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As the Climate Heats Up, Disaster Relief Faces a Sweltering Demand
With climate change exacerbating the destructive impacts of extreme weather, it's marginalized and low-income communities that bear the brunt of the consequences.
Apr 22, 2024
This Earth Day is like no other—our planet reached its highest recorded temperature in 2023, and the climate crisis is rapidly reaching the point of no return. A growing number of climate-related disasters, including floods, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and the like, will continue to wreak havoc and devastate communities across the globe. Climate preparedness and resiliency programs, such as early warning systems, community-based disaster risk reduction, and climate-smart agriculture, are increasingly necessary to prevent damage and keep humanity safe.
Emergency response organizations like CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) are at the forefront of addressing climate catastrophes, providing immediate relief to help rebuild communities, and implementing long-term solutions to mitigate future risks. The devastating impact of these disasters, exacerbated by the climate crisis, is felt most deeply in developing and low-income countries like Haiti and Pakistan.
Exacerbated by the increasingly volatile security situation facing the country where CORE (formerly J/P HRO) began, Haiti is currently ranked in the top 10 of the Climate Risk Index, which combines exposure to extreme weather events and societal vulnerabilities. This ranking indicates its significant susceptibility to the escalating impacts of climate change, affecting the well-being and livelihoods of over 11 million people. Additionally, recent storms have led to an estimated $61 million loss in agricultural production. With the looming threat of intensified environmental disasters like hurricanes and floods, Haiti faces deepening economic repercussions unless proactive measures are implemented.
With climate change intensifying these challenges, the need for urgent actions is clear.
As temperatures rise across South Asia, the volume of meltwater from the Himalayas has notably surged. Scientists further observe that climate change has led to a heightened unpredictability in monsoon rains. Pakistan experienced unprecedented devastation from monsoon rains that began in 2022.
Approximately one-third of the country was submerged, affecting around 33 million people, equivalent to roughly 14% of Pakistan's population. According to Pakistan's Natural Disaster Management Authority, the floods claimed the lives of over 1,700 individuals, with countless others forced to flee their homes. Flooding remains a significant issue for communities to this day. Beyond the extensive property damage, Pakistan's crucial agriculture sector, which serves as a cornerstone of its economy, bore severe repercussions, with many fields left underwater. Authorities in Pakistan estimate that the floods caused approximately $30 billion in combined damages and economic losses.
European Union data show that Pakistan contributes less than 1% to global planet-warming emissions. Despite this relatively low number, Pakistan is ranked as the eighth most vulnerable nation to the effects of climate change, as per the Global Climate Risk Index.
CORE has been at the forefront of the climate crisis in these two countries. After the devastating Pakistan floods in 2022, CORE responded to the initial disaster, ensuring the pressing needs of 80,000 villagers in the south were met through the distribution of food, hygiene, and medical support and the provision of temporary shelter solutions. In the years after that initial response, CORE collaborated with local leaders to help safeguard communities from similar destruction in the future through innovative mitigation works. CORE raised plots of land in entire villages, built sustainable flood walls, and installed water pumps to keep community members safe and give them peace of mind.
In Haiti, where we have deep community roots tracing back to the 2010 earthquake, we've worked with local fishers and farmers in the south to assist them as they face this "new normal." CORE's goal is to help promote sustainable, nature-based solutions to the impact of climate change that will increase the health and longevity of local ecosystems. Through a ridge-to-reef approach, CORE is assisting farmers in planting sustainable crops that will reduce erosion, which will help strengthen the health of nearby reefs that are the cornerstone of the local fish population and a critical source of income and food for these communities. As part of coastal preservation under the ongoing program with the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund, CORE is working with local enterprises to plant new mangroves to restore areas damaged by human activity and improve sanitation as current practices pollute sensitive estuaries.
Domestically, places like California and New Orleans have seen an influx of extreme weather, including wildfires, excessive rainfall, and severe flooding. With climate change intensifying these challenges, the need for urgent actions is clear. The importance of proactive measures such as preparedness initiatives and other adaptation strategies cannot be overstated. These measures are crucial to bolster community resilience and mitigate the potentially catastrophic consequences for at-risk populations.
