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We have here a case study of a climate disaster.&nbsp; 
 
This is an event which will raise all of the arguments &ndash; the issues of population, and development. The fact that if we had reduced CO2 emissions 5 years ago that it probably would not have mattered. The argument from the scientific study of the Earth&rsquo;s climate is that we will have more of these events; warming is already built into the system.&nbsp;If we reduce our emissions, then maybe we will responsibly reduce these events for our grandchildren &ndash; reduce the cost. It is imperative that we start to build adaptive capacity. In our efforts to develop and maintain and sustain our infrastructure, consider what extreme climate events will mean.&nbsp; 
 
It is too early to tie up the loose ends here. We are in the middle of this event, and we are just beginning to realize the consequences. Parroting the words of&nbsp;Molly Kinder&nbsp;providing aid to Pakistan it is a moral imperative, a humanitarian imperative, and a security imperative.
Here once again are some places that Elizabeth has recommended for the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.
<ul style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Doctors Without Borders</li>
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">The International Red Cross</li>
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">MERLIN&nbsp;medical relief charity</li>
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">The mobile giving service&nbsp;mGive&nbsp;allows one to text the word &quot;SWAT&quot; to 50555. The text will result in a $10 donation to the&nbsp;UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)&nbsp;Pakistan Flood Relief Effort.</li>
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">U.S. State Department Recommended Charities</li>
</ul>
Elizabeth says that it is better to send money to the organizations doing the relief work than to try to organize shipments of goods. It's hard to get stuff there , even if you do know how.
Online Resources:
WWF Pakistan > Worst floods in history of Pakistan.&nbsp; See also the following from WWF Pakistan:
<ul style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
 <li style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 23px; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">WWF &ndash; Pakistan highlights the urgent need for improved governance and management of water resources for minimizing the impact of floods; supports local communities with relief and rescue efforts.&nbsp; Press release, 4 Aug 2010.</li>
</ul>

&nbsp;The following post was written by&nbsp;Dr Ricky Rood, a&nbsp;professor at the University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences.&nbsp; It originally was posted&nbsp;on 17 August 2010&nbsp;as&nbsp;Pakistan: A Climate Disaster Case Study&nbsp;on his&nbsp;Climate Change blog&nbsp;at&nbsp;The Weather Underground.&nbsp; It&nbsp;is reposted here --&nbsp;unedited (though we've added emphases in some places).&nbsp;&nbsp;Following the original text, we add a list of &quot;Online Resources&quot; for those interested in additional information.
Dr Rood touches on&nbsp;the connections between rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and floods. He says that for now the connection is not fully understood and that defining that relationship &quot;will be left to far more sophisticated arguments and time.&quot;&nbsp; Nevertheless, the day after Dr Rood posted his piece,&nbsp;Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey, the&nbsp;Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)&nbsp;told a gathering&nbsp;of the Permanent Representatives of the Member States of OIC on 18 August:&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;We have to act instantly and decide on the best way forward to support&nbsp;Pakistan which has been struck by the effects of global warming and climate change. Indeed, the Islamic World is paying a heavy price, resulting from the negative repercussions of climate change.&quot;
A&nbsp;communique&nbsp;issued at the meeting's conclusion &quot;[c]alls on the OIC, to consider seriously the establishment of&nbsp;an emergency fund to address efficiently and urgently natural disasters and catastrophes which might affect individual Member States in the future, particularly in view of the phenomena of global warming and climate change.
&quot;What is happening in Pakistan cannot be described in a single word &ndash; like disaster or catastrophe.&nbsp;We are watching a combination of climate, weather, population, societal capacity, and geopolitics whose scope and ramifications are far beyond a &ldquo;historic flood.&rdquo;

I do not have any special insight, but I do have a special interest. My youngest sister&nbsp;Elizabeth is in Peshawar&nbsp;on the&nbsp;front line of the flood. She is the &ldquo;friend&rdquo; that&nbsp;Jeff Masters'&nbsp;referred to in&nbsp;his blog on August 10, 2010. (As&nbsp;picked up in the NYTimes.) And with this personal interest, I find myself digging around sources of local Pakistani news.&nbsp;What we are watching has all of the elements of climate disaster of the type that is predicted to be more common in the future. Let&rsquo;s deconstruct this.
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