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By Tini Tran, Associated Press Writer - 11/14/2008 - USA Today
By PURPLE S. ROMERO - 05/17/2008 -
abs-cbn NEWS.com/Newsbreak
ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2008) — Last year alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase. NOAA scientists released these and other preliminary findings today as part of an annual update to the agency’s greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world.
Redding Climate Change Petition
Click the Link above to download the Petition in Word Doc format.
We, the undersigned, accept the scientific consensus of the worldwide scientific community as documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement in 2007 that claimed:
90% certainty that global warming was man-made and will "continue for centuries" and that "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase" in human-produced greenhouse has emissions.
We, the undersigned, agree with the United States National Academy of Sciences report in 2001 that:
"Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities."
We, the undersigned, agree with the 2003 statement by the American Geophysical Union that:
"Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate" and "Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global…temperatures during the second half of the 20th century."
We, the undersigned, agree with the 2005 Joint Science Academies statement from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States that:
"It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities" and "human activities are now causing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to rise well above pre-industrial levels" and "Increasing greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise."
We, the undersigned, agree with the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) 2007 Information Statement on Climate Change that said,
"Human activities are a major contributor to climate change" and "Direct human impact is through changes in the concentration of…greenhouse gases" and "Increases in (these gases) are nearly certain to produce continued increases in temperature."
We especially agree with the concluding statement of the AMS that:
"Prudence dictates extreme care in managing our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life."
To that end, we the undersigned residents of Redding, California, do hereby implore our City Council to publicly accept and acknowledge these scientific facts. Many cities, in this country and abroad, already have strong local policies and programs in place to reduce global warming pollution, but more action is needed at the local, state, and federal levels to meet the challenge. On February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to address climate disruption, became law for the 141 countries that have ratified it to date. On that day, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement initiative to advance the goals of the Kyoto Protocol through leadership and action by at least 141 American cities.
More than three years have passed Since Mayor Nickels launched his initiative and as of April, 2008, over 825 American Cities have now signed the Agreement including 118 in California, demonstrating the vision, courage and leadership this global crisis requires.
By signing the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, Redding will join with the rest of the world in recognizing our moral responsibility to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases as stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol, and make a clear statement to the citizens of Redding about our commitment to work with each other and with other communities to solve this planetary climate crisis.
We, the undersigned, urge our City Council to sign this Agreement and thereby commit to take the following three actions:
-Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in our own community through various policies, projects and public information campaigns;
-Urge our state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol-7 % reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
-Urge the U.S. Congress to pass bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.
The U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement
(As endorsed by the 73rd Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, Chicago, 2005)
A. We urge the federal government and state governments to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the target of reducing global warming pollution levels to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, including efforts to: reduce the United States' dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the development of clean, economical energy resources and fuel-efficient technologies such as conservation, methane recovery for energy generation, waste to energy, wind and solar energy, fuel cells, efficient motor vehicles, and biofuels;
B. We urge the U.S. Congress to pass bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation that 1) includes clear timetables and emissions limits and 2) a flexible, market-based system of tradable allowances among emitting industries; and
C. We will strive to meet or exceed Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing global warming pollution by taking actions in our own operations and communities such as:
1. Inventory global warming emissions in City operations and in the community, set reduction targets and create an action plan.
2. Adopt and enforce land-use policies that reduce sprawl, preserve open space, and create compact, walkable urban communities;
3. Promote transportation options such as bicycle trails, commute trip reduction programs, incentives for car pooling and public transit;
4. Increase the use of clean, alternative energy by, for example, investing in "green tags", advocating for the development of renewable energy resources, recovering landfill methane for en-erg production, and supporting the use of waste to energy technology;
5. Make energy efficiency a priority through building code improvements, retrofitting city facilities with energy efficient lighting and urging employees to conserve energy and save money;
6. Purchase only Energy Star equipment and appliances for City use;
7. Practice and promote sustainable building practices using the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program or a similar system;
8. Increase the average fuel efficiency of municipal fleet vehicles; reduce the number of vehicles; launch an employee education program including anti-idling messages; convert diesel vehicles to bio-diesel;
9. Evaluate opportunities to increase pump efficiency in water and wastewater systems; recover wastewater treatment methane for energy production;
10. Increase recycling rates in City operations and in the community;
11. Maintain healthy urban forests; promote tree planting to increase shading and to absorb CO2; and
12. Help educate the public, schools, other jurisdictions, professional associations, business and industry about reducing global warming pollution.