Over the last decade, CORE, alongside local partners and committed staff, has witnessed the remarkable resilience of vulnerable communities despite facing the worst climate-related disasters. Take our partners, Riverside Development Organisation in Pakistan and Haitian-led Acceso, for instance, who have shown incredible strength and adaptability in meeting immediate and long-term needs. CORE's environmental resilience initiatives have been crucial in equipping local partners and staff with resources and knowledge to confront and mitigate climate challenges, focusing on the hardest-hit populations in affected areas.
The urgency to protect our planet has never been more evident. With climate change exacerbating the destructive impacts of extreme weather, it's marginalized and low-income communities that bear the brunt of the consequences. This underscores the critical need for collective action to support these communities with dedicated action to tackle environmental and social issues head-on. We must all play a part in forging a pathway of climate resiliency and sustainability to ensure the planet and those of us who inhabit it thrive.
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The Climate Crisis Is Salting the Water in Major Coastal Cities
It isn’t just New Orleans that is menaced by sea water intrusion because of human-caused climate change.
Oct 01, 2023
Eric Zerkel and Angela Fritz at CNN report on the great saltwater intrusion that is threatening drinking water over the next few months in New Orleans and towns to its south. The Mississippi delta was created by the silt deposited as the great river flowed south into the Gulf of Mexico, pushing away its salt water.
The head of the New Orleans office of the Army Corps of Engineers, Col. Cullen Jones, is quoted by them as saying that in order to push the saltwater away, the flow rate of the Mississippi needs to be higher than 300,000 cubic feeet per second.
The megadrought that has gripped the American Southwest for two decades, and which has been made substantially more likely by human-caused climate change, has had an unfortunate effect on the Mississippi River, denying it the volume of water that would ordinarily flow into it from rains, snow melt, and other bodies of water. The dry spell from 2000- 2019 has been found by scientists to have seen the driest soil conditions since the year 800 CE, when Harun al-Rashid ruled the Abbasid caliphate from the newly founded capital of Baghdad and Charlemagne presided over the Holy Roman Empire from Aachen.
The rate of the water flow in great rivers is being reduced on several continents by extra heat and desiccation.
Scientists estimate that human-caused climate change, provoked by our driving gasoline cars and heating and cooling our buildings by burning coal and fossil gas, has made the drought 19% worse than it would otherwise have been.
Not only has there been less precipitation, it has been hotter, so water evaporates in greater quantities.
As a result, right now the flow rate of the Mississippi has plummeted to only 150,000 cubic feet per second.
So the saltwater of the Gulf is gradually flowing north into the Mississippi. Eventually it will deprive 800,000 people of drinking water and affect four parishes of New Orleans.
It isn’t good to drink salt water. It causes people to excrete more water than they take in, so they die of dehydration and thirst even while they keep trooping to the toilet to urinate.
Drinking water will have to be brought in by barge, an expensive proposition, or ultimately by a water pipeline, which will be even more expensive.
This problem is not going away. In fact, it will get worse.
The EPA explains, “Climate change is affecting the Southwest. Temperatures have increased by almost 2°F in the last century, with the 2001-2010 decade being the warmest since records began 110 years ago. The length of the frost-free season has increased by 19 days in recent decades. Average annual temperatures are projected to rise an additional 3.5°F to 9.5°F by the end of this century, with the greatest temperature increases expected in the summer and fall. Drought conditions are already common in the Southwest and drought periods are expected to become more frequent, intense, and longer. Drought will affect important water sources, including the Colorado River Basin. Combined with expected population growth, climate change will exacerbate existing stresses.”
So here’s the kicker. It isn’t just New Orleans that is menaced by sea water intrusion because of human-caused climate change.
Basra in Iraq is in the same dilemma. The mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow together in southern Iraq into a body of water called the Shatt al-Arab, which then flows out into the Gulf. The Iran-Iraq War in 1980-1988 was fought in part over ownership of the Shatt al-Arab. Because of drought, heat, and damming works to the north in Iran and Turkey, the flow rate of the Shatt al-Arab has been much decreased. The saltwater of the Gulf is therefore intruding north. Since people irrigate off the Shatt, it has harmed agriculture and date orchards.
This problem is also slated to get worse.
Then there is Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, which was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. It sits at the mouth of the Nile Delta and is also menaced by saltwater intrusion, from the Mediterranean.
