Aquilo que a Europa sente neste momento, uma pressão intensa de migrações, com todas suas as consequências sociais, políticas e humanas, é, através das alterações do clima, apenas o início de uma vaga intensa de deslocações e gigantescas pressões e desafios ...
Os mais atentos tinham consciência disto e foram avisando …
mas só agora, que os primeiros verdadeiros efeitos das Alterações do Clima são
sentidos directamente e são inegáveis , os “media”começam a dar verdadeira
atenção a este prelúdio de Apocalipse.
OVOODOCORVO, pragmáticamente e de forma realista, não
partilha do tom optimista e irrealísticamente conciliador deste video ...
OVOODOCORVO
"In 2017, storms, floods, and droughts displaced 18
million people from their homes worldwide. And by some estimates, over the next
three decades, 200 million people may need to leave their homes to escape the
same kind of disasters, made worse by climate change. Where in the world will
all these people go?"
Heat: the next big inequality issue
In India, 24 cities
are expected to reach average summertime highs of 35C by 2050. Photograph:
Yasmin Mund/Barcroft Media
The deadly global heatwave has made it impossible to ignore:
in cities worldwide, we are now divided into the cool haves and the hot
have-nots
by Amy Fleming with Ruth Michaelson and Adham Youssef in
Cairo, Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem, Carmela Fonbuena in Manila and Holly
Robertson in Phnom Penh
Cities is supported by
Rockefeller FoundationAbout this content
Mon 13 Aug 2018 10.42 BST Last modified on Mon 13 Aug 2018
16.28 BST
When July’s heatwave swept through the Canadian province of
Quebec, killing more than 90 people in little over a week, the unrelenting
sunshine threw the disparities between rich and poor into sharp relief.
While the well-heeled residents of Montreal hunkered down in
blissfully air conditioned offices and houses, the city’s homeless population –
not usually welcome in public areas such as shopping malls and restaurants –
struggled to escape the blanket of heat.
Benedict Labre House, a day centre for homeless people,
wasn’t able to secure a donated air-conditioning unit until five days into the
heatwave. “You can imagine when you have 40 or 50 people in an enclosed space
and it’s so hot, it’s very hard to deal with,” says Francine Nadler, clinical
coordinator at the facility.
Fifty-four Montreal residents were killed by this summer’s
heat. Authorities haven’t so far specified whether any homeless people were
among them, but according to the regional department of public health, the
majority were aged over 50, lived alone, and had underlying physical or mental health
problems. None had air conditioning. Montreal coroner Jean Brochu told
reporters that many of the bodies examined by his team “were in an advanced
state of decay, having sometimes spent up to two days in the heat before being
found”.
Dying in a heatwave is like being slowly cooked. It’s pure
torture ... this heat can kill soldiers, athletes, everyone
Professor Camilo Mora
It was the poor and isolated who quietly suffered the most
in the heat – a situation echoed in overheated cities across the world. In the
US, immigrant workers are three times more likely to die from heat exposure
than American citizens. In India, where 24 cities are expected to reach average
summertime highs of at least 35C (95F) by 2050, it is the slum dwellers who are
most vulnerable. And as the global risk of prolonged exposure to deadly heat
steadily rises, so do the associated risks of human catastrophe.
Last year, Hawaiian researchers projected that the share of
the world’s population exposed to deadly heat for at least 20 days a year will
increase from 30% now to 74% by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to
grow. (It will rise to 48% with “drastic reductions”.) They concluded that “an
increasing threat to human life from excess heat now seems almost inevitable”.
“Dying in a heatwave
is like being slowly cooked,” said lead author Professor Camilo Mora at the
time of publication. “It’s pure torture. The young and elderly are at
particular risk, but we found that this heat can kill soldiers, athletes,
everyone.”
Killer temperatures
The effects of heat
haze is seen as pedestrians cross a street during a heatwave in Tokyo.
The year 2018 is set to be among the hottest since records
began, with unprecedented peak temperatures engulfing the planet, from 43C
(109F) in Baku, Azerbaijan, to the low 30s across Scandinavia. In Kyoto, Japan,
the mercury did not dip below 38C (100F) for a week. In the US, an unusually
early and humid July heatwave saw 48.8C (120F) in Chino, inland of Los Angeles.
Residents blasted their air conditioners so much they caused power shortages.
Urban areas are reaching these killer temperatures faster
than those that are less populated. Cities absorb, create and radiate heat.
Asphalt, brick, concrete and dark roofs act like sponges for heat during the
day and emit warmth at night. Air conditioning is a lifesaver for those who can
afford it, but it makes the streets even hotter for those who can’t.
“Urban heat islands, combined with an ageing population and
increased urbanisation, are projected to increase the vulnerability of urban
populations, especially the poor, to heat-related health impacts in the
future,” a US government assessment warned.
