Weighing the monsoon winds for El Niño

Ignoring the torpor of the summer heat, the India Meteorological Department has dusted off the statutory paragraphs that give us in the sub-continent a first indication of what monsoon for the year may be like. The result this year, both scintillating pages, has been made that much more gripping by the inclusion of El Niño. The IMD’s treatment of the normal variables whose interplay determine the nature of any monsoon is perfunctory – which is surprising as the regional and international earth observation networks spare no detail and tend to inundate us with data and analysis.

Clouds and wind, land and farm. The equation that all rural districts make at this time of the year, but which is becoming more difficult with every year that climate change strengthens its grip.

But the IMD, especially for the south-west monsoon, has always preferred to be spartan. Perhaps there is some philosophical dictum that us non-meteorologists have yet to grasp, and if so then the only criticism we may be permitted, if the IMD had its way, its to ask for more such teaching. But the IMD does not have its way, and we publics whose monies support its work must continue to demand from the recalcitrant department better, much better, application and communication of its work.

The official release, ‘Long Range Forecast For the 2014 Southwest Monsoon Season Rainfall’, is delivered to us by the IMD, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). There is the usual paragraph claiming a profundity of observation and of the IMD being a standard-bearer of superior method. “Operational models are critically reviewed regularly and further improved through inhouse research activities,” says the IMD. But what we still have, in a tradition that is probably three generations old, is the two stage forecast (one in April, the second in June). [Here is the release in Hindi.]

I think this proves how out of step the IMD – and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (grand title isn’t it?) – is with what citizens of India experience in their villages, towns, fields and hills. For, the south-west monsoon no longer arrives in the first week of June, and it no longer begins to depart by mid-September. Climate change began to alter that comfortable rhythm years ago, but the IMD’s forecasting grindstone is the same, never mind how many new earth observation satellites India pelts into orbit.

With all these provisos, stated and implicit, what has the IMD told us?

First, that the “experimental ensemble forecast based on IMD seasonal forecast model (SFM) indicates that the rainfall during the 2014 monsoon season (June to September) averaged over the country as a whole is likely to be 88% ± 5% of long period average (LPA)”. This means that in places it could be as low as 83% of the average, and no more than 92% of the average. Combine this with the assessments about the 2014 El Niño and we can see why, far from being satisfied that the IMD is considering both the monsoon and El Niño, we ought to monitor independently both and force the IMD to become more responsive.

Second, that “the experimental forecast based on the coupled dynamical model forecasting system suggest that the monsoon rainfall during the 2014 monsoon season (June to September) averaged over the country as a whole is likely to be 96% ± 5% of long period model average (LPMA)”. This is a more hopeful set, but also shows that the IMD, by telling us of two different scenarios from two models, is hedging its forecast, which is not what its job is.

Third, the IMD has said “the experimental five category probability forecasts for the 2014 monsoon season rainfall over the country as a whole using the experimental dynamical prediction system are 33% (deficient), 20% (below normal), 24% (normal), 6% (above normal) and 17% (excess)”. This means, using this ‘probability’, that a normal monsoon for 2014 has only a 1-in-4 chance whereas a deficient monsoon (that is, total rain less than 90% of the long period average) has a 1-in-3 chance.

This is a prognosis that stands between serious and grim, for a 10% drift towards the lower side of an expected average, for any of our 36 agro-meteorological regions, can spell ruin for farmers and severe hardship for water consumers. How have central and state governments prepared for such a forecast? We have no information, most likely because there has been no preparation (there are contingency plans for the chronically drought-prone districts, but these are normally triggered when there is an official declaration by  the state government that there are conditions of drought in parts of the state). Elections or no elections, El Niño cares not, and it is up to the state governments to make preparations for a monsoon 2014 whose delivery of water already looks uncertain.

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Why USAID should quit India and look after America

The ‘Feeding America’ county-level food insecurity map. the social situation confronting the great mass of the population, young and old, is characterised by economic insecurity, depressed wages and unprecedented levels of debt.

There is no practical, moral, democratic and defensible reason any longer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to continue to have anything to do in India (or anywhere else) relating to food or hunger or poverty.

