Social services provided by aid agencies at refugee camps just outside the Myanmar border should not be ended too swiftly, or returning populations won't be ready to access new opportunities that may await them. Photo: Jacqueline M. Koch for Mercy Corps

Reforms and investment are opening new doors and promising growth for Myanmar. But what’s exciting for some Burmese and the West brings a downside for many refugees.

The country, also known as Burma, has made headlines recently for its rapid political reforms and promotion of economic opportunity. These days in Yangon, “foreign businessmen in well-tailored suits are driven down potholed streets and past crumbling colonial buildings to meet potential partners...[and] hotel owners, whose businesses suffered during [recent] years are raising prices for what few rooms they have available,” reported the New York Times last month. But as the West eases longtime sanctions against Myanmar and begins to invest, the changes could further shut out an already suffering group: refugees from the country’s six decades of internal strife.

Large numbers of Burmese continue to live outside their country in refugee camps. Most hope to return and find work in their homeland someday. But if they lose access to education and other social services now, they also lose the chance to gain from market access down the road.

Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was easing restrictions on financial transactions of private groups involved with development and humanitarian assistance work in what has become Southeast Asia’s poorest country, according to the Huffington Post. The relaxed restrictions come as a response to civilian elections in the military-dominated country, which brought parliamentary seats to the opposition party of long-time human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi. Other western countries quickly followed suit, as the European Union and Japan also loosened sanctions, according to The Development Newswire.

But amid growing foreign investment and glimpses of promising market-based growth, rapid internal changes also bring challenges for the refugee population.

Close to 150,000 refugees who fled conflict currently live in tent camps on the Thai side of the Thai-Myanmar border. Most are from the Karen state, a region ensnared in turmoil for decades. Unable or afraid to return home, and not permitted to work in Thailand, they depend on international aid for survival and livelihood. But between global economic pressures on aid groups and the exploding need for aid within Myanmar, outside support to border camps is drying up fast.

“Before, we were in a very difficult position, but at least we had the food that we needed," Saw Eh So, a refugee living on the border, told The Christian Science Monitor. "Now we have to find ways to find the food ourselves."

Social service money is running low, too. The Karen Refugee Committee - Education Entity, which oversees education in the camps, reports that it has lost much of its funding. While cuts in aid began before the easing of sanctions and are heavily influenced by global economic and political pressures, rapid changes in Myanmar’s relations with the West are expediting the process.

Many NGO workers on the border are “concerned that the funding is being withdrawn too quickly, without proper withdrawal plans, and before the refugees are ready to go back,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. But some see exciting new opportunities within Myanmar and believe that refugees will quickly seek to return home as reforms continue.

The return of Burmese refugees to their homeland is clearly desirable. But it won’t happen overnight, and refugees need to return to a safe and stable home with promise of economic opportunity. Market growth is slower than one election, and the home region of most refugees is still far from being a peaceful land of economic promise.

Saw La Plan, a Karen leader in Umpiem refugee camp, says he's not going back yet, because his home state has a long way to go despite broader reforms in the country. “There is still fighting, no development, and landmines everywhere," he told the Christian Science Monitor. "We have to stay here.”

But when refugees do eventually return, they’ll need education and skills to compete in the growing market-based economy that has the West so excited about Myanmar.

European Union officials respond to the easing of sanctions against Myanmar in this video from Agence France Presse.

The World Bank is accused of helping foreign companies to purchase productive land in Africa and Asia. Photo: Planète à Vendre (Flickr)

Development aid is meant to support marginalized populations. But sometimes that aid can hurt the very people it was intended to help.

The Guardian's Poverty Matters Blog reported last Monday that the World Bank is accused of promoting agricultural policies that rob communities of their land. Environmental and farm advocacy groups have charged the Bank with supporting what are known as "land grabs," in which investors are purchasing tens of millions of hectares of fertile farmland in Africa and Asia to develop plantation style commercial farming.

