tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-231221172024-03-07T02:02:48.514-06:00The Last FinalNews and commentary about Global Climate ChangeJP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-29706231931334902442009-10-04T10:18:00.002-05:002009-10-04T10:19:17.397-05:00Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-size:100%;">With the world's oceans absorbing six million tonnes of carbon a day, a leading oceanographer warns of eco disaster</span> <p class="author">by Robin McKie For the Guardian/UK</p><p>Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.</p><p>"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."</p><p class="author"><br /></p><br /><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=013a49e1-141d-8aa1-8d7c-792956028bfc" alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" /></div></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-9399522524847099382009-08-19T10:41:00.004-05:002009-08-19T10:43:01.460-05:00Methane Seeps from Arctic Sea-Bed<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><br />By Judith Burns for BBC News<br /><h2 class="title"><small><small>Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea-bed.</small></small></h2>Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change. <p>As temperatures rise, the sea-bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to escape. </p><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/images/Methane_seeps.png" border="1" height="150" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="473" /></div><p> </p><p>The research team found that more than 250 plumes of methane bubbles are rising from the sea-bed off Norway. </p><p>The joint British and German research team detected the bubbles using a type of sonar normally used to search for shoals of fish. Once detected, the bubbles were sampled and tested for methane at a range of depths. </p><p>Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the team says the methane was rising from an area of sea-bed off West Spitsbergen, from depths between 150m and 400m. </p>The gas is normally trapped as "methane hydrate" in sediment under the ocean floor<br /><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=65dde27c-3217-856a-bc45-718abe4ff2c1" alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" /></div></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-45574588877129511892009-07-13T08:17:00.002-05:002009-07-13T08:19:40.776-05:00Climate Change 'Will Cause Civilisation to Collapse<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By Jonathan Owen for The Independent/UK<br /><small><small><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Authoritative new study sets out a grim vision of shortages and violence – but amid all the gloom, there is some hope too</span></small></small><br /><br />An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse".<br /><br />This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet - obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society"<br /><br /><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-31636537481825292802009-07-01T14:29:00.002-05:002009-07-01T14:30:13.482-05:00Permafrost Melting a Growing Climate Threat<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From Reuters<br /><br />SINGAPORE - The amount of carbon locked away in frozen soils in the far Northern Hemisphere is double previous estimates and rapid melting could accelerate global warming, a study released on Wednesday says.<p>Large areas of northern Russia, Canada, Nordic countries and the U.S. state of Alaska have deep layers of frozen soil near the surface called permafrost.</p><p>Global warming has already triggered rapid melting of the permafrost in some areas, releasing powerful greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.</p><p>As the world gets warmer, more of these gases are predicted to be released and could trigger a tipping point in which huge amounts of the gases flood the atmosphere, rapidly driving up temperatures, scientists say.</p><p>"Massive amounts of carbon stored in frozen soils at high latitudes are increasingly vulnerable to exposure to the atmosphere," said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project at Australia's state-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.</p><p>"The research shows that the amount of carbon stored in soils surrounding the North Pole has been hugely underestimated."</p><br /><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-45970250727615524332009-06-25T15:42:00.002-05:002009-06-25T15:45:09.299-05:00Friends of the Earth Urges NO on Climate Bill<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><br />by Stacy Morford for Solve Climate.com<br /><p> The House climate bill took another hit this week as Rep. Henry Waxman made further concessions, this time to farm-state Democrats, to ensure the bill's safe passage on Friday. Even weakened, though, the bill continued to draw support from most of the big environmental organizations. </p><div class="caption" style="float: right; width: 275px;"><img alt="[]" class="imagefield imagefield-field_image" title="Earth-in-hands_1.jpg" src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Earth-in-hands_1_0.jpg" width="275" align="bottom" height="155" /></div>Except for Friends of the Earth. The organization is going it alone with an ad campaign and request to its members to demand better legislation from Congress. FOE President Brent Blackwelder is publicly urging Congress to either substantially strengthen the bill or vote no.<br /><br />"This exercise in politics as usual is a wholly unacceptable response to one of the greatest challenges of our time, and it endangers the welfare of current and future generations. ... If the ‘political reality' at present cannot accommodate stronger legislation, their first task must be to expand what is politically possible-not to pass a counterproductive bill."<br /><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-62646481565421530732009-06-10T07:54:00.002-05:002009-06-10T07:55:46.775-05:00Water Stress, Ocean Levels to Unleash 'Climate Exodus'<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From Agence France Presse<br /><p>BONN, Germany - Tens of millions of people will be displaced by<br />climate change in coming years, posing social, political and security<br />problems of an unprecedented dimension, a new study said on Wednesday.