Redding Climate Change Petition
We, the undersigned, urge our Redding City Council to sign this Agreement and thereby commit to take the following three actions:
-Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in our own community through various policies, projects and public information campaigns;
-Urge our state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol-7 % reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
-Urge the U.S. Congress to pass bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.
NAME STREET CITY ZIP PHONE E-MAIL
Gore Launches $300 Million Climate Change Campaign
"We can solve the climate crisis, but it will require a major shift
in public opinion and engagement," Gore said in a statement.
Monday, March 31, 2008
We Can Solve It Website and Video
wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008 to VOTE for No Coal
Want to stop global warming? Wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008! Join millions of people around the world who will be wearing BLUE to signify their vote for NO COAL. Events will be happening April 19th through April 22nd, so...
 If you’re attending the Earth Day event on the National Mall in Washington, DC on April 20th, wear BLUE.
If you’re attending another major Earth Day event, wear BLUE.
When you dress in the morning on Earth Day, wear BLUE.
No matter what you’re doing for Earth Day 2008, wear BLUE.
A BLUE shirt, top, sweater or jacket... whatever. Just wear BLUE.
Then, on April 22, make your voice heard. Pick up the phone: Call Congress at 202.224.3121 and ask for an immediate ‘Moratorium on Coal’ - a halt to the construction of any new conventional coal-fired power plants. Through this Call for Climate event, Earth Day hopes to generate over a million phone calls to Congress!
Your BLUE vote will count. Fifty-nine conventional coal plants were canceled in 2007. That’s over a third of the 151 planned. That happened before millions of people joined together to say No Coal.
BYOBlue for Earth Day 2008. Be the vote that tips the balance.
Climate change confuses migrating birds
The swallows' return to British shores each year symbolises the passing of winter and the approach of summer. Swallows fly huge distances to spend the winter soaking up the sun in  Africa, returning to Britain in spring to nest and breed But in a sign of the blurring of the seasons brought on by climate change, one of the birds has this year shunned migration to Africa and instead spent all winter in Britain. In what experts say is the first documented evidence of the species "overwintering" here, a solitary swallow has been monitored from November to the end of February in a village near Truro, Cornwall. Paul Stancliffe, a spokesman for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), called the discovery "incredible". Swallows fly south in the autumn, reaching as far as South Africa. They are not normally seen again in Britain until late March, although the first sighting of a returning bird this year was on February 16, on the Isle of Wight.
Climate change melting glaciers at alarming rate: UN
16th March 2008
The world’s glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, needing immediate action to prevent further constraints on water resources for large populations, UN data released today showed. “Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program. The culprit is climate change, according to data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service, based at the University of Zurich and supported by UNEP. The centre drew its findings from nearly 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges revealing that in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting more than doubled.
Easy Way To Make Your Voice Heard On Global Warming, Cleaner Cars
Members of the Senate have introduced Bill S. 2555 to Congress, which could permit California and up to 19 other states to effectively control greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, titled "Reducing Global Warming Pollution from Vehicles Act of 2008." The purpose of the Act is to allow states that choose to do so, to immediately proceed under the regulation of the State of California to control greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, instead of the State continuing "to litigate for what could be several years."
The Security Implications of Climate Change
By John Podesta and Peter Ogden
© 2007 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Washington Quarterly • 31:1 pp. 115–138.
Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say
By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 10, 2008
Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Carbon Emissions
"We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that to hold climate constant at a given global temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions. Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible on centennial timescales."
Carnegie Institution of Washington • 1530 P Street NW • Washington, DC 20005
Global warming to affect transport
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP SCIENCE WRITER - SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER - March 11, 2008
Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation
Bugs for beating global warming
Will microorganisms help lead us to a green future? Scientists, and venture capitalists, hope so. From the Los Angeles Times - March 15, 2008
In the Greenhouse: Confronting a Changing Climate
Washington Post
Coping with Climate Change: a Bird’s Eye View
What About California?
2007 Gregg Garfin, Climate Assessment for the Southwest Institute for the Study of Planet Earth The University of Arizona
Record warm winter for northern Europe
By SARA SUNDELIUS Mar. 04, 2008 Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Icebreakers sit idle in ports. Insects crawl out of forest hideouts. Daffodils sprout up from green lawns. Winter ended before it started in Europe's north, where record-high temperatures have people wondering whether it's a fluke or an ominous sign of a warming world."It's the warmest winter ever" recorded, said John Ekwall of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.