The World Bank sees foreign investment in agriculture as an opportunity to spur rural development. In theory, the investments are supposed to bring jobs, infrastructure and improved productivity.

But the groups, which include Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and La Campesina, accuse it of promoting "corporate-oriented rather than people-centred" policies and laws.

"The result has often been … people forced off land they have traditionally farmed for generations,” said FOEI in a separate report.

Land grabs have serious consequences for local communities. The World Bank should invest in developing their capacity, not corporate interests.

RELATED: Invest in Farmers—Not Land Grabs

Failure to adapt to global climate change led to unrest across the Arab World. Photo: Saleem-Homsi (Flickr)

Incompetent, unjust governance by some of the Middle East’s worst despots brewed a recipe for disaster before the Arab Spring, but it took climate change to turn up the heat.

Here's how local droughts, forced migrations and international trade disruptions, all quietly driven by global warming, finally helped topple the Arab world's tyrants.

Drought and Resiliency

The Middle East holds 12 of the world's 15 most water-scarce countries, Thomas Friedman wrote last week in "The Other Arab Spring." In Syria, for example, almost two-thirds of the country's land was affected by one of the worst droughts in its history over the last six years. Nearly 75 percent of the Syrians most dependent on agriculture suffered “total crop failure,” meaning 800,000 people lost their entire livelihood. Another 1.3 million were affected when herders in Northeast Syria lost around 85 percent of their livestock.

To be on the right side of history in regards to the Arab Spring, Friedman argues, one of the best things the United States can do is "to invest in climate-adaptive infrastructure and improvements in water management — to make these countries more resilient in an age of disruptive climate change."

Western governments and aid organizations, in collaboration with local governments, can boost resiliency by:

• Investing in improved irrigation technology and programs to implement it.


• Using advances in mapping techniques to develop early warning systems and drought contingency plans.


• Encouraging sustainable livestock practices in drought prone areas.


• Investing in drought-resistant crops such as cassava.

Crop Failure and Smart Urbanization Policies

When agriculture fails, mass exodus begins. In January, an estimated 200,000 rural Syrian families moved to urban areas when the Halaby pepper crop failed, putting even more strain on cities already struggling to provide for existing citizens.

In an article titled “An Agricultural Peace Dividend,” Root Capital CEO William Foote explains the necessity of agriculture in post-conflict areas: “Because the majority of people in many post-conflict countries are agriculturalists and because the industrial base takes longer and requires more capital and infrastructure to rebuild, agriculture is the only sector that can rapidly absorb large amounts of labor and rebuild household economies.”

To curb the effects of mass urbanization and strengthen rural farming economies, local governments should:

• Invest in agricultural advancements to help farmers who remain on their land become more efficient.


• Improve urban infrastructure--particularly in urban slums--to accommodate the inevitable influx of migrant farmers.


• Develop incentives for companies to create jobs in rural areas--especially for women--to supplement income from agricultural yields or replace it in their absence.

Price Spikes and Protectionism

“Extreme weather throughout the globe” added to the Middle East's chaos, note Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo in report titled “Global Warming and the Arab Spring. Canada, the second-largest wheat exporter, lost a quarter of its 2010 harvest due to irregular rainfall. Russia, China, Ukraine and Kazakhstan suffered 2010 droughts that greatly diminished their crops. Brush fires reduced Russia’s wheat harvest to 60 million tons, down from 97 million in 2009. Because of this, Russia banned wheat, barley, rye and maize exports.

For the powers that be (or, rather, were) this set the stage for disaster. In the last six months of 2010, Egypt--Russia’s largest wheat consumer--received only 1.6 tons of Russian wheat compared to 2.8 tons received over that same period in 2009. By February 2011, the Egyptian government was overthrown.

In order to smooth global price spikes and avoid disruptive protectionism, the public and private sector should:

• Increase international pressure on rulers who ignore the mounting effects of climate change in the most afflicted countries.


