Sudan Darfur Map

The genocide in Darfur is staggering: Since February 2003, as many as 200,000—and possibly as many as 400,000 people—have been murdered in Sudan’s Darfur region. More than two million victims have been displaced and many of these victims are women and children. In addition, thousands of women have been raped, and it is reported that almost 80 percent of children under five years old are malnutritioned. Despite these horrific statistics, reports continue to pour in about aerial bombings and genocidal attacks against Darfur civilians. U.N. peacekeeping forces are stationed in the area appear to be unable to stop this genocide in Darfur.

Origins of Genocide in Darfur

The roots of the genocide in Darfur begin with the ethnic and tribal conflict occurring between non-Arab rebel groups—the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement—and the Janjaweed, a primarily Sudanese Arab militia group consisting of camel and cattle herders who have joined with the Sudan’s People’s Armed Forces (although the Sudanese government denies any involvement or support for the Janjaweed).

genocide in Darfur

Although the genocide in Darfur has deep historical roots, it erupted in February 2003 primarily over water and land. Overpopulation, drought, and climate change resulting in desertification caused the camel and cattle herders to seek water and new territory. In the process, they moved their herds into territory already occupied by farmers. The government opposed these advances and non-Arab rebel groups accused the Sudanese government of oppression. The Sudanese government responded by launching vicious air assaults, which were also supplemented by slaughterous ground attacks staged by the Janjaweed. Initially, the conflict occurred in Darfur, although it has since spilled across the border into Chad and into the Central African Republic (CAR) because as refugees have fled into these areas the Janjaweed have followed. To understand the genocide in Darfur more viscerally, look at this civilian refugee camp known as Creida pictured to the left. This one camp contains a refugee population of 137,000.

Responses to the Genocide in Darfur

As early as 2003, United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, pronounced the Darfur situation “genocide.” But global foreign policy response has changed little. Currently, the United Nations and the African Union have installed small peacekeeping forces in the region but because they are restricted by the Sudanese government in what these forces can do, where they can go, and what equipment they can use, the Janjaweed still have free reign to attack, murder, and rape. As a result, public policy has largely been to ignore it.

Save Darfur

One high profile activist who has been involved in trying to change global public policy and save Darfur from the beginning has been actress, author, and activist Mia Farrow. She has visited the Darfur region three times—2004, 2006, and 2007. She has also published photographs of Darfur and written several articles discussing the plight of Darfur victims. Recently, she was also assisting in the “Dream for Darfur” campaign—a campaign to pressure China at the 2008 Olympic games into influencing the Sudanese government to halt the genocide and human right violations occurring in Darfur.

Farrow is not only asking for a change in public policy toward genocide in Darfur, she is also asking for your personal help. If you want to save Darfur, the first step is to spread the word. Then, step up and do you part. She has established an organization, MiaFarrow.org, to inform concerned citizens and tell them how they can save Darfur. You can also learn more about Farrow’s articles, hear her speak out about Darfur, and view photos from her Darfur visits.

This was recently released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:

News Release No. 19-08
November 20, 2008

ODNI Releases Global Trends Projections

By 2025, the accelerating pace of globalization and the emergence of new powers will produce a world order vastly different from the system in place for most of the post-World War II era, according to a projection by the federal government’s top intelligence analysts.

The projection, prepared by the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was made public by the ODNI today.

The ODNI report, “Global Trends 2025 – A Transformed World” projects a still-preeminent U.S. joined by fast developing powers, notably India and China, atop a multipolar international system. The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over scarce resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons, the report says. Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the uneven impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions, “Global Trends 2025” concludes.

The report extrapolates from current and projected trends. It is not a prediction, and the authors stress that “bad outcomes are not inevitable.”

“International leadership and cooperation will be necessary to solve the global challenges and to understand the complexities surrounding them,” the report concludes.

“By laying out some of the alternative possibilities we hope to help policymakers steer us toward more positive solutions.” Other projections in “Global Trends 2025”: include:

• Russia’s emergence as a world power is clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector and the
• persistence of crime and government corruption.
• Muslim states outside the Arab core – Turkey, Indonesia, even a post-clerical Iran – could take on
• expanded roles in the new international order.
• A government in Eastern or Central Europe could be effectively taken over and run by organized crime.
• In parts of Africa and South Asia, some states might wither away as governments fail to provide security
• and other basic needs.
• A worldwide shift to a new technology that replaces oil will be under way or accomplished by 2025.
• Multiple financial centers will serve as ’shock absorbers’ in the world financial system. The U.S. dollar’s
• role will shrink to ‘first among equals’ in a basket of key world currencies.
• The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used will increase with expanded access to technology and a
• widening range of options for limited strikes.
• The impact of climate change will be uneven, with some Northern economies, notably Russia and
• Canada, profiting from longer growing seasons and improved access to resource reserves.

The Global Trends series examines geopolitical trends and analyzes their likely outcomes, in an attempt to prompt public discussion of possible responses. The projections have covered five-year intervals, beginningwith Global Trends 2010 issued in November 1997.

A full copy of the report is available online at: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

# # #
The Director of National Intelligence oversees 16 federal organizations that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The DNI also manages the implementation of the National Intelligence Program. Additionally, the DNI serves as the principal adviser to the president, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council on intelligence issues related to national security.