In December, January and February, the average temperature in Stockholm was 36 degrees - the highest on record since record-keeping began in 1756. Record winter highs were set at 12 other locations across the country, according to the national weather service, SMHI.
Across the Baltic Sea, Latvia and most of Finland reported the warmest winter since 1925. Latvia saw an average temperature of about 33 degrees, nine degrees above normal, according to the national meteorological agency.
Southern Finland had only 20 days of snow, compared to 70 days normally, while neighboring Estonia had to cancel a popular cross-country ski marathon in the southern city of Tartu in early February.
Investors file flurry of global-warming resolutions
San Francisco Business Times East Bay Business Times - by Chris Rauber
U.S. investors have filed a record 54 shareholder resolutions with U.S. companies facing "far-reaching business impacts from climate change," according to a coalition of investors demanding that corporations include tangible responses to climate change in their basic business strategies. That's nearly twice as many as were filed two years ago, says the Boston-based Ceres coalition of companies, investors and environmental groups that includes San Francisco Bay Area companies such as Catholic Healthcare West, Clif Bar & Co., Gap Inc., PG&E Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., along with both the Sacramento-based California State Teachers' Retirement System and the California Public Employees Retirement System, two of the nation's largest public pension funds. Companies targeted in this year's proxy season include some of the nation's largest electric power companies, oil and coal producers, airlines, home builders and other businesses that the coalition of investors believes are not adequately dealing with climate-related impacts on their businesses, Ceres said March 6. Those impacts could include physical changes such as droughts and rising temperatures, emerging climate regulations or growing global demand for low-carbon technologies and services.
Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist
James Randerson, science correspondent The Guardian, Friday March 7 2008
Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government's new chief scientific adviser. In his first major speech since taking over, Professor John Beddington said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was "profoundly stupid". He told the Govnet Sustainable Development UK Conference in Westminster: "There is progress on climate change. But out there is another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty."
OECD: World Must Act on Climate Change
By DOUG MELLGREN – 03\06\2008 OSLO, Norway (AP)
WA Legislature passes climate change blueprint
By RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press Writer Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock
One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century
Jeff Goodell Posted Oct 17, 2007 2:20 PM
Greenhouse gases at new peak in sign of Asia growth
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent - Reuters, UK - Sat Jan 19, 2008
TROLL STATION, Antarctica (Reuters) - Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas have set another new peak in a sign of the industrial rise of Asian economies led by China, a senior scientist said on Saturday. "The levels already in January are higher than last year," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, during a visit to the Troll scientific research station in Antarctica by Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
Holmen said measurements at a Norwegian station high in the Arctic showed levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were around 394 parts per million, up about 1.5 parts per million from the previous records early in 2008.
The levels have risen by about a third since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, in tandem with more use of fossil fuels in power plants and factories, and defying recent international efforts to cut back.
The carbon levels usually peak just before the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere, where most of the world's industries, land masses and plants are found. Levels then dip because plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow.
Holmen said that the 2008 levels might still rise fractionally higher in coming weeks.
He said growing economies in Asia such as China and India were a reason for the rise in emissions, in line with a linked fall of industrial efficiency in the past two years or so -- more carbon is being emitted per dollar of economic output in a reverse of a long improving trend.
"The affluent world wants to buy cheap stuff and we buy it...from the inefficient old-fashioned technology that we have got rid of," he said. He added that there were also signs the oceans had become less efficient at soaking up carbon dioxide.
Sea urchins at risk due to global warming
Washington, March 2 (ANI): A new study has determined that global warming is proving to be a threat to the sea's tiniest creatures, namely sea urchins.
A new study has determined that global warming is proving to be a threat to the sea's tiniest creatures, namely sea urchins.
A team of marine scientists from the University of Calfornia, Santa Barbara, conducted the study. According to a report in National Geographic News, malformed seashells show that climate change is affecting even the most basic rungs of the marine food chain-a hint of looming disaster for all ocean creatures.
"Climate change could drastically reduce sea urchin populations in particular," said Gretchen Hofmann, a marine biologist.
Stop Global Climate Change By Building An "Ark"
By Clinton Callahan - OpEdNews - March 1, 2008
If neither governments, nor most businesses are taking effective measures to avoid global climate catastrophe, what can people do at a grass-roots level to help sustain life on earth?
After heart-breaking research, I offer these four ideas:
1. Verify the accuracy of the information in this commentary.
2. If you decide it is valid, share it as widely and as quickly as possible. (If you can help with translating it into other languages, please write to: ideas@just-stop.org.)