• Create international drought contingency plans.


• Invest in agricultural technology that weans rural areas from reliance on volatile fossil fuels.

While the citizens of these countries endured decades of poor governance, six months of drought was the tipping point. If global climate change was one of myriad sources of the Arab world's turmoil, slowing it just might be a solution.

RELATED: How to Make Population Growth Work for Africa

View the full Guatemala photo essay. By Jamie Grant for Mercy Corps.

As battles over land rights increase and intensify, development stalls.

Land has become a four-letter fighting word for communities worldwide. Like many civil conflicts, land-use disputes can be boiled down to the consequences of inequitable policies, widening socioeconomic gaps, and resource competition.

Today, about 1.4 million people live in extreme poverty. Seventy-five percent live in rural areas, where land equals livelihood, but access and rights are weak. Since land and property rights underpin economic development, resolving these conflicts is crucial.

After checking out land conflicts around the world, a few themes stand out:

1) Get everyone involved. For everyone to agree on a solution, everyone must help find it. Parties need to communicate directly with each other for this to happen.
2) Markets, markets, markets. Once negotiations take place and land is parcelled out, landowners need the tools to increase their agricultural productivity. With all of the extra crops they grow, they also need help accessing local markets to sell them.
3) Talk about it publicly. Without awareness through political advocacy, unjust land conflicts remain in the shadows. Public promotion of fair and workable land registration sheds light on them, helping to end inequitable practices.

How do these themes play out around the world? Let’s take a look at Guatemala, Uganda, and Indonesia.

Guatemala land resolutions, jaded no more

In the Alta Verapaz region of northern Guatemala, a 36-year civil war has centered on land: simply put, it’s unclear who owns it.

In Alta Verapaz, roughly 90 percent of the population is indigenous – often of Maya descent – and over 85 percent are rural. Of these, a whopping 63 percent live in poverty. Many have either been denied land ownership or forcibly removed from tribal lands. At one point, over 65 percent of Guatemala’s arable land was controlled by just 2.5 percent of the country’s population – ruling elites or businesses.

Currently, there are about 1,450 declared land conflicts in Guatemala and most involve the indigenous communities of Alta Verapaz. Not only has this affected the livelihoods of those dependent on agriculture, but it has prompted violent uprisings and constrained economic development.

Here’s what’s being done: In 2003, Mercy Corps partnered with the Association of Lawyers for Legal Development (JADE) to provide integrated land conflict resolution services. Their methodology combines three important tools: conflict mediation, institutional capacity building, and advocacy.

What exactly does this do? It brings landowners and indigenous workers together to work out their own solution; it helps newly landed communities organize a profitable farming system; and it promotes advocacy for land reform at various government levels.

As of 2009, seven mediation centers were opened, 100 community representatives were trained in conflict mediation, and 28 workshops were held on the topic of conflict resolution. Mercy Corps provided technical support by using GPS to help identify property boundaries, while JADE helped residents navigate the land tenure process, ensuring all had proper legal documentation.

The results have been encouraging. Since November, 2010, Mercy Corps’ project has resolved over 305 land conflicts, benefiting more than 14,582 indigenous farming families, and establishing 493 parcels of land.

An important component of the Mercy Corps program is the promotion of economic development. The program doesn’t just stop at land mediation but provides agricultural education and assistance with direct market access. The program also stipulates that new owners use a percentage of their new land earnings as a means of payment, prompting income generation through increased output. No longer are they relying on subsistence farming or cash crops but a larger, diverse agriculture yield.

Subsequent research by Mercy Corps shows that 98 percent of the participants experienced at least a 15 percent increase in economic output, some over 100 percent.

PHOTO SLIDESHOW: View Mercy Corps' photo essay about land rights in Guatemala

Old Practices Clash with New Laws in Uganda
In Uganda, similar land-use conflicts occur. Over 80 percent of Uganda’s land is unregistered private property; the owners need no legal documentation, most boundaries are locally recognized and given the full protection of state law.