As I was researching some of the comments on a previous post, here are some interesting items that I found:

1. C02 has historically lagged temperature, a fact that is often cited by global warming skeptics.

Temperature and CO2 are difficult to measure and compare. The time resolution is low, and while C02 is an atmospheric gas with a more global nature, temperature is always relatively local. Tom Rees explains this and gives links to data that you can review.

RealClimate explains that while it is true that CO2 lags temperature, this does not affect the global warming theory. The CO2 amplifies the temperature rise. So the concern is not that the increased CO2 we are creating today caused the rise, but that it will continue to amplify it.

2. The best explanations so far regarding why global warming is human caused:

RealClimate gives an explanation based on the measurement of carbon isotopes.

Ecobridge describes outputs of human activity that cause carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas.

Here’s what NASA has to say,

Climatologists (scientists who study climate) have analyzed the global warming that has occurred since the late 1800’s. A majority of climatologists have concluded that human activities are responsible for most of the warming. Human activities contribute to global warming by enhancing Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect warms Earth’s surface through a complex process involving sunlight, gases, and particles in the atmosphere. Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are known as greenhouse gases.

The main human activities that contribute to global warming are the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and the clearing of land. Most of the burning occurs in automobiles, in factories, and in electric power plants that provide energy for houses and office buildings. The burning of fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide, whose chemical formula is CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that slows the escape of heat into space. Trees and other plants remove CO2 from the air during photosynthesis, the process they use to produce food. The clearing of land contributes to the buildup of CO2 by reducing the rate at which the gas is removed from the atmosphere or by the decomposition of dead vegetation.

A small number of scientists argue that the increase in greenhouse gases has not made a measurable difference in the temperature. They say that natural processes could have caused global warming. Those processes include increases in the energy emitted (given off) by the sun. But the vast majority of climatologists believe that increases in the sun’s energy have contributed only slightly to recent warming.

Finally, see the “Causes of Change” in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, as well as these global warming and climate change policy research sites:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NASA

While perusing the arguments on global warming, I happened across an article by Lorne Gunter that claims that “30 years of warmer temperatures go poof.” The article asserts that because recent global temperature anomalies went down to around the 0 mark, the temperature rise claimed by global warming researchers has been erased and all the global warming concerns have been much ado about nothing. To support this claim, Mr. Gunter uses this graph of this data from UAH:

Global Temperature with Incorrect Trend Line

The graph shows a “Global trend line” through the data, but this trend line is incorrectly drawn. See the graph below, made from the same data set:

Global Temperature with 100-Month Moving Average

In this second graph, a couple of things are clear. First, a correctly drawn trend line (in this case a 100-month moving average) shows a flattening but no significant decline. Second, the data in the second graph goes a few months further into 2008, where the temperature anomaly as risen, thus “regaining” about 20 years of the supposed 30 that were lost. The fallacy of the claim is thus clear: The temperature anomalies move in fairly wide swings. What is important is the rising mean temperature anomaly, not what the level is at any given month.

Mr. Gunter, unfortunately, is widely known for his outlandish claims. For a wonderfully detailed and well-linked analysis of other errors in the aforementioned Gunter article, see this greenfyre post.

Despite what seems to be an ironclad case for global warming and the assumption that it is human caused , there is still considerable debate in the media. If we are going to create appropriate public policy to deal with climate change, then we have to keep from being diverted by the fallacious arguments. Unfortunately, there is a lot of phooey out there perpetuated by people who cite scientists and who claim to be scientists. I’m not sure if these people are just misinformed or working on behalf of a hidden agenda, but we can filter them out by keeping aware of the essential situation.

The fundamental proposition goes like this:

1. For about the last 100 years, the Co2 level has been rising at an unprecedented rate. According to the Woods Hole Research Center,

Suddenly in the 1800s, as the Industrial Revolution takes off, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations begin an unprecedented upward climb, rising rapidly from 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume) in the early 1800s to a current level of 376 ppmv, 77 ppmv above the highest concentrations previously attained in the course of the preceding 400 thousand years.

Global Temperature

2. The rise in atmospheric CO₂ seems to correspond to–and likely be causing–rapidly rising global temperatures, as show in the graph at right from NASA. The graph shows temperature anomalies relative to the mean temperature of the years 1951 to 1980.

Debate about the temperature rise concerns how the temperature is measured. There is no one thermometer for the planet, so a single temperature is computed by taking measurements from various points around the globe or from satellites. Experts dispute the appropriate ways to do this; however, the general conclusion seems to be that the temperature is rising abnormally.

3. Suspicions are high that the phenomena has been a side effect of industrialization. According to the Washington Post,

An international panel of climate scientists said yesterday that there is an overwhelming probability that human activities are warming the planet at a dangerous rate, with consequences that could soon take decades or centuries to reverse.

Any argument against global warming would have to directly refute this data. We are faced with many pressing social issues, and they can become hopelessly complex unless we have some grounding in the data and use a combination of data and commonsense to weed out spurious arguments. In future posts, I’ll take a look at some of the counterarguments and see if any can overturn this.