</p><p>"Unless<br />aggressive measures are taken to halt global warming, the consequences<br />for human migration and displacement could reach a scope and scale that<br />vastly exceed anything that has occurred before," its authors warned.</p><p>"Climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement.</p><p>"All<br />major estimates project that the trend will rise to tens of millions of<br />migrants in coming years. Within the next few decades, the consequences<br />of climate change for human security efforts could be devastating."</p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-60466585964141627092009-05-29T07:25:00.002-05:002009-05-29T07:26:26.515-05:00Global Warming Causes 300,000 Deaths a Year, Says Kofi Annan thinktank<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By John Vidal for the Guardian/UK<br /><small><small><br /><big><big>Climate change is greatest humanitarian challenge facing the world as heatwaves, floods and forest fires become more severe. </big></big></small></small>Global Warming is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and<br />is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of<br />the human impact of global warming.<div class="caption" style="float: right; width: 275px;"><img alt="[A family wades through flood waters to catch a relief boat, north-east of Patna, India. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP]" class="imagefield imagefield-field_image" title="warming.jpg" src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/warming_0.jpg" align="bottom" height="165" width="275" />A family wades through flood waters to catch a relief boat, north-east of Patna, India. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP</div>It<br />projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest<br />fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030,<br />making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.<br /><br />Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn<br />a year - more than the all present world aid. The report comes from<br />former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's thinktank, the Global<br />Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost<br />$600bn a year.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-38200718093819929872009-05-23T07:13:00.002-05:002009-05-23T07:13:48.953-05:00US Climate Bill Falls Short<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From OneWorld.net<br /><p>WASHINGTON - A drastically weakened U.S. climate bill released<br />Monday favors polluting industries over truly sustainable clean energy<br />solutions, argues Daphne Wysham, director of a sustainable energy and<br />economy think tank.</p><p><b>What's the Story?</b></p><p>"Right out of<br />the starting gate, the [American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009]<br />provides a ridiculous number of giveaways to industry," writes Wysham,<br />Institute for Policy Studies fellow and director of the Sustainable<br />Energy & Economy Network.</p><p>Specifically, 85 percent or more of<br />pollution permits would be given free of cost to the electricity<br />sector, leaving low- to moderate-income families vulnerable to<br />inevitable energy price hikes.</p><p>The bill would also create the<br />largest market for carbon emissions in the world. This will enable<br />industries that pollute above permitted emissions levels to buy carbon<br />credits from companies that pollute below these levels. However, "the<br />Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims it's virtually impossible<br />to verify whether carbon offsets represent real emissions reductions,"<br />notes Wysham.</p><br /><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-39371715474391533092009-04-30T12:36:00.002-05:002009-04-30T12:39:01.952-05:00Climate Chaos Predicted by CO2 Study<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">World will have exceeded 2050 safe carbon emissions limit by 2020, scientists say<br /><div id="node-header"> <br /> <p class="author">by Steve Connor for The Independent/UK<br /></p>The world will overshoot its long-term target on greenhouse gasemissions within two decades. A study has found that the average global temperature will rise above the threshold that could cause dangerous climate change during that time.<br /><br /></div><div class="caption" style="float: right; width: 350px;"><img alt="[(photo: Greenpeace)]" class="imagefield imagefield-field_image" title="toobigtofail_greenpeace.jpg" src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/toobigtofail_greenpeace.jpg" width="350" align="bottom" height="228" />(photo: Greenpeace)</div>Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of<br />the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted between<br />2000 and 2050 and still keep within a C rise in global average temperatures.<p>At the current rate at which CO2 is emitted<br />globally - which is increasing by 3 per cent a year - countries will have exceeded their total limit of 1,000 billion tons within 20 years,<br />which would be about 20 years earlier than planned under international obligations. "If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will<br />have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming<br />will go well beyond C," said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute<br />for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in<br />Nature.</p><p>"Substantial reductions in global emissions have to begin soon - before 2020. If we wait longer, the required phase-out of carbon emissions will involve tremendous economic costs and technological challenges. We should not forget that a C global mean warming would<br />take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around."</p><p>It is the first time scientists have calculated accurately the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2050 and still have a<br />reasonable chance of avoiding temperature rises higher than C above pre-industrial levels - widely viewed as a "safe" threshold.</p><p>The scientists found the total amount of greenhouse gases that could be<br />released over this time would be equivalent to 1,000 billion tons of<br />CO2. This is equivalent to using up about 25 per cent of known reserves<br />of oil, gas and coal, said Bill Hare, a co-author of the study.