However, a combination of increased population density, land scarcity, and a 1998 act put into place that legalizes a market for land acquisition has caused intense competition, land grabbing, encroachment, and inequitable appropriations by elites.

The Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) is currently providing conflict mediation in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country, where the greatest conflicts have arisen.

Judy Adoko, LEMU’s program director, explained that when new freehold land laws were imposed, they didn’t consider, and thus don’t work, with the customary tenure system already in place. She stated that “this created a middle ground of confusion.” Local clan systems serve as authority figures in the community and only recognized customary law. Residents who filed court claims in the city for newly subdivided land were simply ignored.

Since 2003, LEMU has researched land rights, public policy, and created a grassroots organization to address these land-use disputes. Similar to Mercy Corps' program in Guatemala, LEMU brings local farmers, government officials, and community leaders together to work out solutions. They facilitate the creation of policies and laws that ensure fair access to land and promote poverty eradication.

Post-conflict areas, such as Acholiland in the north, are especially vulnerable and could greatly benefit from similar mediation processes. Establishing the land rights of returning displaced populations, like those affected by the decades-long civil war, presents a crucial opportunity to reintegrate communities and improve overall economic health when most critical.

Advocacy in Indonesia
In Indonesia, land battles have reached a boiling point. The last few months have seen escalating violence between local residents, the government, and private companies – all due to land seizures.

A few bad policies have created licensing overlaps that favor resource extraction companies over local farming communities. A mining or plantation company may receive a government okay to work on an area of land, but it ignores customary land rights that have been in place for generations.

Locals experience a loss of income-generating land, increased pollution, and fatal conflicts due to heavy-handed security forces. In January, activists staged protests to push for a bill that would establish and regulate a new integrated system.

Next Steps
As land becomes a scarce commodity, it plays an increasingly important role in development.

Guatemala shows us that facilitated negotiations allow locals to create their own land-use solutions. Beyond a handshake, helping farmers increase their yields and access local markets is key to sustaining land mediation solutions.

Uganda proves that if you don’t involve the right people at the beginning, you can’t come to a resolution. Simply imposing Western institutional systems on customary land only perpetuates conflict. Thus, creating institutions that can effectively enforce new property laws, in tandem with participatory development, will boost success.

In Indonesia, political advocacy takes the spotlight. Exposing inequitable policies can garner international media attention, resulting in a platform for institutional change.

By combining these tools, we can begin to break the cycle of conflict stemmed from land disputes.

While it's easy to see land disputes as an isolated local issue, they can add up to a huge challenge for a country's economy. Smart national policies can make it much easier to fix these piece by piece and subsequently resolve broader issues.

Combining conflict resolution with market assistance can alleviate land conflicts. Photo: Meredith Rendall Photography (Flickr)

Deals between African governments and foriegn companies are pushing small farmers off their land. Photo: The Gates Foundation (Flickr)

In the race to buy up African land, small farmers may be the biggest losers.

Last month, the BBC showed how rising food and biofuel prices are driving foreign governments and multinational corporations to snap up more and more farmland in some of Africa's most productive regions. From 2008 to 2009 alone, international land deals added up to approximately 60 million hectares—two-thirds of which were concentrated in Africa.

In Pictures: Land leasing or land grabbing?

But for the small farmers who depend on this land to sustain their livelihoods, the deals often mean diminishing incomes, or worse.

Some development organizations, such as Oxfam and the World Bank, see foreign investment as a way to modernize agriculture by providing local people with jobs, higher yields, and some share in the profits and crops. But that assumes that foreign corporations are interested in working with small farmers. Without conditions that require companies to invest in the rural economy, the few jobs being created are temporary and poorly paid. Additionally, tax exemptions provided to investors mean governments see little boost in revenues.

