Human-caused global warming has been shrinking the snowpack across the mountain ranges of the West for five decades, suggesting that the region’s long battle for water will only get worse, according to a computer analysis released Thursday.

As temperatures have increased, more winter precipitation has fallen as rain instead of snow, and the snow is melting sooner, according to the study published in the journal Science.

The result is that rivers are flowing faster in the spring, raising the risk of flooding, and slower in the summer, raising the risk of drought.

For full article, visit:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-sci-water1feb01,1,5037399.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

From the Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme.

Congratulations to Nadine Dostrovsky, Rebecca Cook and Michael Gagnon upon the dissemination of their “Annotated Bibliography on Comparative and International Law relating to Forced Marriage,” recently published online on the Canadian Department of Justice website:

A forced marriage occurs when people are coerced into a marriage against their will and under duress, which can include both physical and emotional pressure. A forced marriage is very different from an arranged marriage in which the free and informed consent of both parties is present. Due to its confusion with the tradition of arranged marriage, forced marriage is often associated in developed states with South Asian immigrants, but it is important to remember that it occurs across many cultures and religions.

For full report, visit:

http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/pad/reports/mar/cover.html

There is an interview with me on the website of RH Reality Check. In the upper left corner of the website, go to Amanda Marcotte’s blog.

My interview begins six minutes into the audio file of RH Reality Cast and lasts about nine minutes.

Here is the link:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/02/04/americans-find-unity-in-bed

Forced displacement for environmental reasons is not a recent phenomenon. Historically, people have often had to move from their land because of degradation of resources and/or conflict over scarce resources. Migration, and population movement in general, is part of human history and an important adaptive mechanism.

What is more recent is the potential for mass movements caused by chronic factors such as desertification and widespread resource depletion and by acute events such as floods, droughts, hurricanes and tsunamis. As awareness grows of the role and speed of climate change and as the physical effects of climate change (both acute and chronic) are felt around the world, there has been a proliferation of warnings of spiralling rates of displacement.

For full article, visit:

http://www.fmreview.org/climatechange.htm

UNAIDS Technical Consultation on Social Change Communication

This document for the United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) Technical Consultation on Social Change Communication (August 2007) was written to provide a background to issues relating to communication for HIV prevention.

It uses the term “social change communication” to include a number of kinds of communication able to address the drivers of the HIV epidemic, including: “communication for social change”, “behavioural change communication” and “participatory communication”. The UNAIDS Technical Consultation was called to review how communication could be used to tackle the drivers of the HIV epidemic.

For full document, vist:

http://www.comminit.com/en/node/266084

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Planning BCC Interventions: A Practical Handbook

This publication was developed in response to the needs of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Offices to help colleagues and their partners to plan and implement effective behaviour change communication (BCC) strategies in support of reproductive health (RH) in general, adolescent reproductive health (ARH) and HIV/AIDS prevention in particular.

For full document, visit:

http://www.comminit.com/en/node/265880

From the Earth Portal:

Presidential candidate representatives and one candidate himself debated their climate change plans recently at the National Council for Science and the Environment’s national conference. I thought you might want to check out written and video clips of the debate online on the Earth Forum (http://www.earthportal.org/forum/).

You can also join in or start discussion on these topics at the site.

Thanks to Alan Kuper for forwarding this.

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Thanks to Dave Gorak (WI), Exec. Director, Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration (MCRI), who wrote:

“I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this in this Wisconsin paper.”

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I kept thinking that at some point during the long, laborious process to elect our next president it was bound to happen. But now, after more than 20 debates and with the election just 10 months away, it has dawned on me that none of the candidates — or any of the media — is going to bring up what the late Gaylord Nelson, the former Wisconsin senator and governor and the father of Earth Day, felt was the most urgent issue that humanity faces: overpopulation.

“Don’t you get it, Rob? They’re not gonna talk about it,” Tia Nelson, Gaylord’s daughter, chided me in a phone interview last week.

The candidates have talked about global warming, an issue directly related to overpopulation, noted Tia, who is executive director of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands in Wisconsin.

For full article, visit:

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/269259

Catch up with the ongoing debate on population and climate change on the website of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

http://www.thebulletin.org/roundtable/population-climate-change/

Thanks to Katie Elmore for this announcement.

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An interesting initiative to combat global warming.

Focus the Nation is organizing a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America‹creating a dialogue at over a thousand colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, and directly engaging millions of students and citizens with the nation¹s decision-makers.

Focus the Nation will culminate January 31st, 2008 in simultaneous educational symposia held across the country. Our intent is to move America beyond fatalism to a determination to face up to this civilizational challenge, the challenge of our generation.

For full article, visit:

http://www.focusthenation.org/index.php

Thanks to Tim Black to this link to a brilliant peak oil presentation entitled, “Peak Oil and a New Game for Humanity.”

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Energy demand is expected to grow in coming decades. Jeroen van der Veer, 60, Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive, recently offered his views on the energy challenge facing the world and the challenge posed by global warming. He spoke of the need for governments to set limits on carbon emissions. He also lifted the veil on Shell’s latest long-term energy scenarios, titled Scramble and Blueprints, which he will make public next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

For full article, visit:

http://www.inspiringgreenleadership.com/downloads/SunSpeechWithSlides.pdf