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"Floods and drought highlight summer of climate truth Published: 31/07/2012 at 01:46 AMNewspaper section: News For years, climate scientists have been warning the world that the heavy use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) threatens the world with human-induced climate change. The rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, would warm the planet and change rainfall and storm patterns and raise sea levels. Now those changes are hitting in every direction, even as powerful corporate lobbies and media propagandists like Rupert Murdoch try to deny the truth. In recent weeks, the United States has entered its worst drought in modern times. The Midwest and the Plains states, the country's breadbasket, are baking under a massive heat wave, with more than half of the country under a drought emergency and little relief in sight. Halfway around the world, Beijing has been hit by the worst rains on record, with floods killing many people. Japan is similarly facing record-breaking torrential rains. Two of Africa's impoverished drylands _ the Horn of Africa in the East and the Sahel in the West _ have experienced devastating droughts and famines in the past two years: the rains never came, causing many thousands to perish, while millions face life-threatening hunger. Scientists have given a name to our era, the Anthropocene, a term built on ancient Greek roots to mean "the Human-dominated epoch" _ a new period of earth's history in which humanity has become the cause of global-scale environmental change. Humanity affects not only the earth's climate, but also ocean chemistry, the land and marine habitats of millions of species, the quality of air and water, and the cycles of water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other essential components that underpin life on the planet. For many years, the risk of climate change was widely regarded as something far in the future, a risk perhaps facing our children or their children. That

" China has announced plans to expand its cities and improve public services to support economic growth by allowing millions more rural residents to migrate to urban jobs. The Cabinet plan issued Sunday calls for raising the share of China's population of almost 1.4 billion people living in cities to 60% from 53.7% now, a shift of about 90 million people."

"In the three decades since economic liberalisation began, China's urban population has risen by more than 500m, the equivalent of America plus three Britains. China's cities, already home to more than half the country's people, are growing by roughly the population of Pennsylvania every year. By 2030 they will contain around a billion people-about 70% of China's population, and perhaps an eighth of humanity. China's fate, and that of the Communist Party, will be determined by the stability of its cities"

"Three decades of rapid economic development in China has left a troubling legacy - widespread soil pollution that has contaminated food crops and jeopardized public health. Although they once labeled soil data a "state secret," Chinese officials are slowly beginning to acknowledge this grave problem"

"Inequality is the biggest challenge facing the world next year, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum."

"he paradox: "Transport is the only development sector that worsens as incomes rise. While sanitation, health, education and employment tend to improve through economic development, traffic congestion tends to worsen." So writes Michael Engelskirchen in his Sourcebook on Sustainable Transport. It's hard to disagree when you look around and see supercars, songtaew, taxis, buses, bikes, pick-ups, and tuk tuks trundling bumper-to-bumper along the Bangkok's clogged arteries. But in 15 years, maybe it won't be so bad. That's when the city could (and should) be the proud owner of a rail system promising change at the fabric of its being. "