Fragilecologies

Tag: NCAR

  • Climate variability, extremes and change have always been a security issue!

    The “hot” news in a New York Times front page article that climate change will affect national security is really “very old news in a new article”. the NDU (National Defense University in the USA) that did this study, also published its surveys and studies on climate change impacts on agrculture (now referred to as ‘food security’ or as ‘food insecurity’) from 1976-79 (3 assessments) and in 1974 (January) foresighted Dr. Walter Orr Roberts, founder of NCAR [NB: deposed in 1973 in a palace-like coup]), held a conference at the Rockefeller Foundation on “climate and international conflict”. I was invited to attend the conference, having serendipitously just met Walt Roberts: Stephen Schneider and Edith Brown Weiss among other young researchers were there.

    Today, it seems that the ‘pet’ perceived impact of climate change (!) has become drought and famine in Darfur, Sudan, because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that the root cause of the genocide in Darfur was climate change. But, as history clearly shows droughts have plagued that region forever and — add to that — the civil war in the Sudan [between the Arab (Muslim) North and the Black (animist or Christian) South] has been ongoing and genocidal since 1955. Lastly, Tad Homer-Dixon has been writing about climate change and national security since, as I recall, the early 1990s (he still does) from the University of Toronto.

    so, the recent New York Times article is proof perfect of the science or military community’s NIH syndrome (not invented here) … until the military (or scientists) says it is a security issue, it is not, DESPITE the library shelves full of recognition of this fact since the 1970s. Clearly, climate and weather extremes have long been recognized as a major security issue (Napoleon in moscow and a century and a half later, Hitler. Carter found out when he wanted to free iran hostages and seasonal dust storms killed that attempt.) It appears that some people in positions of authority who have probably studied history still seem not to understand its lessons.

    As American novelist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “and so it goes”.

  • Norman Borlaug Inspired ME!

    Dr. Norman Borlaug just passed away at the age of 95. he is called “the father of the Green Reolution”. He is claimed to have savede the lives of a billion people from the fate of starvation as a result of his ideas about enhancing ffood production globally. He was a humble guy as I recall and should serve as an inspiration to many around the globe. He stayed committed and active till the end trying to save lives through better agricultural seeds and techniques.

    I had the chance to meet Dr. Borlaug in the mid-1970s when i was working on a Swedish project for IFIAS under the wing of the founder of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Dr. Walter Orr Roberts.

    Working on a project on the “value of long-range forecasts”, I had chose to study the spring wheat region of Saskatchewan Province in Canada. Knowing little to nothing about wheat, I brazenly wrote a letter (there was no email then!) to Dr. Borlaug, director of CYMMYT (centro Internacional por mejoramente de maize y trigo). I say brazen, because I wrote a letter to a director even though i was just a postdoc. CYMMYT was the center for developing new high yield varieties of wheat and corn and at the time was setting up demonstration farms to show skeptical Mexican farmers that they could improve production and personal well-being by resorting to new varieties and methods of farming.

    Within a short period of time I received a reply and was invited by Borlaug to visit CYMMYT in Mexico… and did so.

    He was a gracious person and host, showing me various experimental plots and took the time to educate a neophyte on agriculture. Since that time much of my research has been on or around food security issues, at first in Africa and then worldwide. At first on land and then in the sea.

    I, like many others, owed a lot to Borlaug, not just for his knowledge and wisdom, but for his caring. He deserved the Nobel Prize twice over!

    When most people eat their evening meals around the world, they will likely have no idea how Norman Borlaug helped to put food on their tables at affordable prices. Such is the price of real fame I guess.

    MICKEY GLANTZ
    (written in a hotel on rue de Vaugirard in Paris, France).

  • Climate variability, extremes and change have always been a security issue!

    The “hot” news in a New York Times front page article that climate change will affect national security is really “very old news in a new article”. the NDU (National Defense University in the USA) that did this study, also published its surveys and studies on climate change impacts on agrculture (now referred to as ‘food security’ or as ‘food insecurity’) from 1976-79 (3 assessments) and in 1974 (January) foresighted Dr. Walter Orr Roberts, founder of NCAR [NB: deposed in 1973 in a palace-like coup]), held a conference at the Rockefeller Foundation on “climate and international conflict”. I was invited to attend the conference, having serendipitously just met Walt Roberts: Stephen Schneider and Edith Brown Weiss among other young researchers were there.

    Today, it seems that the ‘pet’ perceived impact of climate change (!) has become drought and famine in Darfur, Sudan, because UN Secretary General Ban  Ki-Moon said that the root cause of the genocide in Darfur was climate change. But, as history clearly shows  droughts have plagued that region forever and — add to that — the  civil war in the Sudan [between the Arab (Muslim) North and the Black (animist or Christian) South] has been ongoing and genocidal since 1955. Lastly, Tad Homer-Dixon has been writing about climate change and national security since, as I recall, the early 1990s (he still does) from the University of Toronto.

    so, the  recent New York Times article  is proof perfect of the science or military community’s NIH syndrome (not invented here) … until the military (or scientists) says it is a security issue, it is not, DESPITE the library shelves full of recognition of this fact since the 1970s. Clearly, climate and weather extremes have long been recognized as a major security issue (Napoleon in moscow and a century and a half later, Hitler. Carter found out when he wanted to free iran hostages and seasonal dust storms killed that attempt.) It appears that some people in positions of authority who have probably studied history still seem not to understand its lessons.

    As American novelist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “and so it goes”.

  • Norman Borlaug Inspired ME!

    Dr. Norman Borlaug just passed away at the age of 95. he is called “the father of the Green Reolution”. He is claimed to have savede the lives of a billion people from the fate of starvation as a result of his ideas about enhancing ffood production globally. He was a humble guy as I recall and should serve as an inspiration to many around the globe. He stayed committed and active till the end trying to save lives through better agricultural seeds and techniques.

    I had the chance to meet Dr. Borlaug in the mid-1970s when i was working on a Swedish project for IFIAS under the wing of the founder of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Dr. Walter Orr Roberts.

    Working on a project on the “value of long-range forecasts”, I had chose to study the spring wheat region of Saskatchewan Province in Canada. Knowing little to nothing about wheat, I brazenly wrote a letter (there was no email then!) to Dr. Borlaug, director of CYMMYT (centro Internacional por mejoramente de maize y trigo). I say brazen, because I wrote a letter to a director even though i was just a postdoc. CYMMYT was the center for developing new high yield varieties of wheat and corn and at the time  was setting up demonstration farms to show skeptical Mexican farmers that they could improve production and personal well-being by resorting to new varieties and methods of farming.

    Within a short period of time I received a reply and was invited by Borlaug to visit CYMMYT in Mexico… and did so.

    He was a gracious person and host, showing me various experimental plots and took the time to educate a neophyte on agriculture. Since that time much of my research has been on or around food security issues, at first in Africa and then worldwide. At first on land and then in the sea.

    I, like many others, owed a lot to Borlaug, not just for his knowledge and wisdom, but for his caring. He deserved the Nobel Prize twice over!

    When most people eat their evening meals around the world, they will likely have no idea how Norman Borlaug helped to put food on their tables at affordable prices. Such is the price of real fame I guess.

    MICKEY GLANTZ
    (written in a hotel on rue de Vaugirard in Paris, France).