A helicopter prepares to make a water drop as smoke billows along the Fraser River Valley near Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, on Friday, July 2, 2021. Bloomberg
A helicopter prepares to make a water drop as smoke billows along the Fraser River Valley near Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, on Friday, July 2, 2021. Bloomberg
A helicopter prepares to make a water drop as smoke billows along the Fraser River Valley near Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, on Friday, July 2, 2021. Bloomberg
Rashmee Roshan Lall is a contributor for The National
July 05, 2021
After the unprecedented heatwave that recently seared North America's Pacific northwest, leaving hundreds dead and resulting in buckled roads and massive power outages, a senior climatologist at Canada’s environment ministry remarked that it had been “warmer in parts of western Canada than in Dubai”.
It was a statement of fact. Less factual, in light of the intensity and apparent irreversibility of the climate crisis, was the climatologist’s subsequent comment: “I mean, it’s just not something that seems Canadian”.
On a warming planet, the notion of what weather is typically Canadian, Russian or of anywhere else may be changing forever. Temperature records are being broken in the Russian Arctic and efforts are underway to commercially develop the formerly ice-locked Northern Sea Route for shipping. In Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town considered one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, the land surface temperature or how hot it feels to the touch, hit 47.7°C. And Moscow just had its warmest June day since the time of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II.
Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more extreme in parts of the world that are normally temperate or cool and where summers are lush, green and pleasurable. In 2018, a scientific report issued by 13 US federal agencies said that the annual incidence of heatwaves in the country had tripled within half a century, from just two per year in the 1960s. The average heatwave is now also at least 40 days longer than in the 1960s, the report said. It is part of an overall warming trend, with the last seven years the warmest since the beginning of modern record-keeping nearly 150 years ago.
Even so, according to Dr Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, there is a “general hesitancy” to link intense heatwaves to climate change and the effects of human-induced global warming. Research by her team, she said, showed that heatwaves that hospitalised tens of thousands in Japan in 2018 and caused wildfires and melted permafrost in Siberia in 2020 were “at least 600 times more likely to have happened because of human-caused changes”.
Canadian officials have said that parts of Canada were 'hotter than Dubai' last week. AP
This week, researchers are expected to publish a “rapid attribution” study, which will provide timely scientific evidence to show the extent to which climate change made the Pacific northwest heatwave more likely. Such studies, a relatively recent contribution to the discussion of climate change, can help identify adaptation strategies (as well as to fix the blame). Last year, MIT Technology Review put climate change attribution on a list of top 10 breakthrough technologies.
Even though the horrors of the most recent heatwave are fresh in people’s minds, there continues to be a lingering hesitancy about precisely quantifying the role of climate change in this extreme weather event. For instance, Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California who is contributing to the rapid attribution study, noted that the heat in the Pacific northwest was so intense that it was “well beyond what straightforward statistical analysis would suggest. It’s well beyond what climate models suggest”. This may be true – after all, temperature records were broken by previously unimaginable margins – but surely the point about an extreme weather event is that it doesn’t fit neatly into a model?
Experts are increasingly calling for a willingness to look past traditional models in everything to do with the climate, including in the crucial business of budgeting for climate risks. The argument goes that economists’ predilection for precision in cost-benefit analyses has led them to largely ignore the uncertainties thrown up by climate change. By sticking to the models of the 1990s, which assume a trade-off between climate action and economic growth, public policy has not moved fast enough to address the climate challenge.
But now, there is no scope for delay. A leaked draft of the report prepared by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints an alarming picture of catastrophic heatwaves, droughts and floods as the new normal by 2050. It also warns of numerous “tipping points”, slow-motion processes that suddenly accelerate, taking the planet to the point of no-return. These include the morphing of the Amazon from tropical forest to savannah, the leeching of billions of tonnes of carbon from Siberia's permafrost and the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The problem, of course, is that the UN report is not scheduled for release until next year so its call for “transformational change”, by redefining “our way of life and consumption” won’t be heard until then.
In the meantime, there is the organic lived reality of a hotter planet and the prospect of heatwaves occurring more often in unlikely places and lasting longer. And there is the fact that heat parches the earth, creating drought conditions, something that is currently affecting 93 per cent of America’s western region.