3. Choose which of the four personal strategies you will use (listed below).
4. If you elect to Just Stop, then begin a Just Stop Team, because we cannot Just Stop alone. (The details and implications of "Just Stop" are explained below, and at: www.just-stop.org.)
Climate crisis getting short shrift in US president race: Gore
MONTEREY, California (AFP) — Former US vice president and renowned climate change fighter Al Gore said Saturday that the global warming crisis is getting short shrift in this year's presidential race. Gore used the stage at a prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California, to call for activism to push climate change to the top of the candidates' political agendas. "As important as it is to change the light bulbs, it is more important to change the laws," Gore told an elite gathering of scientists, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and Internet superstars. "We have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis we have to solve the democracy crisis, and we have one."
The ‘Dangerous Threshold’ - a Destination, or a Milestone?
By Craig Mackintosh - January 3, 2008 - Celsias
Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million
By Bill McKibben - Washington Post - Friday, December 28, 2007
Global Warming "Tipping Points" Reached, Scientist Says
Mason Inman in San Francisco, California for National Geographic News December 14, 2007
Water policy and climate change are inseparable
Achim Steiner - Business Daily - February 25, 2008
When you talk about climate change, you are also talking about “water change”— they are inseparable. It is also clear that when you talk about climate neutrality you are also talking about water and its future abundance or scarcity. Thus any sensible water policy for the 21st century must include combating climate change. It is clear that the international community must successfully navigate the Bali Road Map, agreed at the last climate convention, by the time of the climate change meeting scheduled in Copenhagen in 2009. It is clear that without a deep and decisive climate regime post-2012 our ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals as they relate to water, and also to poverty and so many other issues, will be tough to put it mildly.
Biologist tells how climate change affects agriculture
By SARAH KINGSBURY - Chico Enterprise Record - 02/24/2008
Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jeff Price explained how climate change affects agriculture during the keynote speech of the California Nut Festival Saturday night. Price won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the award with Al Gore for his help in the publicity of the report. Since then, Price has been on a six-month sabbatical from his work as a biologist in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Chico State University.
Global Warming, Up Close and Personal
By BRYAN WALSH Time Magazine Friday, Feb. 22, 2008
You think you know climate change. You've seen An Inconvenient Truth. You've noticed the changing and warming weather patterns in your part of the world. You're beginning to suffer from acute ecoanxiety. But to really see global warming in action, you'd need to travel to the Arctic, where climate change is already kicking into high gear. Temperatures are increasing faster in the far north than they are in the more temperate zones in the world, and recent studies indicate that the North Pole could be underwater in the summer in less than 10 years. But seeing the Arctic firsthand isn't easy, unless you're handy with a dogsled — so Will Steger is going to take you there.
Steger is a legendary polar explorer, the first person to make a dogsled trip to the North Pole, and winner of the National Geographic Adventure Lifetime Achievement Award. He's at home in those frozen, hostile parts of the world that few of us will ever tread. But he's also a dedicated environmentalist who was early to ring the alarm bell on global warming, the effects of which he saw firsthand in his frequent polar expeditions, both in the Arctic and Antarctica. To help raise awareness of the damage climate change is wreaking on the polar regions, next month Steger will be leading a team of six young adventurers on a 1,400-mile, 60-day-long dogsled expedition across Ellesmere Island, in the far Canadian Arctic. The rest of us will be able to observe Steger's journey — intended to appeal to what he calls "emerging young leaders" below the age of 30 — on the website GlobalWarming101.com. "We want to take our audience to the front lines of global warming," says Steger, still trim as a Navy ship at 64. "We provide the spark with this expedition."
Climate-change realities could ruin water planning
Study: Humans upset delicate weather balance
Shaun McKinnon
- The Arizona Republic -
Feb. 1, 2008 12:00 AM
Human-caused climate change could undermine a century of building dams, canals and reservoirs across the West as warmer temperatures alter the way water flows through the dry country, scientists say.
Two separate studies, published in today's issue of Science magazine, describe weaknesses in an already fragile system of stretching limited water supplies, suggesting that what happened in Arizona this week, when warm rains filled reservoirs too early, could occur more frequently.
One study attempts to quantify for the first time the human contribution to climate change in the West. It offers evidence that man-made greenhouse gases from vehicles or power plants have caused up to 60 percent of the variations in snowpack, stream flow and higher temperatures over the past half-century.
