Blog Posts by Naseem Sheikh

flooding.

Throughout 2011 we have seen some of the extreme weather effects of climate change stinging. Global warming means killer storms more worse than Katrina and Gustav, unexpected flooding in Asia, drought in Eastern Europe, unseasonal heavy rains in western Africa. These events have also reduced crop yields, further hampering the chances of relief.

2012 will also be the first year in which the world has had 7 billion mouths to feed throughout all 12 months. But drought in Eastern Europe this winter has affected the grain harvest raising prices and lowering hopes for famine relief in Africa.

Industrial area flooding.
Global warming is causing the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. In the short term, this means increased risk of flooding, erosion, mudslides and GLOF in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and north India during the wet season. Because the melting of snow coincides with the summer monsoon season, any intensification of the monsoon and/or increase in melting is likely to contribute to flood

Electricity

Pakistan is under black-outs due not just because of terrorism, corruption, and inflation. No, mostly it's because of electricity and gas shortages and this in long run affects every sector of life which you can imagine. Natural disasters like The Great Earthquake and Flood-2010 have negatively affected our growth rate and a number of energy plants were partially or completely damaged.

About 1.4 billion people today lack access to electricity, and current trends indicate that this will not change significantly by 2030. It is also estimated that 2.5 billion people will still use traditional biomass for cooking in 2030, with related health effects leading to 1.5 million premature deaths per year, mostly among women and children.

The blame game about electricity and gas shortages is on full throttle here . Some blame the current Pakistani leadership thinking it has only happened recently. Today, Pakistan is in a severe energy crisis

Figure 1: Electricity Status of

For years, the matter of balancing Pakistan's supply against the demand for electricity has remained a largely unresolved matter. Pakistan now faces a significant challenge in revamping its network responsible for the supply of electricity.
Pakistan's energy infrastructure is not well developed. Currently the country is facing severe energy crisis. Despite strong economic growth and rising energy demand during the past decade, no serious effort has been made to install new capacity of generation.

Transmission losses from outdated infrastructure, power theft, and seasonal reductions in the availability of hydropower have worsened the situation. Consequently, the demand exceeds supply and hence load-shedding is a common phenomenon through power shutdown.

The power cuts have sometimes amounted to 20-22 hours a day in most small cities and even cities like Karachi were seeing 18+ hours of load shedding.
Pakistan needs around 15,000 to 20000 MW electricity per day.

Nois epollution

Noise has become a very important "stress factor" in the environment of man. The term "noise pollution" has been recently used to signify the hazard of sounds which are consequence of modern day development, leading to health hazards of different type.

Continuous exposure to high decibel noise can result in some adverse effects on your health. One of these hazards is acoustic trauma to the ears caused when they are subjected to the sound of an intensity of 85 dB or more without respite.
The health hazards of noise pollution can be categorized into physiological and psychological hazards. While the former includes hearing loss, hypertension, disturbance in sleep patterns etc., the later includes problems such as annoyance, aggression and stress.

According to a medical health guide lines, although high levels of noise for short time can lead to noise induced hearing loss early but usually 10 years of exposure is generally required for significant hearing loss to

In wintertime, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtun khawan and upper Sindh areas are affected by Fog. As cold air from the north recedes and day temperatures fall sufficiently, warm and humid air comes in from the sea. During this time, the warm and humid air may be cooled sufficiently by the underlying cold surface. This condensation of water vapour into droplets and hence resulted in the formation of fog.
According to the Met Office, due to the falling temperatures and high level of humidity, fog is likely to thicken in the plains of the country in the days to come and there are no chances of rain anywhere in the country for at least one week.
Scientists said the foggy weather was a result of calm winds. There have been alternate warm and cooler periods over north-west India. During the warm period, moist winds from the south enter the region feeding humidity. This causes conditions suitable for a weather phenomenon called inversion. Normally, the temperature decreases by 6.5 degrees for every

We believe that electricity exists, because its life line of the countries,and the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, although we cannot consume it all 24 hours. "Pakistan is in the grip of a serious energy crisis that is affecting all sectors of the economy and the various segments of the society. Luckily Pakistan has blessed by many types of resources but lack of attention and sincerity among authority leaders and concerned department all resources are just for name of appreciations rather than utilization.
For years, the matter of balancing Pakistan's supply against the demand for electricity has remained a largely unresolved matter. Pakistan faces a significant challenge in revamping its network responsible for the supply of electricity.
Pakistan's energy infrastructure is not well developed, to a certain extent it is considered to be underdeveloped and poorly managed. Currently the country is facing severe energy crisis. Even despite the fact that of strong economic

As Ban Ki Moon said in September 2007 " Given the nature and magnitude of the challenge, national action alone is insufficient. No nation can address this challenge on its own. No region can insulate itself from these climate changes. That is why we need to confront climate change within a global framework, one that guarantees the highest level of international cooperation"
Asian countries including Pakistan face the greatest risk from severe climate change, which could force millions of people to flee their homes and trigger environmental migration, according to an Asian Development Bank report.
The report titled "Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific" says Bangladesh, India, Maldives and Pakistan face the greatest risk, but Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, China and South Korea are also especially vulnerable.
Public opinion in Pakistan in recent years has largely disapproved of how the Government of Pakistan totally ignored the problem of climate

This year will be world's tenth warmest on record since 1850, and the highest ever in a year which experienced a La Niña event, a meteorological phenomenon which is supposed to have a cooling influence on Earth's atmosphere, a United Nations agency reported this week.. The report was released in The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, (from November 28 -December 9, 2011), where thousands of representatives from governments, international organizations and civil society are meeting to advance ways to cut global carbon emissions and pollution.

Geography compounded with high levels of poverty and population density has rendered Asia and the Pacific countries especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with increase in temperature. Climate change is existent and the region faces scary climate-related improvement challenges. Asia and the Pacific, with over 50% of the world's