The World Health Organisation says that 60% of people will
live in cities by 2030, and the more densely populated they become, the hotter
they’ll get. Considering that recent predictions warn temperatures in South
Asia will exceed the limits of human survival by the end of the century, every
degree counts. Even this year, 65 people have perished from nearly 44C (111F)
heat in Karachi, Pakistan – a city used to extreme heat.
These problems are worse for vulnerable or low-income
populations living near traffic in poor housing with no air conditioning
Tarik Benmarhnia, public health researcher
But the impact is not evenly distributed. For example, there
is a strong correlation between an area’s green spaces and its wealth; when
shade from tree canopies can lower surfaces’ peak temperature by 11–25°C,
“landscape is a predictor for morbidity in heatwaves”, says Tarik Benmarhnia,
public health researcher at University of California San Diego. A review paper
he recently co-authored found that people living in less vegetated areas had a
5% higher risk of death from heat-related causes.
In 2017, researchers at University of California, Berkeley
were able to map racial divides in the US by proximity to trees. Black people
were 52% more likely than white people to live in areas of unnatural “heat
risk-related land cover”, while Asians were 32% more likely and Hispanics 21%.
Air pollution is more deadly in these areas, too, as nitrous
oxides generate ozone when heated by the sun, inflaming airways and increasing
mortality risk. “These problems are worse,” says Benmarhnia, “for vulnerable or
low-income populations living near traffic in poor housing with no air
conditioning.”
But air conditioning will remain out of reach for many, even
as it increasingly becomes a necessity. In 2014, Public Health England raised
concerns that “the distribution of cooling systems may reflect socioeconomic
inequalities unless they are heavily subsidised,” adding that rising fuel costs
could further exacerbate this. And when we need to use less energy and cool the
planet, not just our homes and offices, relying upon air conditioning is not a
viable long-term plan – and certainly not for everyone.
‘In Cairo everything is suffocating’
Most of the research into heatwaves and public health has
focused on western countries; Benmarhnia says more studies have been done on
the city of Phoenix, Arizona, than the entire continent of Africa. But the
problem is global, and especially pronounced across urban slums such as the
ashwiyyat in Cairo, where temperatures during the city’s five-month-long
summers have peaked at 46C (115F).
Traditionally Egyptians built low buildings close together,
forming dense networks of shaded alleyways where people could keep cool during
summer. But the rapid construction of high-rises and decreasing green spaces
have made one of the fastest-growing cities in the world increasingly stifling.
Subsidy cuts have brought about a rise of 18-42% in electricity costs, affecting
many poor residents’ options for cooling down.
Um Hamad, 41, works as a cleaner and lives with his family
in a small flat in Musturad in the city’s north. Though he considers them lucky
to live on the relatively cool first floor, “in Cairo everything is
suffocating”, he says. Hamad use fans and water to keep cool inside, but the
water bill is becoming expensive . “There’s always that trick of sleeping on
the floor, and we wear cotton clothes ,” he says. “The temperatures are harder
to deal with for women who wear the hijab, so I always tell my daughters to
wear only two layers and to wear bright colours.”
In a tight-knit cluster of urban dwellings in Giza, to
Cairo’s south, Yassin Al-Ouqba, 42, a train maintenance worker, lives in a
house built from a mixture of bricks and mud-bricks. In August, he says, it
becomes “like an oven”. “I have a fan and I place it in front of a plate of ice
so that it spreads cold air throughout the room. I spread cold water all over
the sheets.”
Manila: ‘It gets hellish in summer’
In tropical Manila in the Philippines, where highs above 30C
are intensified by stifling humidity, air conditioning is a luxury even for
those in medical care. The Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital is said to have
one of the world’s busiest maternity wards, with free contraception only
recently made available in the predominantly Catholic country.
An air-conditioned private room costs 650 Philippine pesos
per night – less than £10, but far beyond the means of most mothers-to-be, who
end up in wards reliant on fans buzzing softly on wall mounts. “These fans work
nonstop 24 hours a day, so they never last a year,” says Maribel Bote, a nurse
at the hospital for 28 years.
The problem is compounded by regular overcrowding: in the
maternity ward, known as ground zero of the country’s overpopulation crisis, as
many as five mothers have been forced to share one bed. “It gets hellish in the
summer – the fans blow hot air,” says Bote. “You’ll see the mothers using paper
fans to cool themselves.”
In Cambodia, which has seen devastating heatwaves and
drought in recent years, surviving the heat is as much a question of status for
prisoners as it is for civilians. In the early 2000s Chao Sophea, 30, spent
more than two years at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison after being convicted on
drug charges, which she denies. At the time she was three months pregnant;
Sophea’s child spent its first year in an overcrowded cell designated for
pregnant women and new mothers.