The second study argues that climate change has rendered the past all but useless in managing water supplies. What look like cyclical droughts could turn into a new climate regime. Water-storage systems built based on historical weather and climate patterns will fail more often as conditions change, forcing water managers to adapt or face shortages.
"We have built all of our infrastructure to maximize the world as we know it," said Tim Barnett, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and lead author of one of the studies.
"As long as the climate stays the same, then we've optimized the system," he said. "But it's not going to stay the same. Things that used to work aren't going to work."
Bill Becker is Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, an initiative to help the next President of the United States take decisive action on global warming and energy security in his or her first 100 days in office.
A dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it’s not the advocates of climate action. It’s the other guys.
Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing.
 A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide.
Climate change will damage or stress essential municipal infrastructure such as water treatment and supply; increase the size and intensity of forest fires; increase the frequency and severity of flooding and drought; cause billions of dollars in damages to crops and property; lead to higher insurance rates; and even increase shipping costs in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence seaway because of lower water levels. And that’s just a sampling.
“Climate change will affect every American economically in significant, dramatic ways, and the longer it takes to respond, the greater the damage and the higher the costs,” lead researcher Matthias Ruth told ScienceDaily.
Reflections on the U.N. climate change negotiations in Bali
By Richard C. J. Somerville | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists| 8 January 2008
Taking a 2-degree-Celsius limit on global warming as the goal, the Bali declaration states, "Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50 percent below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilized at a level well below 450 parts per million. In order to stay below 2 degrees Celsius, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose. As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement."
In Greenland, Ice and Instability
By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times - Tuesday 08 January 2008
The ancient frozen dome cloaking Greenland is so vast that pilots have crashed into what they thought was a cloud bank spanning the horizon. Flying over it, you can scarcely imagine that this ice could erode fast enough to dangerously raise sea levels any time soon.
Along the flanks in spring and summer, however, the picture is very different. For a lengthening string of warm years, a lacework of blue lakes and rivulets of meltwater have been spreading ever higher on the ice cap. The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the sun as unmelted snow, which reflects sunlight. Natural drainpipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock. The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice toward the sea.
Most important, many glaciologists say, is the breakup of huge semisubmerged clots of ice where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fjords as they meet the warming ocean. As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated, frozen rivers.
All of these changes have many glaciologists "a little nervous these days - shell-shocked," said Ted Scambos, the lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and a veteran of both Greenland and Antarctic studies.
Climate change puts small islands in peril
Monday, December 10, 2007
NUSA DUA (JP): For small island states, identified by scientists as the most vulnerable countries to global warming, the adaptation fund is a do or die battle for their citizens.
Delegates from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Saturday pleaded for the world to take immediate action on the causes behind climate change, otherwise rising sea levels will wipe their homes off the world map.
“Urgent action is needed in the area of mitigation…adaptation financing is something we need today,” Ethelstan Angus Friday, head of the AOSIS delegates told reporters.
The alliance consists of 43 small island states and low-lying countries from around the world, including Tuvalu in the South Pacific, the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Grenada in the Caribbean.
“People of Tuvalu will become refugees if their island drowns due to sea level rise,” Enthelstan said.
He added the Maldives Islands, which lie only one meter above sea level, need at least US$175 million to build sea walls to prevent water from sweeping the land.
"The infrastructure of the most vulnerable countries alone could measure in the billions of dollars,” he said.
As an archipelagic country, of about 17,000 islands, most of them small, Indonesia is also at risk of land loss to rising seas.
The adaptation fund, to address expected impacts of climate change such as land loss to rising seas, is one of the most crucial issues being debated during the climate change conference here.
This week’s ministerial meeting of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) is expected to decide the mechanism of the adaptation fund, including the institution managing the fund, financial sources and they way funds are to be distributed.
| Agriculture will suffer substantial economic losses due to global warming with the gross domestic product of this sector in the world projected to drop by 16 per cent in the next 13 years. Significantly, even technology may not help to forestall these losses in totality. |
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| The worst affected will be the developing countries of South Asia, including India and Africa where the crop outputs will plummet much deeper than in the developed countries. |
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| This has been revealed in the bi-annual overview of the world food situation released last week by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). |
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| It reckons that the agriculture output in developing countries is likely to decline by whopping 20 per cent by 2020, against only 6 per cent fall in industrialised nations. The world agricultural gross domestic product as a whole will decrease by 16 per cent by 2020 due to global warming. |
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has systematically tried to manipulate climate change science and minimize the dangers of global warming, asserts a Democratic congressional report issued after a 16-month investigation.