Because the deals lack transparency, it is not clear who is ultimately benefiting from land sales. In many cases, the land used by local farmers, herders and gatherers belongs to the state, and governments ignore their claims. The result: mass evictions, such as in Uganda, where 20,000 people claim to have been kicked off their land.

Small farmers are the backbone of African agriculture. Rather than simply auctioning off land without conditions, governments should be encouraging foreign companies to invest in agricultural cooperatives, infrastructure and market access for smallholders.

Higher food prices and increasing global demand present an opportunity for Africa's small farmers. Connecting them with these opportunities means investing in farmers—not just farmland.

Former President Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives has been a vocal advocate for action against climate change. Photo: Presidency Maldives (flickr)

Last month’s coup in the Maldives cost the country more than just its president. It may also have lost one of the world’s most outspoken advocates for climate change adaptation.

Former president Mohammed Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected leader, was overthrown last month in a suspected military-backed coup in which he was allegedly forced to resign at gunpoint. It’s the latest twist in the life of activist leader who was recently referred to as a “godfather of the Arab Spring” by the Global Post, describing the Maldives' 2008 elections as a precursor to the protests that swept the region. And for his country, Nasheed’s ouster means not only a backward step for democracy, but a silenced voice against one of its biggest environmental and economic challenges.

Nasheed’s activist history includes a stint in jail for political protests in the 1990s, but his recent focus as president had been on a very different opponent: the rising ocean around his country, 80 percent of which is less than one meter above sea level.

In his three years as president, Nasheed gained worldwide recognition for his role as a global leader calling attention to the problems of climate change and their impacts on vulnerable populations in low-lying, tourism-dependent countries like the Maldives.

A poor country but popular tourism destination, the Maldives count on tourist money and development taxes as a primary source of income. Too low-lying for farming, the country relies on fishing stocks for food and export capital. Rising seas will change all that. Livelihoods are in the imminent path of destruction now, and the country’s entire existence may soon be washed away.

According to the Ecologist, climate scientists have expressed concern that much, if not all, of the country could be under water as early 2050 with current climate projections.

Early in his term, Nasheed pledged that the Maldives would be carbon-neutral by 2020, and started exploring options for a ‘plan B’ to protect the population of a country where residents of 16 islands are already being relocated because of the rising sea level. In 2009 he held a meeting of his cabinet underwater and led what he called the “largest underwater political demonstration in history--divers and snorkelers down on the reef with banners and signs, reminding people what's at stake.”

What’s at stake are the livelihoods and home of 350,000 people. Beyond the Maldives, other small island nations, like Kiribati, face similar threats.

The economic impacts of climate change are already being felt in the Maldives. Rising sea temperatures caused the death of many coral reef and fish around the islands over the past decade, devastating one of the country’s prime industries. And scientists say these kill-offs will only continue.

Nasheed told the Guardian that "What we really need is a huge social 60s-style catalystic, dynamic street action” against climate change," and wrote in the Huffington Post that “mobilizing public opinion is central to finding a climate solution...[because] politicians are reluctant to act unless the people act first.”

Nasheed’s passion for climate activism captured the attention of documentary filmmaker Jon Shenk, who documented a year of Nasheed’s presidency in the film The Island President, to be released later this month.

The decision to tell Nasheed’s story stemmed from “the provocative things he was saying about the climate compared to other world leaders,” said Shenk. “It's such a secondary issue for most heads of states, whereas Nasheed would say these out-there things that were amazing in their honesty and vision.”

Shenk’s film, with its trailer shown below, might have just missed Nasheed’s era as the Maldives president. But its timing can add to an awareness of the work of a climate warrior, and the reality of the threats facing vulnerable countries like the Maldives.

The former "island president" faces an uncertain political future. But what is more certain is the impact of current climate patterns on his country. And without the grassroots action that Nasheed has called for, his presidency might not be the only thing sinking in the Maldives.