This is because the growth of food insecurity in the USA has paralleled the rise in the numbers of those who are poor, by any measure whether in terms of income, lack of access to a balanced diet, lack of access to essential social sector services. According to studies that have been released from late 2013 onwards, the number of households in the USA that live on less than US$2 per day more than doubled between 1996 and 2011, from 636,000 to 1.46 million. Moreover, there are now nearly 3 million children who live in households that earn less than $2 per day.

It is absurd and deeply cynical for the government of Barack Obama, the White House, the US State Department, and a host of top-ranking thinktanks to continue to claim that Indo-American ties require USAID and USDA to continue propagating agricultural models and advocating technology-centric solutions in India to solve our problems of poverty and hunger. India must halt all activity with these two agencies and advise them bluntly to turn inwards – for by their own charters that is where they are needed.

The latest evidence comes from Feeding America, which is the national network of food banks in the USA. It has just released its annual report on local food insecurity which shows that one in six Americans – including one in five children – did not have enough to eat at some point in 2012. The report found that there are dozens of counties where more than a third of children do not get enough to eat. The incidence of hunger has grown dramatically. The percentage of households that are “food insecure” rose from 11.1% in 2007 to 16% in 2012.

According to separate data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), food insecurity is more widespread in the USA than in any other major developed country, with the rate of food insecurity in the US nearly twice that of the European Union average, which is by itself worrying for what purport to be the so-called ‘advanced’ economies (whereas India is ’emerging’).

That we have a situation wherein USAID and USDA (“from the American people”, is the sanctimonious tagline attached to USAID interference, when the American people do not know what injustice is being done to other people in their name, and when they are being robbed of food so that American foreign policy goals are fulfilled) continue to set aid agendas in South Asia while a fifth of American children are hungry is an international social disaster fostered by the current economic system and its political defenders.

In the USA both Democratic and Republican administrations (there is no real difference) have become adept at starving anti-poverty programmes, but have taken that expertise to new levels under Obama. The US Congress and the White House have overseen two successive food stamp cuts in just six months: first in November 2013, when benefits were slashed US$36 per month for a family of four, and again in January 2014, when benefits were cut by an average of US$90 per month for nearly a million households.

Even when the US Census had signalled the new levels of impoverishment reached by the average household, some US$4.1 billion was cut from the food stamps, or SNAP, programme citing “waste, fraud and abuse”. It is significant to note here that exactly the same kind of language has been used in India to call for the curtailing and eventual dismantling of our Public Distribution System (PDS). In cutting about US$90 a month in benefits for 500,000 households – more than a week’s worth of assistance for a typical American family in need – they now encroached on the US$1.50 per person per meal equation (around Rs 90, which may buy two meagre vegetarian thalis in an Indian city).

The government of the USA has done this at a time when, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), it spent in 2013 US$640 billion which amounted to 36% of the entire world’s total military expenditure. Still unsatisfied by such heinous perversion, the American White House and Congress discontinued unemployment benefits for some three million people (and their two million dependent children), but continued to stall the prosecution of the financial criminals responsible for the 2008 crash.

The concentration of wealth at one social pole is coupled with disastrous social conditions at the other. A generation of young people in the USA has been thrust into poverty and joblessness – almost 16% of young people aged 25 to 34 have incomes below the national poverty line. In comparison, 10% of people in the same age group were in poverty in 2000. The median income of young households is $8,000 less than it was in 2000, in real terms.

Peasant seeds in resistance

April 17, 2014, is the international day of peasants’ struggle. With more than 100 actions worldwide, the international farmers’ movement La Via Campesina reasserts the importance of local struggles and underlines the need for global resistance and organisation between the cities and the rural areas. Actions such as land occupations, agroecological festivities, debates and seed exchanges will be carried out until the end of the month as part of these global days of action.

A new documentary celebrates this day of international peasants’ and farmers’ solidarity. ‘The Jakarta Call’ is a 38 minutes film featuring the exchanges, debates and reflections of the movement’s VIth International Conference that took place in Jakarta in June 2013.

This new documentary highlights the cultural diversity and the values of solidarity and unity converging in this political project. It reflects the multitude of local struggles for the defence of a food system by and for the people.

La Vía Campesina has said the movement “denounces laws and interests that seek to prohibit the use, exchange and access to peasant seeds that we consider a heritage of the people at the service of humanity, as well as food sovereignty as part of a commitment to end hunger in the world”.

