Editorial
Lukewarm response to JS panels
needs to be addressed
It is everybody’s knowledge that the legislature, judiciary and the executive are three key components of a democratic state, while the executive is expected to remain directly accountable to the legislature in a parliamentary system. The Awami League-led alliance government formed 39 parliamentary committees on different ministries, in the first session of the ninth parliament, with the senior law makers many of whom had served as ministers during the AL’s 1996-2001 regime, to oversee the activities of ministries. Thus, these committees have assumed the role of a mini parliament to which the ministries owe explanations with regard to their activities when demanded by the parliamentary standing committees. The committees’ function, so to speak, underlines the legislature’s primacy and oversight control over the executive branch of the state. Therefore, it is also the responsibility of the ministries to implement the recommendations of their respective parliamentary standing committees to the best of their ability. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Sunday, parliamentary supervision of the executive branch has not gained ground as the ministries’ responses to legislative recommendations and their implementations are below the expected level, alleged a number of heads of Jatiya Sangsad committees.
Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on education ministry, said many well-thought-out recommendations of parliamentary panels were not taken care of adequately. ‘They get stuck up in bureaucratic tangles. We will shortly meet prime minister Sheikh Hasina to seek her assistance in the implementation process,’ said the lawmaker belonging to the Workers Party of Bangladesh, an ally of the Awami League-led coalition. Chairman of the parliamentary watchdog on land ministry, AKM Mozammel Haque has also planned to meet the prime minister for implementation of his committee’s recommendations for reclaiming 43 canals in Dhaka city on which public and private buildings were illegally established, according to the report. A former state minister and now chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on information ministry, Obaidul Kader said the committee’s responsibility was to suggest corrective measures and it was the duty of the government to follow those up. But Kader found the implementation process frustrating. As is found in the report, only a few recommendations of the committees were taken seriously in the last nine months, according to officials at the parliament secretariat.
It is not only surprising but also frustrating because exercising of sovereignty of the people through parliament is a key component of parliamentary system of governance. When its dictates and recommendations are overlooked by any ministry it amounts to no less than a blow to the sovereignty of the people. However, it should not continue any longer. To avert the situation, the prime minister’s intervention in the matter is what is necessitated under the circumstances. One can only hope that the prime minister along with her colleagues will act expeditiously to resolve the crisis in order to make the government functional and uphold an unsullied image of ‘parliamentary democracy’ in the greater interest of the nation.
Acid terror goes uncontrolled
Terrorising by acid throwing is a crime that shows no abatement. Over the last ten months 132 people have fallen victims to acid terror, according to a report in Tuesday’s New Age citing the tally of the Acid Survivors Foundation. As this figure is based on recorded cases, the actual number of victims may be higher still. Acid terror is applied to avenge unrequited love, non-payment of dowry and nowadays in land dispute or any dispute or enmity. There are laws against acid violence, laws against repression of women and also in place is the Acid Control Act; yet due to laxity in enforcement, legal lacunae and half-heartedly prepared charge sheet most perpetrators get away. According to our report, statistics show that 99 per cent of the victims file cases but the criminals somehow get away and only 10 per cent receive punishment, the rest escape during the process of trial. Thus the perpetrators are enjoying a kind of immunity by default.
Acid terror showed slight periodic abatement two years ago but since last year it has again started rising. An ASF survey last year showed that in nine months since January, the cases of acid violence numbered 101. Acid throwing is one of the cruellest crimes whose perpetrators are exclusively males and victims are mostly females. It leaves the victim, even if she survives, traumatised for life. The thugs by just one splash of the dangerous chemical not only maim the victim but make her rehabilitation difficult and she is consigned to a life of unjustified disgrace. Although stigmatising one who has been sinned against rather than the sinner is thoroughly unjust but that is social reality which few women can hope to defy and defeat. As most perpetrators go unpunished the legal deterrence is not working even though harsh punishment has been prescribed. This is one more evidence that law without sincere implementation loses its effect.