Watch the trailer for Jon Shenk’s documentary about Mohammed Nasheed, The Island President:

RELATED CONTENT: Diffusing a carbon bomb: Tapping Canadian tar sands would hit Africa’s poor hardest

Finding prime locations to generate solar energy in India is one application of innovative mapping technology. Photo: hjl (flickr)

New mapping innovations are helping communities around the world make their way toward relief and opportunity.

Mapping where the sun shines: Solar energy is already on the rise in sun-soaked, energy-poor India, and the Indian government plans to help solar developers identify the country’s best hotspots for energy projects, according to The Economic Times. The fast-growing country hopes to generate 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022, compared to just over 100 megawatts today.

One tool to get there? A solar atlas currently being developed by the Centre for Wind Energy Technology.

For solar developers, this means they can identify locations of optimal radiation intensity for power generation, and choose the best solar capture technology for each location. Mapping India's microclimates "will help us further optimise prediction,” said Vish Palekar, the chief executive officer of Mahindra Solar. “The entire ecosystem, with solar atlas mapping, will see companies like ours getting aggressive in the future.”

Other companies in India are also looking for a slice of the solar pie under the national solar strategy. The Economic Times reports that the strategy includes “financial incentives and subsidies to attract investment in this form of clean energy."

A new source of data, more accurate than sometimes outdated NASA radiation maps currently used to choose solar projects, will be a boost as intense as the summer sun.

Disaster risk reduction, in color: The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has developed a series of free, color-coded geohazard maps that identify areas as being "low, moderately or highly susceptible to floods, flash floods and landslides,” according to IRIN Asia.

With the country already highly susceptible to climate-related disasters, recent events like tropical storm Washi and the associated floods and severe erosion prompted the country's Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to make the maps widely available and accessible. "By making these geohazard maps available to anyone for free, we hope to give every community or individual access to information needed for assessing flooding and landslide risks,” MGB director Leo Jasareno told IRIN.

Geographic risk classifications were compiled with the help of base maps, satellite imagery, fieldwork and historical accounts of past disasters. And the MBG, in partnership with the nonprofit Environmental Science for Social Change, has more hazard-based mapping projects in mind, including models to predict further impacts of climate change.

Multinational corporations could benefit from geohazard maps to strategize where to locate new offices and factories, and international aid nonprofits could target their risk-reduction programs to areas predicted to be most at-risk.

Real-time connections aid post-disaster relief: Ushahidi, a Kenya-based nonprofit, has made mapping instant. Its new mapping software is fast, free and can be modified by anyone. The idea is ‘crowdsourcing,’ or enabling people around the world to “document and communicate information about their environment at ever increasing rates,” according to the Council of Foreign Relations' blog, Democracy in Development.

The result? Fast-moving information in post-disaster situations, and rapid, targeted responses.

“Ushahidi’s map was the best source of information for the humanitarian community” following the devastating Haiti earthquake, according to Democracy in Development. People “started posting reports of infrastructure damage, medical emergencies, locations where services were available, and incidents of violence” to a crisis map set up by Ushahidi volunteers, in partnership with Digicel, Haiti’s largest mobile phone service provider. U.S. Marines used the Ushahidi map as a resource in their rescue missions. Global Envision previously reported on additional mobile phone technology aiding in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Ushahidi’s crowdsourcing technology also broke onto the scene in Russia this past summer, creating a “Help Map” to coordinate assistance between wildfire victims and citizens who wanted to help. According to Ushahidi, “Shortly after the platform was launched, hundreds of citizens wrote in with appeals for help, [and] hundreds of people wrote in offering help”, creating a network of information that directed those in need to available resources in their regions.

In Russia, a more extensive interactive map network is already in place ahead of next summer’s wildfire season. And worldwide, Ushahidi’s open-data maps are crowdsourcing for success. Ushahidi’s mapping endeavors extend beyond crisis response, and last month the organization was named one of the top 10 NGOs in the world by the Globe Journal for its innovations.

Globally, these projects are creating a map for better management, economic opportunities and responses. After all, that’s the direction we all want to go.

