Down-To-A-Trickle Economics (Stan Cox at CommonDreams)

[marmar]

Published on Thursday, March 22, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Down-To-A-Trickle Economics
by Stan Cox

India’s entrance into world markets has meant bigger profits for multinational corporations and cheaper shirts and software for Western consumers.

It is also helping to brew a dark stew of air pollution that may bring widespread drought and hunger to South Asia.

Mile-and-a-half-thick “atmospheric brown clouds” composed of sulfates, nitrates and old-fashioned soot now blanket most of the subcontinent and the northern Indian Ocean from October to May each year.

Visible from space and from Earth as a dull haze, the clouds choke off precipitation by shading and cooling the ocean, while retaining moisture rather than releasing it as rain.

Most ominously, says an international team of scientists led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.N. Environment Program, the brown clouds may weaken the offshore weather system that brings monsoon rains to South Asia.

These scientists’ models project that droughts in the region could go from the current two to three years per decade up to six or more years per decade, imperiling the food supply of almost 2 billion people. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0322-26.htm