We think in many cases investigation is far from foolproof. The law enforcers do not probe how and from whom the acid was procured and who is the supplier and whether he has violated the Acid Control Act. Reports say that acid is as easily obtainable in the market as any consumer item. The president of Acid Merchants Association once admitted that acid is sold in the open market in retail amounts and in many cases acid dealers are not fulfilling the conditions of licence and delivering acid without examining the buyer’s papers which is another violation of the law. Jewellery shops are reportedly a common source of unauthorised procurement of acid. As jewellery shops are too numerous, it may not be possible for the control authorities to keep tab on acid use of every shop. Therefore we suggest that acid be distributed through jewellers’ association on the basis of an approved list of licentiates and the association should be made responsible for any misuse. At the same time more attention has to be given to expanding facilities of treatment and rehabilitation. Why a section of the people of this country has become so malevolent and violence-prone that a common dispute spurs them to resort to acid attack, is a question of social psychology that experts should look into.
The lungs of the earth
Business as usual, with its focus on the annual balance sheet, can hardly continue under conditions of environmental collapse. Governments, focused on the next elections, need to focus on the survival of the next generation writes, Andrew Glikson
The recent warning by Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact, 'We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet' is consistent with the lessons arising from the history of the Earth's atmosphere/ocean system. A rise of CO2-equivalent (including the effect of methane) above 500 ppm and of mean global temperature toward and above 4 degrees Centigrade, projected by the IPCC, Copenhagen and Oxford scientific reports, as well as reports by the world's leading climate science bodies - NASA/GISS, Hadley-Met, Potsdam Climate Impact Institute, NSIDC, CSIRO, BOM - would transcend the conditions which allowed the development of agriculture in the early Neolithic, tracking toward climates which dominated the mid-Pliocene (3 Ma, Ma = million years ago) and further toward greenhouse earth conditions analogous to those of the Cretaceous (145-65 Ma) and early Cenozoic (pre-34 Ma).
Lost all too often in the climate debate is an appreciation of the delicate balance between the physical and chemical state of the atmosphere-ocean-land system and the evolving biosphere, which controls the emergence, survival and demise of species, including humans.
By contrast to Venus, with its thick blanket of CO2 and sulphur dioxide greenhouse atmosphere, exerting extreme pressure (90 bars) at the surface, or Mars with its thin (0.01 bar) CO2 atmosphere, the presence in the Earth's atmosphere of trace concentrations of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitric oxides, ozone) modulates surface temperatures in the range of -89 and +57.7 degrees Celsius, allowing the presence of liquid water and thereby of life.
Forming a thin breathable veneer only slightly more than one thousandth the diameter of Earth, and evolving both gradually as well as through major perturbations with time, the Earth's atmosphere acts as the lungs of the biosphere, allowing an exchange of carbon gases and oxygen with plants and animals, which in turn affect the atmosphere, for example through release of methane and photosynthetic oxygen.
An excess of carbon dioxide in the lungs triggers a need to breathe. When the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere rises above a critical threshold, the climate moves to a different state. Any significant increase in the level of carbon gases triggers powerful feedbacks. These include ice melt/warm water interaction, decline of ice reflection (albedo) effect and increase in infrared absorption by exposed water. Further release of CO2 from the oceans and from drying and burning vegetation shifts global climate zones toward the poles, warms the oceans and induces ocean acidification.
The essential physics of the infrared absorption/emission resonance of greenhouse molecules has long been established by observations in nature and laboratory studies, as portrayed in the relations between atmospheric CO2 and mean global temperature projections.
The living biosphere, allowing survival of large mammals and of humans on the continents, has developed when CO2 levels fell below about 500 ppm some 34 million years ago (late Eocene). At that stage, and again about 15 million years ago (mid-Miocene), development of the Antarctic ice sheet led to a fundamental change in the global climate regime.
About 2.8 million years ago (mid-Pliocene) the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic Sea ice began to form, with further decline in global temperatures expressed through glacial-interglacial cycles regulated by orbital forcing (Milankovic cycles), with atmospheric CO2 levels oscillating between 180 and 280 ppm CO2. These conditions allowed the emergence of humans in Africa and later all over the world.
Humans already existed three million years-ago, however these were small clans which, in response to changing climates migrated to more hospitable parts of Africa and subsequently Asia. About 124,000 years ago, during the Emian interglacial, temperatures rose by about 1 degree C and sea levels by 6-8 meters.