When we talk about sea water rise as a result of climate change, we often concentrate on the threat of flooding of coastal areas. It isn’t only that the seas are rising. River deltas suffer from subsidence and so sink over time. And the rate of the water flow in great rivers is being reduced on several continents by extra heat and desiccation. So here is another outcome, the salinization of major sources of fresh water that had made some great coastal cities possible.
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Ahead of Chicago Runoff, New Ad Spotlights 'Trail of Destruction' Left by Paul Vallas
"We've literally seen this man destroy public education, sadly for Black and Brown children," said one parent.
Apr 02, 2023
With Chicago's closely watched mayoral runoff just two days away, the campaign of progressive Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson debuted an ad on Sunday featuring expert and parent testimony on conservative candidate Paul Vallas' education record, including his stints managing school districts in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
The picture they painted was not flattering. One New Orleans parent, identified as Kevin G., said that "Paul Vallas has left a trail of destruction, everywhere he goes."
"We've literally seen this man destroy public education, sadly for Black and Brown children," he added.
Kendra Brooks, a Philadelphia parent and city councilmember, offered a similarly scathing assessment during her appearance in the ad, which the Johnson campaign said will air on broadcast and cable across Chicago until Tuesday's runoff.
"I think folks in Chicago should look at the destruction that he has left behind," said Brooks. "Money was being spent carelessly. Millions of dollars are missing, at the loss of Black and Brown communities."
Watch the two-minute spot:
Vallas' is an ardent school privatization advocate who served as CEO of Chicago Public Schools from 1995 to 2001 before moving on to head the School District of Philadelphia and the Recovery School District of Louisiana.
As The TRiiBE's Jim Daley wrote in a detailed examination of Vallas' record:
In each city, he opened charter schools, promoted military schools, and expanded standardized testing and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies. He also ran school districts in Haiti and Chile between 2010 and 2012...
Under Vallas' tenure, Philadelphia underwent what was then the largest privatization of a public school system anywhere in the country. He opened 15 new charter schools over the protests of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who called for a moratorium on new charters in 2006.
In New Orleans, Daley continued, Vallas "immediately set to work opening more charter schools, and the trend continued after he left."
"New Orleans is now the only city in America with a school district that is entirely made up of charters," Daley noted, "something Vallas also took credit for: he wrote that he 'implemented reforms that created the nation's first 100% parental choice district, with all schools public, non-selective, and nonprofit.'"
Reshansa W., a New Orleans parent and education policy expert featured in Johnson's new ad, said that "everything about education in New Orleans is suffering" due to Vallas' reforms.
"It decimated our middle class," Reshansa added. "He wasn't right for New Orleans. He wasn't right for Philly. He will not be right for Chicago."
\u201cPaul Vallas has spent weeks lying about his "success" in cities like Philadelphia and New Orleans.\n\nBut those who suffered under his policies tell a much different story:\n\n"We have literally seen this man destroy public education, sadly, for Black and Brown children."\u201d— Brandon Johnson (@Brandon Johnson) 1680447617
The contrasts between Vallas and Johnson on education policy have become central to the April 4 contest—which, if polling is any guide, is set to be razor-close.
Despite mounting criticism of his record, Vallas has pledged to expand charter schools if elected mayor—a promise that may help explain why a super PAC with ties to school privatization zealot Betsy DeVos recently spent $60,000 in support of his campaign.
Vallas' campaign is also backed by rich investors—a class he catered to during his tenure as CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
Johnson, a former public school teacher and organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union, has pledged to prioritize strengthening Chicago's public schools, which have long been badly underfunded.
ChalkBeat Chicagoreported late last month that "if voters pick Johnson, his election would be the crowning achievement in a decade-long grassroots battle waged by the Chicago Teachers Union against mayoral control and many of the controversial policies that came with it, like school closures and charter expansion."
"Johnson opposes adding charter schools and closing small district schools, of which Chicago has a growing number," the outlet noted. "Johnson has talked about getting state lawmakers to ramp up funding increases to the state’s funding formula so Chicago and all districts get to so-called 'adequate funding' more quickly. He—and district officials—have also suggested pushing the state to kick in more for Chicago teachers' pensions, which have been underfunded since the mid- to late-2000s."
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