Republicans called the report, issued Monday by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a "partisan diatribe" against the Bush administration.
The report relies on hundreds of internal communications and documents as well as testimony at two congressional hearings to outline a pattern where scientists and government reports were edited to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding global warming, according to Waxman.
Many of the allegations of interference dating back to 2002 have surfaced previously, although the report by the Democratic majority of the House Oversight and Reform Committee sought to show a pattern of conduct.
"The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming," the report concludes.
It said the White House over the years has sought to control public access to government climate scientists, suppressed scientific views that conflicted with administration policy and extensively edited government reports "to minimize the significance of climate change."
Ominous Arctic Melt Worries Experts
By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
Al Gore: Nobel Lecture, Oslo, 10 December 2007
The Nobel Peace Prize 2007
Nobel Peace Prize on YouTube
50 years on: The Keeling Curve legacy
By Helen Briggs
Science reporter, BBC News
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Its name - the Keeling Curve - may be scarcely known outside scientific circles, but the jagged upward slope showing rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere has become one of the most famous graphs in science, and a potent symbol of our times.
It was 50 years ago that a young American scientist, Charles David Keeling, began tracking CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere at two of the world's last wildernesses - the South Pole and the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.
His very precise measurements produced a remarkable data set, which first sounded alarm bells over the build-up of the gas in the atmosphere, and eventually led to the tracking of greenhouse gases worldwide.
The curve set the scene for the debate over climate change, and policies, sometimes controversial, that address the human contribution to the greenhouse effect.
BY JOHN ANDERSON - Special to Newsday - November 23, 2007
How do the people in "Everything's Cool" - "End of Nature" author Bill McKibben, or Ross ("The Columbo of Climate Change") Gelbspan, or the Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen - get audiences to embrace the topic? "Our movie comes at a very interesting moment, I think," said Helfand. "Perhaps it's true that the Al Gore movie was the thing that got everybody to wake up and think about this differently, but I don't think it was because of the science. It was because the issue keeps the movie's characters up at night. Because of some very basic storytelling principles, you understand why they care about it more than you do. And I think getting into the hearts and minds of people who care is the next best thing to caring."
People, Helfand said, are afraid of a lot of things and put their fears in a hierarchy. Among things that are going to "scare the bejesus out of them," she said, global warming's not always at the top of the list. "Also, this society is not great at thinking long term. We're good at being reactive, but not preemptive."
By ELIANE ENGELER
CO2 contributed 87 percent to the warming effect over the last decade, but in the last five years alone, its contribution was 91 percent, Braathen said. "This shows that CO2 is gaining importance as a greenhouse gas," Braathen said.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by about half a percent last year to reach 381.2 parts per million, according to the agency. Nitrous oxide totaled 320.1 parts per billion, which is a quarter percent higher than in 2005.
Braathen said it appears the upward trend will continue at least for a few years.
The World Meteorological Organization's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides widely accepted worldwide data on the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
By FRANK BAJA
EL ALTO, Bolivia (AP) — Twice a day, Elena Quispe draws water from a spigot on the dusty fringe of this city, fills three grimy plastic containers and pushes them in a rickety wheelbarrow to the adobe home she shares with her husband and eight children.
But the water supply is in peril. El Alto and its sister city of La Paz, the world's highest capital, depend on glaciers for at least a third of their water — more than any other urban sprawl. And those glaciers are rapidly melting because of global warming.
Informed of the threat, Quispe, a 37-year-old Aymara Indian, shows alarm on her weathered face. "Where are we going to get water? Without water how can we live?"
Scientists predict that all the glaciers in the tropical Andes will disappear by mid-century. The implications are dire not just for La Paz-El Alto but also for Quito, Ecuador, and Bogota, Colombia. More than 11 million people now live in the burgeoning cities, and El Alto alone is expanding at 5 percent a year.
The melting of the glaciers threatens not just drinking water but also crops and the hydroelectric plants on which these cities rely. The affected countries will need hundreds of millions of dollars to build reservoirs, shore up leaky distribution networks and construct gas or oil-fired plants — money they simply don't have.
"We're the ones who've contributed the least to global warming and we're getting hit with the biggest bill," laments Edson Ramirez, a Bolivian hydrologist who coordinates U.N., French- and Japanese-sponsored projects to quantify the damage exacted on fragile Andes ecosystems by richer nations that use more gas and create more pollution.
