Good morning sir/Ma'am, please send me the songs of the poems 1)Ballad of the tempest and The blind boy.Its my humble request to all of you.
On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Gurumurthy K <itfc.stfk...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear teachers > > I think environment education / conservation, is perhaps the most > important issue that we should have in our syllabus ... it will not be > another 'subject' but the heart of all other subjects - science, social > science, languages..... > > Please read article below and share your thoughts and comments.. > > regards > Guru > > source - > http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21703269-more-war-even-climate-change-making-region-uninhabitable-middle > > The Middle East is baking > More than war even, climate change is making the region uninhabitable > Aug 1st 2016 | Middle East and Africa > > “UNTIL the 1970s, Basra’s climate was like southern Europe’s,” recalls > Shukri Al-Hassan, an ecology professor in the Iraqi port city. Basra, he > remembers, had so many canals that Iraqis dubbed it the Venice of the > Middle East. Its Shatt al-Arab river watered copious marshlands, and in the > 1970s irrigated some 10m palms, whose dates were considered the world’s > finest. But war, salty water seeping in from the sea because of upriver > dams, and oil exploration which has pushed farmers off their land have > taken their toll. Most of the wetlands and orchards are now desert. Iraq > now averages a sand- or dust-storm once every three days. And this month > Basra’s temperature reached 53.9ºC, a record beaten only by Kuwait and > California’s Death Valley (and the latter figure is disputed). “Analysis of > data suggests that since the 1970s the frequency of heat extremes has > increased, while cool summer days and nights have decreased,” says Gemma > Shepherd, who works for the UN’s Early Warning and Assessment Environment > Programme in Nairobi. > > Unlike other parts of the world where climate change has led to milder > winters, in the Middle East it has intensified summer extremes, repeated > studies show. Even on the Middle East’s cooler western edge, temperatures > in Morocco reached 47°C. Daytime highs, notes an academic study published > in the Netherlands in April, could rise by 7ºC by the end of the century. > Another UN study predicted Iraq’s sandstorms would increase from 120 to 300 > per year. The region also has fewer coping mechanisms than before. > Population increase has exhausted water supply, leaving two-thirds of the > countries in the Arabian Peninsula and the “fertile crescent” without the > minimum viable for human survival, according to UN figures. Sana’a, the > capital of Yemen, is set to run out of water in 2019 or perhaps earlier. In > Taiz, 160 (260km) miles to the south, the water table has already > collapsed. Some people have air-conditioners, but power cuts—of up 16 hours > a day in southern Iraq—make them useless. Baghdadis blister their fingers > on door-knobs. > > They are the lucky ones. The Middle East is home to the world’s largest > proportion (39%) of refugees. Hundreds of thousands live in tent cities. > “If the wind blows from the north, it brings the gas from Qurna field,” > says a librarian in a village north of Basra. “If it blows from the south, > it’s heavy with gas from Majnoun.” > > Environmental degradation is not just making life uncomfortable. The UN’s > Environmental Agency (UNEA) released a report in May calculating that the > harsh climate claims 230,000 lives annually in West Asia (the Arabian > Peninsula and the fertile crescent), making it a greater killer than war. > By somewhere between 2070 and 2100, predicts Dr Elfatih Eltahir, professor > of climate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the temperature in > much of the Gulf could have reached levels beyond which any exposure for > more than six hours would be intolerable even for the fittest of humans. > Current highs might seem like a normal summer day. Mecca’s outdoor > pilgrimage could become hazardous. “We’re seeing just the tip of the > iceberg,” he adds. “Extreme temperatures will be much worse in the future.” > > In many ways, the region has made things worse than they need be. > Over-irrigation has dried up lakes and turned seas into dustbowls. The Dead > Sea is shrinking by a metre a year. Oil has made much of the Gulf > fantastically wealthy. But like a modern-day Midas touch, its by-products > threaten to choke it. Rising sea-levels could sink up to 11% of Bahrain by > the end of the century, according to climate-change projections. War and > urbanisation have combined to chase the rural population from the land. As > desertification accelerates, sandstorms lift radioactive war detritus into > the air. And war prevents implementation of counter-measures like tree > planting. The bulk of the dustclouds come from the Sahara desert, but > “because the eastern edges are in conflict zones, you can’t get to the land > to intervene with remedies,” says Jacquie McGlade, chief scientist with the > UN’s Environment Programme. > > Richer states can pay to insulate themselves with artificial environments. > In Kuwait, which recorded highs 0.1°C above Basra’s this week, malls turn > the air-conditioning so low that wags joke they offer one of the coolest > summers on earth. Land reclamation might outpace land loss from rising > sea-levels. And each summer millions holiday in cooler countries. > > As the costs rise so, too, does the awareness. In his blueprint for > transforming his country by 2030, Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, > Muhammad bin Salman, aims to generate 9.5 gigawatts of renewable energy. > The Arab League is gamely launching an inter-governmental committee to > examine climate change. Even Syria’s jihadists are joining in. In a recent > video, Jabhat al-Nusra, until this week an al-Qaeda affiliate, lauded the > benefits of solar panels. Still, the world would be a better place if that > organisation lacked power of any kind. > > > > IT for Change, Bengaluru > www.ITforChange.net > > -- > EnglishSTF Link: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/englishstf > > -- > > *For doubts on Ubuntu and other public software, visit > http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions > > **Are you using pirated software? Use Sarvajanika Tantramsha, see > http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Public_Software > ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಇಲಾಖೆಗೆ ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ > ***If a teacher wants to join STF-read > http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Become_a_STF_groups_member > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "EnglishSTF" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to englishstf+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to englishstf@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/englishstf. > To view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/englishstf/CANJf2f-jn0i9F0boct3s8hXf6iaXhRWktx-QEF9td7ZM1axcaQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/englishstf/CANJf2f-jn0i9F0boct3s8hXf6iaXhRWktx-QEF9td7ZM1axcaQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- EnglishSTF Link: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/englishstf -- *For doubts on Ubuntu and other public software, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions **Are you using pirated software? Use Sarvajanika Tantramsha, see http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Public_Software ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಇಲಾಖೆಗೆ ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ ***If a teacher wants to join STF-read http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Become_a_STF_groups_member --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EnglishSTF" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to englishstf+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to englishstf@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/englishstf. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/englishstf/CAEe5h3x%3D%3DDx3%2BNX3p7sEskMDqyoe48XXugN1a24YTHgy6HqOtg%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
