”, don’t accept it when our team is working a turnkey operation. Get out there and change things. That’s why we’re doing this job.

Isn’t it? 


/JL

Ethics - not Evidence - can achieve real Climate Justice

The climate change debate gathers pace as the crucial negotiation horizon of Copenhagen lies only 50 days away. HDEO believes there is too much distraction and distortion endlessly debating whether or not this disaster, that drought, or the next typhoon is linked to climate change or not. The fact remains climate change is linked to human behavior, specifically behaviors that strive for unregulated economic growth - whatever the cost. At its most fundamental it is an ethical issue. An issue of climate justice.

We would appear to be living in an increasingly hazardous world. Over the last few weeks we have witnessed wildfires in California, typhoons in the Philippines and the continuation of devastating droughts in East Africa.



There has been a tendency, in the media and among the environment and development community, to attribute human agency to all meteorological hazards - basically, every time the weather "misbehaves" there are people who want to project human agency onto the catastrophe offering the event as "evidence" of climate change.





But unfortunately, it is impossible to link any single anomalous weather event to human-induced climate change.
I wish I could get on my soap box and tell people that their profligate resource-consuming behaviour is causing droughts in Kenya. But as a scientist, I know I can't do this.



While I firmly believe that some of the changes in climate being witnessed around the world today are a result of human-induced climate change, I cannot condone the slipshod analysis of non-specialists who use received wisdom, as opposed to science, to draw links between humans and climate.



There is a simple reason, however, why people are being forced to make links that cannot be proved conclusively by science: They are desperate to force change at all costs. And, frankly, who can blame them?



It would be nice to think that the science would speak for itself. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years; the IPCC also states that warming of the climate system is unequivocal.



In Africa, for example, this warming could reduce yields from rain-fed agriculture by up to 50% and expose 75 to 250 million people to an increase in water stress by 2020.
But sience doesn't stir people's hearts and minds; scientific reason hasn't been a traditional basis for mass behavioural change.
If quantitative reason isn't enough then we have to try to make people realise what is at stake by doing what I have criticised above - linking human behaviour to specific weather events.

USE ETHICS TO DRIVE ACTION
And finally, if that doesn't work, we have to speak to the innate sense of right at the core of most of humanity. We need to use moral philosophy - ethics.



Realising something is wrong should force action. What humans (mainly those in the industrialised North) are doing to the environment for short-term economic growth is wrong.


Indeed, the concept of justice makes everything very clear. Even if you're a climate change skeptic, you cannot deny the fact that if everyone in the world were to live like the average UK citizen, we would need the resources of three Earths simply to exist, let alone "develop".



This simple fact shows that our behaviour, and the economic and political systems that underpin and promote this behaviour, are wrong and unjust.



So climate change as a justice issue becomes much easier. We can move away from the uncertainties of the science that preclude action and we can focus on human behaviour. We can start to conceive of, and work towards, a more sustainable future.
Yet even when climate change is framed as a justice issue there are still barriers to progress. Amazing as it may seem, most people (in the countries that caused the problem of climate change) are simply too busy to worry about the environment and how their actions impact it.



So while I cannot condone ungrounded analysis and "untrue" messaging about climate change, I get why people do it. If facts don't work, if reason doesn't work, if ethics don't work, then what are you left with?



If we want to promote a more reasoned analysis of climate change and want to see "sound" science underpin all aspects of the climate change debate - from local campaigning through to international negotiations - then we have to take action today.



Taking action now will buy time to ensure the ways we mitigate and adapt to climate change are appropriate.
In order to buy time, and to create space for sensible, reasoned analysis of climate change, we need politicians to take concerted action. Unfortunately, most politicians value their economies above nature and therefore actions to address climate change are perceived as secondary especially at a time of global recession.

BLIND GROWTH NOT THE SOLUTION


We are living through crazy times when the blind pursuit of economic growth - the cause of climate change - is perceived to be the solution. It is interesting to note that cancer cells (like the global economy) grow for growth's sake - but eventually destroy their host.



Politicians are going to meet in Copenhagen in December to decide a deal on global climate action. I reiterate the fact that it is impossible to attribute any single catastrophic weather event to human-induced climate change.
But the people I work with in Africa, Asia and Latin America are seeing changes to their weather that are destroying their livelihoods and their ability to flourish as human beings.



If there is even the remotest possibility that these changes could be the result of human activities then I have a moral obligation to take action - and so do you.


The photo above depicts Niuleni artificial islands, part of the Solomon Islands group and now the focus of a Red Cross disaster-preparedness effort that aims to protect against possible climate change impacts like rising sea levels and more intense storms: Photo, George Baragamu, Solomon Islands Red Cross.


This post was written by Mike Edwards and first appeared in Reuters Alertnet. Mike is the climate change adviser for CAFOD.
/PC