RELATED: “Can Twitter and Wiki Maps help humaitarian aid?”
“Medic mobile turns cell phones into lifelines”

An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: rickz (Flickr)

Earth to Big Oil: On a global scale, The Keystone XL pipeline would probably kill more jobs than it creates.

Proponents of the proposed pipeline from Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico claim that its construction would create jobs. But while the long-term employment prospects are debatable at best, the resulting long-term economic devastation is far more certain.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to deny a permit for the construction of the pipeline has received much press and been touted as a victory for environmentalists. But as climate activist Bill McKibben and his organization point out, stopping the extraction of the tar sands would be a victory for those far removed from the American environmental movement as well.

McKibben said in an interview with Green Prophet that “Any place that is already living close to the margins is in the greatest danger” when facing climate change.

This means the world’s poorest, already suffering from food shortages and decreased agricultural production, would be hardest hit by this carbon bomb. And scientific consensus backs up McKibben’s view.

Country Ranks, Estimated Percentage of Agricultural Productivity Loss by 2080: Potential Carbon Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Center for Global Development

David Wheeler, senior fellow emeritus of the Center for Global Development, compiled a recent study specifically tying the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands to increased agricultural losses.

Wheeler concluded that “full exploitation of Canada’s oil sands deposit would impose significant agricultural productivity losses on over 3 billion people in the developing world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” He calculates that “combustion of the Alberta deposit would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 99 ppm, or 21.3 percent of the increase already projected to occur by 2100.”

Or, as reputed climate scientist Jim Hansen of NASA put it, tapping the tar sands would be “essentially game over for the climate."

Wheeler's findings show a "game over" scenario in poor rural regions, in particular, predicting agricultural productivity losses of up to nearly 13 percent in Africa and 9 percent in Asia. Wheeler, who also created a ‘Climate Vulnerability Index’ by country, sums up his findings powerfully and succinctly, stating "Put simply, the potential destructive power in Canada’s oil sands exceeds anything modern civilization has witnessed to date."

“This new report puts into stark relief exactly what ‘game over’ looks like: Millions upon millions of starving people across the planet," says 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.

On the ground, countries projected by Wheeler to see further damaging impacts are already struggling with agricultural losses. Another 350.org co-founder, Phil Aroneanu, told Global Envision that “we have a plethora of anecdotal and story-based thoughts from our organizers around the world” of agricultural devastation and food shortages linked to changing climate patterns.

Drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Sudan, among others, provide some of the most poignant images of climate-related suffering. An Oxfam International report points out that 85 percent of Ethiopians depend directly on agriculture. And as a local farmer told Oxfam, “The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined.”

And with the projections from scientists like Hansen and Wheeler, Africa’s farmers and communities appear unlikely to recover soon.

While McKibben writes that “Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming,” and Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit may well not kill the project in the long run, the scientific and anecdotal evidence is clear: Vulnerable populations are suffering at the hands of carbon kings already, and tapping the tar sands will exacerbate their problems.

So the Keystone proposal may or may not be dead. But the political discourse around potential job-killing has mostly left out an important aspect: the killing of crops and livelihoods elsewhere in the world.

McKibben has said that extracting Canada’s tar sands would mean lighting the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” For now, at least, that fuse remains unlit.

Women in Kenya drag jerry cans of water 4 kilometers through a parched landscape. Photo by Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

How bad is the drought and famine in East Africa? Climate scientist Simon Mason elaborates in this video interview. Comparing East Africa’s situation to other drought situations, Mason highlights the dramatic impacts in a region receiving 5 to 25% of its usual expected rainfall.

With the world facing more and more severe climate-related disruptions, Mason explains some ways in which weather forecasting is being used to help humanitarian aid organizations prepare responses in the short and long term. Check out his interview here.