</p><p>The study concluded that the world must agree on a cut in carbon dioxide<br />emissions of more than 50 per cent by 2050 if the probability of<br />exceeding a C rise in average temperatures is to be limited to a risk<br />of 1 in 4.</p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-89106347030518720902009-04-28T15:06:00.002-05:002009-04-28T15:07:49.791-05:00Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By John Vidal for The Guardian/UK<br /><br />Extensive <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change" target="_top">climate change</a> is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.<p>In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has<br />declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and<br />permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.</p><p>In addition, says the <a href="http://amap.no/documents/index.cfm?action=getfile&dirsub=&filename=Climate%5FUpdate%5F2009.pdf&sort=default" target="_blank" class="external">report released today at a Norwegian government seminar</a>, plants and trees are growing more vigorously, snow cover is decreasing 1-2% a year and glaciers are shrinking.</p><p>Scientists from Norway, Canada, Russia and the US contributed to the <a href="http://www.amap.no/" target="_top">Arctic monitoring and assessment programme</a> (Amap) study, which says new factors such as "black carbon" - soot -<br />ozone and methane may now be contributing to global and arctic warming as much as carbon dioxide.</p><p>"Black carbon and ozone in particular have a strong seasonal pattern that makes their impacts particularly important in the Arctic," it says.</p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-54722553904365078352009-04-08T15:50:00.002-05:002009-04-08T15:51:24.128-05:00Experts say meeting Global warming goals is unlikely<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From Reuters<br /><br />OSLO/BONN - Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees<br /><p><small>Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing<br />nations as a trigger for "dangerous" change, a Reuters poll of<br />scientists showed on Tuesday.</small></p><div class="caption" style="float: right; width: 350px;"><small><img alt="[A mountain is reflected in a bay that used to be covered by the Sheldon glacier on the Antarctic peninsula, January 14, 2009, file photo. The glacier has shrunk by about 2 km since 1989, probably because of global warming. (REUTERS/Alister Doyle)]" class="imagefield imagefield-field_image" title="warmingfaster.jpg" src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/warmingfaster.jpg" width="350" align="bottom" height="232" />A<br />mountain is reflected in a bay that used to be covered by the Sheldon<br />glacier on the Antarctic peninsula, January 14, 2009, file photo. The<br />glacier has shrunk by about 2 km since 1989, probably because of global<br />warming. (REUTERS/Alister Doyle)</small></div><small>Nine of 11 experts, who were<br />among authors of the final summary by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental<br />Panel on Climate Change in 2007 (IPCC), also said the evidence that<br />mankind was to blame for climate change had grown stronger in the past<br />two years.</small><p><small>Giving personal views of recent research, most<br />projected on average a faster melt of summer ice in the Arctic and a<br />quicker rise in sea levels than estimated in the 2007 report, the most<br />authoritative overview to date drawing on work by 2,500 experts.</small></p><p><small>"A<br />lot of the impacts we're seeing are running ahead of our expectations,"<br />said William Hare of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.</small></p><p><small>Ten<br />of 11 experts said it was at best "unlikely" -- or less than a<br />one-third chance -- that the world would manage to limit warming to a 2<br />degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise above pre-industrial levels.</small></p><p><small>"Scientifically<br />it can be done. But it's unlikely given the level of political will,"<br />said Salemeel Huq at the International Institute for Environment and<br />Development in London.</small></p><p><small>And David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, said the world was "very unlikely" to reach the goal.</small></p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-47430402078806496422009-03-14T07:08:00.002-05:002009-03-14T07:10:25.080-05:00Latest Climate Science Underscores Urgent Need to Reduce Heat-trapping Emissions<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From Union of Concerned Scientists<br /><br />There's a downloadable pdf version on the site.<br /><br /><div id="breadcrumb"><div style="display: inline;" id="breadcrumb-11803414">Major developments in climate change science have been reported since the<br /></div></div><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/" class="breadcrumb">publication of the comprehensive 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of<br />the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).</a><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/latest-climate-science.html#1" target="_top">[1]</a><br />Recent publications indicate that the consequences of climate change<br />are already occurring at a faster pace and are of greater magnitude<br />than the climate models used by the IPCC projected. A few of the most<br />compelling findings are summarized below.<br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-44944982426349642582009-03-13T08:08:00.002-05:002009-03-13T08:09:58.870-05:00Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-size:100%;">By David Adam for the Guardian<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Politicians have failed to take on board the severe consequences of failing to cut world <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/carbon-emissions" target="_top">carbon emissions</a>, according to Nicholas Stern, the economist commissioned by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gordon-brown" target="_top">Gordon Brown</a> to analyse the impact of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change" target="_top">climate change</a>.</span><p><span style="font-size:100%;">His stark warning about the potentially "devastating" consequences of<br />global warming came as scientists issued a desperate plea last night<br />for world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emissions or face an<br />ecological and social disaster.