We slept like smoked fish on a skewer. There was no air
conditioning, not even a fan
Former Prey Sar prisoner
“It was actually a steaming room,” says Sophea today. “I was
using a fan made of a palm leaf to cool my baby down – that was what I could
afford. There was a tiny hole in the wall, but can you imagine how much air you
would absorb in such a crowded space? We made a request for an electric fan,
but it never arrived.”
An environmental activist who wishes to remain anonymous
says he shared a cell of about four square metres with at least 25 other men
when he was held in Prey Sar’s men’s wing earlier this year. “We slept like
smoked fish on a skewer. There was no air conditioning, not even a fan.”
Others may be able to secure better conditions. A 2015
report by the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights
stated that “some prisons reportedly house ‘VIP cells’ for well-connected
prisoners or those able to pay for single-cell accommodation,” and these are
believed to be air conditioned.
Jordan: in a metal box in the desert
Compounding the threat posed by the changing climate is the
refugee crisis. The two are intimately linked, with extreme weather events
often a factor in social, political and economic instability. A paper published
in the journal Science in December found that if greenhouse gas emissions were
not meaningfully reduced global asylum applications would increase by almost
200% by the end of the century.
On a plain north of Amman, some 80,000 Syrians live in the
Za’atari refugee camp, a semi-permanent urban settlement set up six years ago
and now considered Jordan’s fourth-largest city. Hamda Al-Marzouq, 27, arrived
three years ago, fleeing airstrikes on her neighbourhood in the outskirts of
Damascus.
Her husband had gone missing during the war, and she was
desperate to save her young son and extended family. Eight of them now live in
a prefabricated shelter, essentially a large metal box, which Al-Marzouq says
turns into an oven during the summer.
It’s suffocating. We soak the towels and try to breathe
through them
Hamda Al-Marzouq, Za’atari camp resident
“It’s a desert area, and we’re suffering,” she says by phone
from the camp. “We have different ways of coping. We wake in the early morning
and soak the floor with water. Then we sprinkle water on ourselves.” There is
no daytime electricity, so fans are useless. When power does arrive at night,
the desert has already cooled.
Many days, her family will wait until the evening to walk
outside, wrapping wet towels around their heads. But the biggest problem are
sandstorms, which can arrive violently during the summer months and engulf the
camp for days. “We have to close the caravan windows,” she says, adding the
room then gets hotter. “It’s suffocating. We soak the towels and try to breathe
through them.”
Al-Marzouq’s five-year-old son suffers respiratory problems
and keeps getting infections, while asthma is rife across the camp.
Water has also been an issue, with demand in northern Jordan
– one of the most water-scarce countries in the world – surging following the
refugee arrivals. A Unicef-led operation will see all households connected to a
water network by October, which Al-Marzouq says has been a significant help.
“We used to collect water with jerry cans and had to carry
it for long distances. Now, with the water network being operational, things
are much easier. We don’t have to fight in a long queue to get our share of
water. Now there is equity.”
Across the board, lack of equality has been found to feed
the urban furnaces. The US researchers who in 2013 uncovered the racial divide
in urban heat vulnerability discovered that the more segregated a city was, the
hotter it was for everyone. Rachel Morello-Frosch, one of the co-authors, told
the LA Times at the time that “this pattern of racial segregation appears to
increase everyone’s risk of living in a heat-prone environment”.
Treating cities as a whole, ghettos and all, is a more
effective way to tackle extreme urban heat, they found. Researchers recommended
planting more trees and increasing light-coloured surfaces to reduce the
overall heat island effect, adding that urban planning to mitigate future
extreme heat “should proactively incorporate an environmental justice
perspective and address racial/ethnic disparities”.
Cities will have to rethink how we prepare for these
emergencies and what we’re able to offer to all of our citizens
Francine Nadler, Benedict Labre House
Working to break social isolation, says Benmarhnia, “is a
win-win situation”, with the added benefit of bringing the “invisible” people
most at risk – like the homeless, and illegal immigrants – back into the
community, where they can be looked after.
In at least one of the world’s hottest countries, steps are
starting to be taken. India recently announced that a series of common-sense
public health interventions have led to an enormous reduction in heat-related
deaths – from 2,040 in 2015, to a little over 200 in 2017. Successful measures
included unlocking the gates to public parks during the day, distributing free
water, and painting the roofs of slum communities white, knocking 5C off
internal temperatures.
Montreal first implemented a similar heat action plan in
2004, reducing mortality on hot days by 2.52 deaths per day, but as the heat
waves intensify, it is likely that this will need to be reassessed. Nadler says
the devastating impacts of global warming are only just beginning to dawn on
everyone. “Cities will have to rethink how we prepare for these emergencies and
what we’re able to offer to all of our citizens – from the most affluent, to
the most vulnerable.”
Additional reporting by Ruth Michaelson with Adham Youssef
in Cairo, Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem, Carmela Fonbuena in Manila and Holly
Robertson in Phnom Penh
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