The development of agriculture and thereby human civilisation had to wait until climate stabilized about 8,000 years ago, when large scale irrigation along the great river valleys (the Nile, Euphrates, Hindus and Yellow River) became possible.
Since the industrial revolution humans dug, pumped and burnt more than 320 billion tonnes of carbon which accumulated as the result of biological activity during 400 million years. This 320 billion tonnes of carbon is more than half the carbon concentration of the original atmosphere (540 billion tonnes). As a consequence the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by about 40 per cent, from 280 to 388 ppm.
The world is now witnessing a dangerous shift in the state of the atmosphere-ocean system, an extremely rapid change from the interglacial condition of the Holocene, which began about 11,700 years-ago, to conditions analogous to those of the mid-Pliocene when mean global temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees C higher, and sea levels about 25 +/-12 meters higher, than the early 20th century.
In terms of the combined effects of CO2, methane and nitric oxide, the rise of greenhouse gases has reached about 460 ppm CO2-equivalent, only slightly below the 500 ppm level which correlates with the maximum stability of the Antarctic ice sheet.
The current rate at which CO2 is rising, 2 ppm per year, is unprecedented in the recent history of earth, with the exception of the onset of greenhouse atmospheric conditions following major volcanic episodes and asteroid and comet impacts, which led to the large mass extinctions in the history of the Earth (end-Ordovician, end-Devonian, end-Permian and Permian-Triassic boundary, end-Triassic, end-Jurassic, end-Cretaceous).
Further rise of CO2-equivalent above 500 ppm and mean global temperatures above 4 degrees C can only lead toward greenhouse earth conditions such as those that existed during the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic.
At 4 degrees C advanced to total melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets leads to sea levels tens of meters higher than at present.
Since the 18th century mean global temperature has risen by about 0.8 degrees C. Another 0.5 degrees C is masked by industrial-emitted aerosols (SO2), and further rise ensues from current melting of the ice sheets and sea ice, with loss of reflection (albedo) of ice and gain in infrared absorption by open water, leading to feedback effects.
The polar regions, active as the 'thermostats' of the Earth, are the source of the cold air current vortices and the cold ocean currents, such as the Humboldt and California current, which keep the Earth's overall temperature balance, much as the blood stream regulates the body's temperature and the supply of oxygen.
Unfortunately climate change is not an abstract notion, with consequences manifest around the globe in terms of (1) polar ice melt; (2) sea level rise; (3) migration of climate zones toward the poles; (4) desertification of temperate climate zones; (5) intensification of hurricanes and floods, related to increase in the level of atmospheric energy; (6) acidification of the oceans; (7) destruction of coral reefs.
Which is why the European Union and in recent international conferences defined a rise by 2.0 degrees C as the maximum permissible level. A dominant scientific view has emerged that atmospheric CO2 levels, currently at 388 ppm, need to be urgently reduced to below 350 ppm [5]. This is because, a rise of CO2 concentration above 350 ppm triggers feedback effects, which include:
1. Carbon cycle feedback due to warming, which dries and burns vegetation, with loss of CO2. With further warming, the onset of methane release from polar bogs and sediments is of major concern.
2. Ice/melt water interaction feedbacks melt more ice and ice loss results in albedo loss. Exposed water absorbs infrared heat.
Because CO2 is cumulative, with atmospheric residence time on the scale of centuries to millennia, it may not be possible to stabilise or control climate through small incremental reduction in emission and avoid irreversible tipping points.
Humans cannot argue with the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. Time is running out. What is needed are global emergency measures, including:
1. Urgent deep cuts in carbon emissions by as much as 80 per cent.
2. Parallel Fast track transformation to non-polluting energy utilities - solar, solar-thermal, wind, tide, geothermal, hot rocks.
3. Global reforestation and re-vegetation campaigns, including application of biochar.
Business as usual, with its focus on the annual balance sheet, can hardly continue under conditions of environmental collapse. Governments, focused on the next elections, need to focus on the survival of the next generation.
Good planets are hard to come by.
November 2, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Andrew Glikson is earth and paleoclimate scientist at the Institute of Climate Change, Australian National University
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