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">More than 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries at an emergency summit in Copenhagen said there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming. A failure to<br />agree strong carbon reduction targets at political negotiations this<br />year could bring "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate that "will<br />be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with".</span></p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-13718524980646197972009-03-10T09:46:00.002-05:002009-03-10T09:48:09.791-05:00Carbon Emissions Creating Acidic Oceans Not Seen Since Dinosaurs<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><small><small><small><span style="font-size:100%;">By David Abram for The Guardian/UK</span><br /></small></small></small><h2 class="title"><small><small>Chemical change placing 'unprecedented' pressure on marine life and could cause widespread extinctions, warn scientists</small></small></h2>Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the<br />coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the<br />time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.<div class="caption" style="float: right; width: 350px;"><img alt="[A gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) at the Ojo de Liebre in the Baja California peninsula (Photograph: ALEJANDRO ZEPEDA/EPA)]" class="imagefield imagefield-field_image" title="Whale-001.jpg" src="http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Whale-001_0.jpg" width="350" align="bottom" height="210" />A gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) at the Ojo de Liebre in the Baja California peninsula (Photograph: ALEJANDRO ZEPEDA/EPA)</div><br /><br />The rapid acidification is caused by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide<br />belched from chimneys and exhausts that dissolve in the ocean. The chemical change is placing "unprecedented" pressure on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/marine-life" target="_top">marine life</a> such as shellfish and lobsters and could cause widespread extinctions, the experts say.<p><br /></p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-33846417503824997412009-02-25T14:35:00.002-06:002009-02-25T14:37:44.414-06:00Scientists Find Bigger than Expected Polar Ice Melt<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">From Agence France Presse<br /><br />GENEVA - Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising sea levels and fuelling climate change, a major scientific survey showed Wednesday.<br /><br />The International Polar Year survey found that warming in the Antarctic is "much more widespread than was thought," while Arctic sea ice is diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover is accelerating.<p><br /></p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-80374387060204374822009-02-23T08:08:00.003-06:002009-02-23T08:10:22.144-06:00Mass Migrations and War: Dire Climate Scenario<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">by Charles J. Hanley for AP<br /><br />CAPE TOWN, South Africa - If we don't deal with climate changedecisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," theeminent economist said.<br /><br />His audience Saturday, small and elite,had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. Theycouldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.<p><br /></p><br /></div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-47381893841256606482009-02-15T13:37:00.002-06:002009-02-15T13:40:14.407-06:00Global warming seen worse than predicted<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By Julie Steenhuysen for Reuters<br /><br />(CHICAGO (Reuters) - The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.<br /><br />"The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.<br /><br />Field said "the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious" than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC's fourth assessment report called "Climate Change 2007."</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-12115905041668527432009-02-02T07:58:00.002-06:002009-02-02T07:59:45.528-06:00Parched: Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks In<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">by Geoffrey Lean and Kathy Marks for The Independent/UK<br /><br />Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.<br /><br />On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43C (109.4F) on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.<br /><br />Ministers are blaming the heat - which follows a record drought - on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.<br /><br />At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-72692636001569239072009-01-23T13:51:00.002-06:002009-01-23T13:52:49.262-06:00Climate Change Killing America's Trees at Ever Faster Rates<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By Michael Wald for Wired<br /><br />Trees in western North America are dying at faster and faster rates, and climate change is likely to blame.<br /><br />The mounting deaths could fundamentally transform Western forests because tree reproduction hasn’t increased to offset losses, according to a new study published Thursday in Science. And new seedlings aren’t rising quickly enough to fill the gaps.<br /><br />“If current trends continue, forests will become sparser over time,” co-author Philip van Mantgem, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a press conference call. This would be a setback in the fight against global warming because thinner forests with small, young trees store less carbon, so more heat-trapping carbon dioxide would cycle into the atmosphere.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-79006031520496841322009-01-10T10:10:00.002-06:002009-01-10T10:12:05.802-06:00International Energy Agency 'Blocking Global Switch to Renewables'<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By David Adam for the Guardian/UK<br /><br />The international body that advises most major governments across the world on energy policy is obstructing a global switch to renewable power because of its ties to the oil, gas and nuclear sectors, a group of politicians and scientists claims today.