Ganga threatened by climate change
Bindu Shajan Perappadan - The Hindu - 11/23/2007
NEW DELHI: One of the greatest rivers of the Indian subcontinent and the source of life for hundreds of thousands of people, the Ganga is also one of the rivers most threatened by climate change.
According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change looking at the threat from climate change to human development and the environment, “only the polar icecaps hold more fresh water than the Himalayan glaciers”: “If the current trends of climate change continue, by 2030 the size of the glaciers could be reduced by as much as 80 per cent,” warns the report, titled “Up in Smoke -- Asia and the Pacific”, released here this week.
Some of India’s most important rivers are fed by the Himalayan glaciers. But rising temperatures means that many of the Himalayan glaciers are melting fast, and could diminish significantly over the coming decades with catastrophic results. In the long run, the water flow in the Ganges could drop by two-thirds, affecting more than 400 million people who depend on it for drinking water.
The report warns that in the short term the rapid melting of ice high up in the Himalayas might cause river swelling and floods. The formation of glacial lakes of melt-water creates the threat of outburst floods leading to devastation in lowland valleys.
“India is facing a major water crisis and its per capita grain production is declining. Countries like India cannot be expected to cover the cost of adapting to climate change out of their own resources. They will need financial and other help from the rich industrial countries,” says Raman Mehta of Action Aid speaking about the impact on climate change on agriculture.
“We Are Now In The Danger Zone”: Leading Australian Scientist Tim Flannery on Climate Change and How To Save the Planet
Democracy Now - 11/23/2007
We spend the hour with one of the world's leading scientists studying climate change, Tim Flannery. An Australian mammologist, palaeontologist and field zoologist, he has discovered and named more than thirty new species of mammals. He has been described as being in the league of all-time great explorers such as David Livingstone. Flannery might be best known as the author of the bestselling book "The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change." Earlier this year he was named 2007 Australian of the Year. Tim Flannery recently spoke before a packed crowd at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe New Mexico as part of "Readings and Conversations," a series sponsored by the Lannan Foundation. Today, Tim Flannery's speech on the environment, how human activity is altering the earth's climate and what we can do to save it.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/23/1514207
Global-warming gases set to rise by 57 percent by 2030
Wed Nov 7, 2007 - Agence France Presse
Emissions of greenhouse gases will rise by 57 percent by 2030 compared to current levels, which will increase the Earth's surface temperature by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.
In its annual report on global energy needs, the Paris-based agency projected greenhouse-gas pollution would rise by 1.8 percent annually by 2030 on the basis of projected energy use and current efforts to mitigate emissions.
The IEA saw little chance of reducing this pollution to a stable, safer level any time soon.
It also poured cold water on a scenario outlined earlier this year by the United Nations' main authority on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC said that in order to limit the average increase in global temperatures to 2.4 C (4.3 F) -- the most optimistic of any scenario -- the concentration of greenhouse gases would have to stabilise at 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
To achieve this goal, CO2 emissions would have to peak by 2015 at the latest, then fall by between 50 and 85 percent by 2050, the panel.
But the IEA's World Energy Outlook report saw no peak in emissions before 2020.
Alarming UN report on climate change is too rosy, many say
By Elisabeth Rosenthal and James Kanter - International Herald Tribune - Sunday, November 18, 2007
Developments that affect the IPCC predictions and have made such scenarios even more likely, scientists said, include faster than expected industrial development in China and India. Economic growth has a huge effect because these countries' industries are largely powered by electricity from burning coal, a cheap but highly polluting source of energy.
"The IPCC report never imagined the world would move back to a coal- based energy economy - and that's essentially what we've done," said Gernot Klepper an economist who studies climate change at the Kiel Institute in Germany. "If you extrapolate from that we're running into a disaster."
Part of the reason the scientists inserted their alarming statements about polar ice melts in the synthesis report is because "recent observations" were not "fully included in ice sheet models" used by IPCC, the report said.
Some in the scientific community have gone so far as to question the effectiveness of the IPCC as the world's early warning system on climate change.
"Sadly, even the most pessimistic of the climate prophets of the IPCC panel do not appear to have noticed how rapidly the climate is changing," said James Lovelock, a British scientist, "Scientists have let this potentially disastrous future steal up on us unaware."
U.N. Report Describes Risks of Inaction on Climate Change
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL - NYTimes - November 17, 2007
VALENCIA, Spain, Nov. 16 — In its final and most powerful report, a United Nations panel of scientists meeting here describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is both more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here.
Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.