City planning will be key to reducing the build-up of heat in urban settings
Heatwaves make headlines when they hit the US, Canada and Russia, but their effects on other parts of the world are just as dire. Last month, China suffered extreme temperatures as well as a simultaneous lack of hydropower, which forced blackouts in some of its largest industrial cities. In 2018, roughly 300,000 people aged over 65 died from extreme heat worldwide, mainly in India and China. It was, according to The Lancet, a medical journal, a 54 per cent increase since 2000. The question is what can be done, considering that even if greenhouse-gas emissions were cut to net-zero by the middle of this century, temperatures would continue to rise for some decades at least.
City planning will be key to reducing the build-up of heat in urban settings, with more shaded areas, buildings and roofs painted white and trees, perhaps planted along the famous Miyawaki forests scheme. Community “cooling centres” may now be a necessity, much like supermarkets and public libraries.
We’re in a different world now.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE) TV: Match on BeIN Sports
Stars: Abdulaziz Almadhi, Mohammed Al Akkasi, Ali Al Suhaibani
Rating: 4/5
MATCH INFO
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Canada 7 (Tries: Heaton; Cons: Nelson)
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Important questions to consider
1. Where on the plane does my pet travel?
There are different types of travel available for pets:
Manifest cargo
Excess luggage in the hold
Excess luggage in the cabin
Each option is safe. The feasibility of each option is based on the size and breed of your pet, the airline they are traveling on and country they are travelling to.
2. What is the difference between my pet traveling as manifest cargo or as excess luggage?
If traveling as manifest cargo, your pet is traveling in the front hold of the plane and can travel with or without you being on the same plane. The cost of your pets travel is based on volumetric weight, in other words, the size of their travel crate.
If traveling as excess luggage, your pet will be in the rear hold of the plane and must be traveling under the ticket of a human passenger. The cost of your pets travel is based on the actual (combined) weight of your pet in their crate.
3. What happens when my pet arrives in the country they are traveling to?
As soon as the flight arrives, your pet will be taken from the plane straight to the airport terminal.
If your pet is traveling as excess luggage, they will taken to the oversized luggage area in the arrival hall. Once you clear passport control, you will be able to collect them at the same time as your normal luggage. As you exit the airport via the ‘something to declare’ customs channel you will be asked to present your pets travel paperwork to the customs official and / or the vet on duty.
If your pet is traveling as manifest cargo, they will be taken to the Animal Reception Centre. There, their documentation will be reviewed by the staff of the ARC to ensure all is in order. At the same time, relevant customs formalities will be completed by staff based at the arriving airport.
4. How long does the travel paperwork and other travel preparations take?
This depends entirely on the location that your pet is traveling to. Your pet relocation compnay will provide you with an accurate timeline of how long the relevant preparations will take and at what point in the process the various steps must be taken.
In some cases they can get your pet ‘travel ready’ in a few days. In others it can be up to six months or more.
5. What vaccinations does my pet need to travel?
Regardless of where your pet is traveling, they will need certain vaccinations. The exact vaccinations they need are entirely dependent on the location they are traveling to. The one vaccination that is mandatory for every country your pet may travel to is a rabies vaccination.
Other vaccinations may also be necessary. These will be advised to you as relevant. In every situation, it is essential to keep your vaccinations current and to not miss a due date, even by one day. To do so could severely hinder your pets travel plans.
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
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World record transfers
1. Kylian Mbappe - to Real Madrid in 2017/18 - €180 million (Dh770.4m - if a deal goes through)
2. Paul Pogba - to Manchester United in 2016/17 - €105m
3. Gareth Bale - to Real Madrid in 2013/14 - €101m
4. Cristiano Ronaldo - to Real Madrid in 2009/10 - €94m
5. Gonzalo Higuain - to Juventus in 2016/17 - €90m
6. Neymar - to Barcelona in 2013/14 - €88.2m
7. Romelu Lukaku - to Manchester United in 2017/18 - €84.7m
8. Luis Suarez - to Barcelona in 2014/15 - €81.72m
9. Angel di Maria - to Manchester United in 2014/15 - €75m
10. James Rodriguez - to Real Madrid in 2014/15 - €75m
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Key findings of Jenkins report
Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
