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Tag Archives: Pakistan
Climate Change and Trouble with Pakistan’s Reservoirs and Dams
According to Pakistan-based “The News International,” sources within the Pakistani Climate Change Ministry are warning of dangerous water levels in the country’s reservoirs and dams. Noor Aftab quotes Pakistani Federal Advisor on Climate Change Dr Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry: (more…)
Building U.S. Alliances in the Asia-Pacific: Trade, Disaster Relief and Climate Change Adaptation
For the past few years, the United States had made an unmistakeable shift in foreign policy attention to the Asia-Pacific region (President Obama has described this change as a “pivot,” though the U.S. government is not necessarily comfortable with that term of art). There are both military and civilian dimensions to this shift, and the U.S. will need to deftly combine development, diplomacy and defense in order to maintain a sustainable and beneficent influence in the region. (more…)
Indus Civilization Upended by Climate Change and Dependence on Finite Resource?
As first reported at the New York Times, a recent study published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences makes a strong case for the influence of climate change on the demise of the Harrapan civilization of the Indus plains, a sophisticated culture that “rose about 4,500 years ago, flourished for 600 years and then began a steady and relentless decline.” Essentially, the study shows, the civilization was highly dependent on monsoon rains to feed the flooding of rivers in the Indus valley, its essential means for watering crops, and was thus unable to adapt to climatic changes that weakened the monsoons, and failed to flood the rivers (the Harrapans did not utilize irrigation systems, being spoiled by what they believed was an infinite cycle of river flooding). (more…)
Climate Change and Security in Pakistan: Ambassador Holbrooke’s Prescient Warning
According to Bob Woodward’s most recent book Obama’s Wars, the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, during a meeting on Pakistan chaired by President Obama, asserted that there was a climate change angle to the situation in Kashmir, where Indian and Pakistani troops were concentrated on and around the fast-melting Siachen glacier. His concerns were apparently met with incredulity, with some unnamed participants in the meeting later asking “Was Holbrooke kidding?” (more…)