To defend our seeds also means the defence of the rights of women and men farmers. Seeds in hands of peasant farmers guarantee a dignified and autonomous future in agriculture.

We, the rather wealthy, people

Are those standing for election to the Lok Sabha capable of relating to the needs of those they claim to represent? Many measures exist for testing that claim, and the most base amongst them concerns income and assets.

If your candidates are very much richer than you are, once elected how much of their energies will they devote to enriching themselves (and their sponsors) rather than attending to your civic needs?

The area of the circles represents candidates’ assets in rupees for 2014. The twin circles for rural and urban households’ assets is based on NSSO studies, with upper and lower circles being estimates of household assets using higher and lower growth rates to provide comparisons with candidates’ declarations for Lok Sabha 2014.

This chart shows why this should be a matter of democratic procedure. The data has been taken from the excellent work done by the Association for Democratic Reform, which runs the ‘My neta’ website, which has tabulated the statutory declarations of the candidates. Among the set of declarations is the candidates’ assets.

To show the relation between what the candidates to Lok Sabha 16 have declared and the assets of those they say they represent, I have included national averages, rural and urban, for household assets.

There are 12 assets averages to be seen. The candidates (more than 3,200) have been divided into deciles (or tenths) ranked by their declarations. Thus the eighth decile would have candidates in the 80% to 70% positions ranked on rupee value of assets, and the fifth decile would have candidates in the 50% to 40% positions, and so on.

In between are the average household assets for rural and urban households in India. These are taken from studies based on the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The chart displays these averages as a pair (lighter and darker coloured circles) to indicate a range. We find the assets of the rural household are between the eighth and seventh deciles of what candidates have declared, and the assets of the urban household are between the seventh and sixth deciles of what candidates have declared.

This chart tells us very quickly that from the sixth decile of candidates onwards, their worth is already at least twice that of those they claim to represent. At the fourth decile, their worth is a stratospheric eight times that of the average rural household. At the second decile, their worth is an astounding 20 times that of the urban household. At the first decile, the equation is meaningless.

This is not based on an exact mathematics. The asset averages for the rural and urban households I have used are broad estimates, and are no doubt skewed by the richer rural and urban deciles and quintiles themselves. But the relative differences are seen starkly, and help indicate why the inequality between Member of Parliament and electors we saw in 2009 has deepened in 2014.

Finding the income gap in factories

Soon after the liberalisation of India’s economy in 1991 the rise in the average annual salary of the non-worker employee rose faster than that of the worker. From 1998-99, the difference became more pronounced and further from 2006-07 became very much more so.

When did the income gap between worker and white collar employee widen? The Central Statistics Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released its Annual Survey of Industries 2011-2012 for the factory sector. This small but significant compilation helps trace the evolution and trend of the gap in incomes from 1981-82 to 2011-12.

Using the figures given for wages and number of workers, the annual wages per worker (at current rates for that year) becomes available, so does the annual salary for non-worker employees. From 1981-82, when average wages per worker in the factory sector was Rs 7,197 it took 23 years for the wages to cross Rs 50,000. The rise was faster in the annual salary for non-worker employees which began at an average of Rs 13,325 in 1981-82 and crossed Rs 50,000 in 13 years.

In 1993-94, when the annual salary for non-worker employees crossed Rs 50,000 it was about 1.9 times the annual wages of the worker. In 2003-04 when the annual average wages of the worker crossed Rs 50,000 the annual average salary of the non-worker employee was about 3.1 times more. That gap continued to grow – 3.8 times more in 2007-08 and 4 times more in 2011-12.

While the next Rs 50,000 rise in the annual average wages of the worker took another nine years (from Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000), over the same period (2003-04 to 2012-13) the annual average salary of the non-worker employee rose from Rs 156,000 to Rs 422,000 (adding the last year as a continuation of the trend, for this MoSPI series halts at 2011-12).

IPCC to world: stop and shrink, or perish

The language is clear and blunt. The message continues to be, as it was in 2013 September, that our societies must change urgently and dramatically. The evidence marshalled is, when compared with the last assessment report of 2007, mountainous and all of it points directly at the continuing neglect of our societies to use less and use wisely.

This Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comes seven years after the last. It has said that observed impacts of climate change have already affected agriculture, human health, ecosystems on land and in the oceans, water supplies, and livelihoods. These impacts are occurring from the tropics to the poles, from small islands to large continents, and from the wealthiest countries to the poorest.

“There is increasing recognition of the value of social, institutional, and ecosystem-based measures and of the extent of constraints to adaptation”. Image: IPCC

“Climate change has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions and in the global aggregate. Effects on rice and soybean yield have been smaller in major production regions and globally, with a median change of zero across all available data, which are fewer for soy compared to the other crops. Observed impacts relate mainly to production aspects of food security rather than access or other components of food security. Since AR4, several periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions indicate a sensitivity of current markets to climate extremes among other factors.”

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) contains contributions from three Working Groups. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change. Working Group II assesses impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, while Working Group III assesses the mitigation of climate change. The Synthesis Report draws on the assessments made by all three Working Groups.

The Working Group II AR5 considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.

Widespread impacts in a changing world. Global patterns of impacts in recent decades attributed to climate change, based on studies since the AR4 (in 2007). Impacts are shown at a range of geographic scales. Symbols indicate categories of attributed impacts, the relative contribution of climate change (major or minor) to the observed impact, and confidence in attribution. Graphic: IPCC

“Differences in vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic factors and from multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven development processes. These differences shape differential risks from climate change. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses. This heightened vulnerability is rarely due to a single cause. Rather, it is the product of intersecting social processes that result in inequalities in socioeconomic status and income, as well as in exposure. Such social processes include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability.”

“Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.” Chart: IPCC

The Working Group 2 report has said that impacts from recent climate-related extremes (such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires) reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability. The impacts of such climate-related extremes include alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food production and water supply, damage to infrastructure and settlements, morbidity and mortality, and consequences for mental health and human well-being. The WG2 has starkly said that for countries at all levels of development, these impacts are consistent with a significant lack of preparedness for current climate variability in some sectors.

“Climate-related hazards exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty. Climate-related hazards affect poor people’s lives directly through impacts on livelihoods, reductions in crop yields, or destruction of homes and indirectly through, for example, increased food prices and food insecurity. Observed positive effects for poor and marginalised people, which are limited and often indirect, include examples such as diversification of social networks and of agricultural practices.”

Here is how the Working Group II report, and it’s a hefty one indeed, has been organised.

“With increasing warming, some physical systems or ecosystems may be at risk of abrupt and irreversible changes.” Chart: IPCC

Volume 1 is called ‘Global And Sectoral Aspects’. Its sections and chapters are: Context for the AR5 (01-Point of departure, 02-Foundations for decision making), Natural and Managed Resources and Systems, and Their Uses (03-Freshwater resources, 04-Terrestrial and inland water systems, 05-Coastal systems and low-lying areas, 06-Ocean systems, 07-Food security and food production systems), Human Settlements, Industry, and Infrastructure (08-Urban Areas, 09-Rural Areas, 10-Key economic sectors and services), Human Health, Well-Being, and Security (11-Human health: impacts, adaptation, and co-benefits, 12-Human security, 13-Livelihoods and poverty), Adaptation (14-Adaptation needs and options, 15-Adaptation planning and implementation, 16-Adaptation opportunities, constraints, and limits, 17-Economics of adaptation), Multi-Sector Impacts, Risks, Vulnerabilities, and Opportunities (18-Detection and attribution of observed impacts, 19-Emergent risks and key vulnerabilities, 20-Climate-resilient pathways: adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development).

Volume 2 is called ‘Regional Aspects’. Its chapters are: 21-Regional context, 22-Africa, 23-Europe, 24-Asia, 25-Australasia, 26-North America, 27-Central and South America, 28-Polar Regions, 29-Small Islands, 30-The Ocean. There is also ‘Summary Products’ which contains: a Technical Summary and WGII AR5 Volume-wide Frequently Asked Questions. There is ‘Cross-Chapter Resources’ which contains: a Glossary, WGII AR5 Chapter-specific FAQs, Cross-chapter box compendium. Finally there is ‘Edits to the Final Draft Report’ which contains: Changes to the Underlying Scientific/Technical Assessment, List of Substantive Edits.