<br /><br />The experts, from the Energy Watch group, say the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes misleading data on renewables, and that it has consistently underestimated the amount of electricity generated by wind power in its advice to governments. They say the IEA shows "ignorance and contempt" towards wind energy, while promoting oil, coal and nuclear as "irreplaceable" technologies.<br /><br />In a report to be published today, the Energy Watch experts say wind-power capacity has rocketed since the early 90s and that if current trends continue, wind and solar power-generation combined are on track to match conventional generation by 2025.<br /><br />Rudolf Rechsteiner, a member of the Swiss parliament who sits on its energy and environment committee, and wrote today's report, said the IEA suffered from "institutional blindness" on renewable energy. He said: "They are delaying the change to a renewable world. They continue touting nuclear and carbon-capture-and-storage, classical central solutions, instead of a more neutral approach, which would favour new solutions."</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-91685833100310757042009-01-02T08:28:00.002-06:002009-01-02T08:29:15.710-06:00Climate Change Policies Failing, NASA Scientist Warns Obama<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">by James Randerson<br />Published on Thursday, January 1, 2009 by the Guardian/UK<br /><br />Current approaches to deal with climate change are ineffectual, one of the world's top climate scientists said today in a personal new year appeal to Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the urgent need to tackle global warming.<br /><br />With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Prof James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Prof John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the president-elect.<br /><br />James Hansen sent an open letter to Barack Obama's science adviser.<br />Obama spoke repeatedly during his campaign about the need to tackle climate change, and environmentalists fervently hope he will live up to his promises to pursue green policies.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-83862504195717321132008-12-16T10:46:00.002-06:002008-12-16T10:51:11.459-06:00Obama Left With Little Time to Curb Global Warming<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">by Seth Borenstein for AP<br /><br />WASHINGTON - When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.<br /><br />Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.<br /><br />"The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," he said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. "We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way."</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-9637245543841901822008-12-10T10:27:00.003-06:002008-12-16T10:51:42.890-06:00Climate change experts lose faithin renewable technology<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Specialists less optimistic that wind, solar and hydro power have 'high potential' to solve climate crisis, survey shows<br /><br /> * David Adam in Poznan<br /> * guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 9 2008 15.00 GMT<br /><br />Support for renewable energy technology to fight global warming is weakening in the face of worldwide economic problems and the true scale of the carbon reductions required, a survey published today has suggested.<br /><br />Figures presented at the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, show that climate experts have less faith in alternative energy than they did 12 months ago.<br /><br />The survey shows less support for wind energy, solar power, biofuels, biomass and hydrogen energy as technologies with "high potential" to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere over the next 25 years.<br /><br />There was also less support for carbon capture and storage, new nuclear build, small-scale hydropower and natural gas stations as viable ways to hit targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-15097228984579259522008-11-04T08:18:00.002-06:002008-11-04T08:20:03.833-06:00FAQ on climate models<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><br /><br />Here's a good summary from Real Climate<br /><br />We discuss climate models a lot, and from the comments here and in other forums it's clear that there remains a great deal of confusion about what climate models do and how their results should be interpreted. This post is designed to be a FAQ for climate model questions - of which a few are already given. If you have comments or other questions, ask them as concisely as possible in the comment section and if they are of enough interest, we'll add them to the post so that we can have a resource for future discussions. (We would ask that you please focus on real questions that have real answers and, as always, avoid rhetorical excesses).</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23122117.post-17276347908638252972008-10-20T13:51:00.002-05:002008-10-20T13:52:48.378-05:00Climate change accelerating far beyond the IPCC forecast, WWF says<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Climate change accelerating far beyond the IPCC forecast, WWF says<br /><br />By Paul Eccleston<br />Last Updated: 12:01am BST 20/10/2008<br /><br />Climate change is happening much faster than the world's best scientists predicted and will wreak havoc unless action is taken on a global scale, a new report warns.<br /><br /># Deforestation: Paying nations not to cut down forests 'will fuel corruption'<br /># 'IPCC seriously underplays climate change'<br /># IPCC: Lawson wrong about climate change<br /><br />Extreme weather events such as the hot summer of 2003, which caused an extra 35,000 deaths across southern Europe from heat stress and poor air quality, will happen more frequently.<br /> <br />Britain and the North Sea area will be hit more often by violent cyclones and sea level rise predictions will double to more than a metre putting vast coastal areas at risk from flooding.<br /><br />The bleak report from WWF - formerly the World Wildlife Fund - also predicts crops failures and the collapse of eco systems on both land and sea.</div>JP Valentikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15589320481748419218noreply@blogger.com0