As
the worst drought in a century plagued more than 25 million residents
in the southwestern province of Yunnan, experts stated that the severe
conditions have been intensified by climate change, which has decreased
the rains and increased extreme weather events in the province since the
1960s.
Environmental scientist Yang Yong of the Hengduan
Mountain Research Center stated, “The ecological system and the
environment have accumulated so many problems in so many years, [after]
decades of deforestation [and] unplanned farming.”
Many rural
families have faced food shortages as the drought, which began in Fall
2009, took its toll on 8 million hectares of arable land and the crops
that are the region’s only source of sustenance.
Chinese Correspondent (F): You can
see behind me this long irrigation ditch. It could irrigate 1,000 mu of
farm land, but the water in the reservoir has completely gone dry and
cannot provide any water. You can see that this ditch has gone dry
completely. It can’t offer a tiny drop of irrigation water.
Chinese Correspondent (F): Do you
have enough drinking water?
Villager
(M): We can barely survive. Don’t you see people fighting for
drinking water?
Drought-afflicted
farmer, harvesting broad beans (M): Our harvest over the last
few years is much better than this. It’s impossible to harvest anything
now. It’s already dry.
Drought-afflicted
farmer 2 (F): We are struggling; we don’t have enough working
hands. In total we have 300 families. We all harvest nothing this year.
Only the stalks are left. If the wind is big, the leaves will fly away.
VOICE:
In the spring of 2010, the provincial Department of Land and Resources
began a water excavation project supported by China's Ministry of Land
and Resources, which has successfully dug 1,791 wells to supply over 2
million residents as of May 24. However, Vice Director of the Department
of Land and Resources Li Lianju cautioned that this project can provide
only a temporary solution.
In early June, some relief from the
intense conditions also arrived as Yunnan welcomed the blessing of rains
that helped bring some much-needed moisture to crops.
We thank
the Chinese officials and personnel working to ease the acute drought
situation, as we pray for plentiful rain and the resilience of the
afflicted. Let us all meanwhile join in alleviating such extreme
conditions through our sustainable care for the environment.
Ever-concerned
for humanity’s welfare, Supreme Master Ching Hai addressed such tolls
of global warming during a September 2009 videoconference in Peru, while
suggesting the most effective actions to preserve life and restore our
Earth.
Supreme Master
Ching Hai : Some countries and communities have to cope with
worsened drought situations. There is not enough water to raise crops or
even to drink. Their rivers and lakes are drying up or completely gone.
We can see everywhere reflections of a planet in trouble, with
monsoons and flooding in one location and people losing their harvests
and drinking water to drought in another.
One way that our world
can be preserved and stabilized is through everyone’s change to a
compassionate lifestyle, choosing organic vegan diet, which not only
eliminates methane and other toxic, heat-trapping greenhouse gases
emissions from the livestock industry, but the organic part takes care
of harmful fertilizer chemicals and allows the soil to absorb a huge
amount of atmospheric CO2.
In Rome, Italy, environmental
activists display a temporary hotel constructed entirely from trash
gathered along beaches to raise public awareness regarding the extent of
pollution on European coastlines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/06/100604_rubbish_hotel_et_sl.shtml
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/06/07/romegets-hotel-made-largely-out-oftrash.html
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