Informal trash collectors may gain "green" jobs in the formal sector with the closure of the world's largest trash dump. Photo: basmati - authentic help (flickr)

Does your old lunch bag go in the garbage or the recycle bin? For hundreds of thousands of garbage scavengers worldwide who make a meager living by collecting, recycling and reselling trash, that decision is worth its weight in cash.

But at the end of this month, the world’s largest dump will close, leaving many scavengers without a livelihood.

The closure of Mexico City’s Bordo Poniente dump, which will divert nearly 12,600 tons of garbage into recycling and composting plants daily, reports the Associated Press, is a win for environmental groups. It’s also a win for the city’s mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, who announced the closure will take place December 31, the day before he steps down to focus on his campaign for the 2012 presidential race, the LA Times reports.

But trucking the garbage directly to sorting plants leaves out a key player in the waste management system—dump dwellers who for decades have sorted much of the trash and sold the recyclables for income, like freelance garbage collectors.

If the city agrees as promised to negotiate with the guild that the garbage scavengers have organized to voice their concerns, it could mean formal jobs for pepenadores, jobs that pay many times more than what they earn now reselling what they find. After all, living on the dump creates a level of trash expertise and relying on it for an income is quite an incentive to sort it efficiently. They’ve been greasing the wheels of the old system for years; it seems only fair they be part of the new one.

Cellphones are transforming the way in which aid workers are tackling the transmission of infectious diseases in Haiti. Photo:ambafranceht (flickr)

In Haiti, aid workers may have saved thousands of lives by tracking the cell phones of displaced citizens.

Following the 2010 earthquake (which claimed the lives of over 200,000), and a deadly cholera outbreak that originated in a U.N refugee camp, public health researchers in the area discovered that they could harness Haiti’s burgeoning cell phone network in a unique way.

Researchers found that not only was it possible to anonymously track (via cellphone SIM cards) the movements of displaced citizens, but that in doing so they could also anticipate the spread of epidemics, NPR reports. This let aid and health workers reach areas of infection more efficiently, curbing the further spread and transmission of disease.

An additional benefit to utilizing the Haitian cell network was that medical workers were able to distribute health advice by way of text and voicemail messages to thousands of Haitians, tips on everything from re-hydration to breastfeeding infected babies.

Though this effort was one of the first of its kind, infectious disease investigators believe that similar techniques for future outbreaks around the globe have the potential to be equally effective. Add "epidemic control" to the consistently growing list of uses for mobile phones. At the pace that cellular and smart phone technology are developing, who knows what’s next?

Fifteen-year-old Mayol Dau started a cell phone business, with help from Mercy Corps, to help his family buy food. Now he's also using the money to pay for school fees to further his studies. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

This has been reposted from the Mercy Corps blog.

Mayol Dau is 15 years old and is an entrepreneur in Aweng, Twic County. Twic County is a remote area of South Sudan that has no paved roads and very little infrastructure, but that has not slowed down the business instincts of this teenage boy.

During the civil war between north and south Sudan, he lived in the north for 11 years. He left his home in the south when he was too young to remember it. Mayol returned to Twic with his family in 2005, when the peace agreement was signed and the bloody civil war ended.

When they returned back to the south the situation was very difficult.

“We didn’t have a house and lived in a camp for returnees,” recalls Mayol. “We didn’t have enough to eat most days and there was no school when I first came.”

He started a business in 2006 to help his family get money to buy food. He does three things: credit card transfers over the phone, repair of mobile phones and recharging of mobile phone batteries. Mercy Corps assisted him in starting his business as part of its micro-enterprise program.

“Mercy Corps helped me with money to buy the locking cabinet for my phones and they provided a generator so I could charge the phones,” explains Mayol. “Now my business is good. I make 70 Sudanese pounds (about US$26) a day. I use the profit for food and to pay my school fees.”

Mayol’s cousin works at the shop while Mayol goes to school in the day. In the afternoon, Mayol works in the store until evening and then studies before going to bed.

He is filled with hope for the future, and plans on being a doctor when he is older.