The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the influential global climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also the first report from the panel since it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October — an honor that many scientists here said emboldened them to stand more forcefully behind their positions.
As a sign of the deepening urgency surrounding the climate change issue, the report, which was being printed Friday night, will be officially released by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday.
How Dry We Are -
A Question No One Wants to Raise About Drought
By Tom Engelhardt
Sen. Boxer Seeks Answers On Redacted Testimony
White House Cut Climate Warnings
By Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post - Thursday, October 25, 2007
By JOE GERTNER- NYT - October 21, 2007
“You don’t need to know all the numbers of the future exactly,” Pulwarty told me over lunch in a local Vietnamese restaurant. “You just need to know that we’re drying. And so the argument over whether it’s 15 percent drier or 20 percent drier? It’s irrelevant. Because in the long run, that decrease, accumulated over time, is going to dry out the system.” Pulwarty asked if I knew the projections for what it would take to refill Lake Powell, which is at about 50 percent of capacity. Twenty years of average flow on the Colorado River, he told me. “Good luck,” he said. “Even in normal conditions we don’t get 20 years of average flow. People are calling for more storage on the system, but if you can’t fill the reservoirs you have, I don’t know how more storage, or more dams, is going to help you. One has to ask if the normal strategies that we have are actually viable anymore.”
Lake Powell, May 2007. Note the prominent "bathtub ring" caused by low water.
BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct 4 (IPS) - The hot breath of global warming has now touched some of the coldest northern regions of world, turning the frozen landscape into mush as temperatures soar 15 degrees C. above normal.
Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green carpet into valleys and rivers on Melville Island in Canada’s northwest Arctic region of Nunavut this summer, says Scott Lamoureux of Queens University in Canada and leader of one the of International Polar Year projects.
A response by Hansen to his boss the NASA chief administors remark. A reasonable person, but one not fully cognizant of current knowledge about climate change,
may ask the question “Why should we bother to wrestle with human-made climate change?
There have been huge climate changes during the Earth’s history. It is arrogant to think that
humans can control climate or that we know enough to say that today’s climate is the best one
for the planet.”-- This is a paraphrase of statements by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on National Public Radio on 31 May
2007.
'Long-term' climate sensitivity of 6 degrees C for doubled CO2
Posted on Grist by Joseph Romm on 02 Oct 2007
The nation's top climate scientist is prolific: He has co-authored another important article: "Global Warming: East-West Connections" (PDF). And I'm not just saying that because he cites one of my articles. In fact, we've been having an email exchange and he strongly disagrees with me that it is too late, in a practical sense, to save the Arctic (and hence the polar bear). He believes strong and smart action now could work -- whereas I believe we need such action now to save the Greenland ice sheet, but doubt we can or will act in time to stop the total loss of Arctic summer ice.
I have previously written about the crucial climate variable -- the equilibrium climate sensitivity (typically estimated at about 3°C for double CO2) -- and how it only includes fast feedbacks, such as water vapor. Now Hansen has a draft article that looks at both current climate forcings and the paleoclimate record to conclude that "long-term" sensitivity is a stunning 6°C for doubled CO2. Here is what Hansen says on the subject (though when you read it you may wonder why Hansen is more optimistic than I am, rather than less):
Richard Malotky - Redding Searchlight -
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Answering Malotky: Showing the Data
By Doug Craig
On September 9, 2007 the Record Searchlight, Redding, California’s daily newspaper published a column by Dr. Richard Malotky, one of several contributing columnists to that paper. This column focused on global warming and asked “Can a few parts per million really warm the planet?”
http://www.redding.com/news/2007/sep/09/can-a-few-parts-per-million-really-warm-the/
The essence of Malotky’s viewpoint can be summarized as follows:
1) There are two sides to the global warming debate, both of which have a “political spin” and no data, which causes Malotky to “get so aggravated by everything” he reads or sees on the subject.
2) Those who believe that human beings are responsible for global warming are “protagonists.” Note that he does not refer to them as scientists and does not acknowledge any scientific basis for this view.
3) He appears to acknowledge the reality of global warming, (although his “proof” is a joke about southern hospitality) and he accepts “the fact that humans are adding lots of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.” However, he claims there is no connection between the two. Malotky cannot believe that rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere can cause the temperature of the Earth to increase because it exists in such “tiny amounts” in our atmosphere.
4) A much better explanation for global warming, according to Malotky is “sunlight” and/or the “slow cooker at the Earth’s core,” a “radioactive molten iron spinning dynamo.”
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