2. GLOBAL WARMING - YEAR 2012
2.12 Scientists Call For Stronger Global Governance to Address Climate Change
2.13 Stupid to the last drop
2.14 Warm weather in March fries up old records
2.15 Using maths to pinpoint global warming
2.16 New Push to Limit 'Super Greenhouse' Gases
2.17 Seagrasses beat rainforests in carbon storage
2.18 How the poor in India are reacting to climate change
2.19 Some towns are eying retreat from sea
2.20 Harper Budget Overturns Canada's Environmental Laws for Oil Industry
2.21 Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules
2.22 Who’s ‘Most to Blame’ for Global Warming?
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2.1 Extinction of cultures (2/1/2012)
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
.. He said: 'In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers'.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.
2.22 Who's 'Most to Blame' fro Global Warming (23/7/2012)
On a per capita basis, the biggest portion of cumulative CO2 heating the planet was emitted not by the United States, but by the United Kingdom.
That’s partly because the United Kingdom created the “industrial revolution” around the year 1800, first by burning enormous amounts of coal.
The UK led that revolution for so long that, on a per person basis, it is still the “most responsible” for the world’s excess heat now and in the near future, with Americans a close second and Germans a close third.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/
2.23 Tibetan glaciers retreating, earlier study flawed: Report (17/7/2012)
The study also found that there has been a 26% increase in the area covered by glacial lakes, formed from melting glaciers, in the region since the 1970s. The earlier GRACE study which announced that glaciers were increasing in size could have been misled by these lakes says the present study because it was measuring gravity pull by satellite and would not have been able to distinguish between water and ice.
http://timesofindia.
2.24 Ignored warnings about global warming .. (1/8//2012)
For those who believe in the scientific method, the last few years have been discouraging. Despite increasingly dire warnings from climate scientists, the public is more concerned about Snookie than a climate that risks our very survival. Republican politicians consider their ignorance and defiance of global warming a badge of honor, while Democrats run and hide if the issue comes up. The rest of the world is waiting for America to lead. My friends and colleagues have despaired that it appears nothing will change until Americans start seeing food shortages. That may become a real possibility, and soon.
Amidst record breaking heat, the worst drought since the 1930s Dust Bowl is choking much of the nation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, already ranks this drought as one of the worst on record. Eighty-one percent of the lower 48 states are experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions, and 63 percent are mired in moderate-to-exceptional drought. Parts of 29 states have been declared disaster areas, the largest in our nation's history, much larger than the Dust Bowl area, and long-term forecasts offer no real hope for improvement. Commodity food prices are skyrocketing.
http://www.deseretnews.com/
2.25 Climate science based on statistics (5/8/2012)
The relentless, weather-gone-crazy heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare it cannot be anything but man-made global warming, a top Nasa scientist says.
The research, by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than one in 300. Now the odds are closer to one in 10, according to the study by Professor James Hansen.
He says that statistically what is happening is not random or normal, but simply climate change. "This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Prof Hansen said.
Prof Hansen is a scientist at Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist seeking government action to curb greenhouse gases.
But his study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change sceptics, although several scientists have praised the new work.
In a blunt departure from most climate research, Prof Hansen's study - based on statistics, not the more typical climate modelling - blames these three heatwaves purely on global warming - last year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought; the 2010 heatwaves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths; and the 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.
http://www.google.com/
2.26 Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling (6/8/2012)
In general, nobody in charge of anything made of steel and concrete can plan based on past trends, said Vicki Arroyo, who heads the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, a clearinghouse on climate-change adaptation strategies.
Highways, Mr. Scullion noted, are designed for the local climate, taking into account things like temperature and rainfall. “When you get outside of those things, man, all bets are off.” As weather patterns shift, he said, “we could have some very dramatic failures of highway systems.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
2.27 Prevention better than cure (24/8/2012)
The plan panel chapter almost entirely focused on reducing emissions and sidelined what has been the primary focus of India's climate change policy - adapting to inevitable climate change. The ministry said, "The draft focuses primarily on a mitigation strategy for addressing climate change in India. The document must equally outline a comprehensive strategy for adaptation. The draft treats these issues nominally and instead, gives disproportionate prominence to the measures needed to curb emissions on the basis of report of the expert group on low carbon strategy."
http://timesofindia.
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Has the environment ministry heard of the adage 'Prevention is better than cure"?
It will be interesting to know how our Environment Ministry plans to 'adapt' to climate change. I am sure if the Environment Ministry has concrete plans, the Planning Commission can review their plan document. The Planning commission is there to plan for the distant future, is it necessary for the Environment Ministry to meddle, especially when the planning commission seem to be moving in the right direction? What the Planning Commission does need not be referred to in international fora, if that is what the Environment Ministry is scared of.
As matters stand at the moment, it is quite clear that western nations are not going to act - their energy needs are humungous due to climatic conditions. If countries in the tropics could rein in their energy requirements, it may just be possible that we could keep 'Titanic' from sinking.
Selvaraj
2.28 Japan mines flammable ice (10/9/2012)
Billions of tons of methane hydrate, frozen chunks of chemical-laced water buried in sediment some 3,000 feet under the Pacific Ocean floor, may help Japan win energy independence from the Middle East and Indonesia. Japanese engineers have found enough ``flammable ice'' to meet its gas use demands for 14 years. The trick is extracting it without damaging the environment.
Japan is joining the U.S. and Canada in test drilling for methane even as scientists express concerns about any uncontrolled release of the frozen chemical. Some researchers blame the greenhouse gas for triggering a global firestorm that helped wipe out the dinosaurs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
Pressure / Temperature graph for methane hydrate:
Therefore, the operation of the “increasing temperature” or “decreasing pressure” of layers bearing methane hydrate is the actual way of the production of methane hydrate. The production method that involves increasing the temperature is called the “heating method,” and another that involves decreasing the pressure is called the “depressurization method.”
http://www.mh21japan.gr.jp/
Risks associated with mining methane hydrate:
But there is a fairly large amount of risk involved in the extraction process. Mining of methane hydrates means, drilling rigs that go all the way down to the sea bed (around 500 mts below sea level). Even if you place a rig safely, methane hydrate is very unstable once removed from high pressure and low temperature. Methane gas will try to escape, even as it is brought to the surface of the water. And believe me when I say that the risk of leakage should be the last thing on your mind. Even though, methane is a greenhouse gas and if released it would increase the global warming at a catastrophic rate. Still, the bigger risk lies deep under the sea. Many geologists believe that methane hydrate plays a major role in stabilizing the sea floor (tectonic plates). Drilling the seabed for mining of methane hydrate deposits may lead to destabilizing of the sea bed causing underwater landslides which could rigger massive tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
http://www.bleedgreen.in/
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All these heroic efforts nevertheless side step the issue of global warming!
Selvaraj
2.29 Japanese Fast Breeder Reactor (11/9/2012)
NAOTO KAN, FORMER JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (voiceover translation): I think the time has come to make a decision over Monju which has cost an immense amount over many years. And it seems it has no prospect of attaining its goals, despite constant extensions to the project.
SATORU KONDO (voiceover translation): So far $12 billion have been used for research and development at Monju. If we stop now, we're wasting 50 years of effort.
http://www.abc.net.au/
2.30 Threshold of 1.5 C for protecting Coral reefs (22/9/2012)
LONDON: Two thirds of corals could be saved only under a scenario with strong action on mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions and the assumption that corals can adapt at extremely rapid rates, suggests a study.
Otherwise all coral reefs are expected to be subject to severe degradation.
Coral reefs house almost a quarter of the species in the oceans and provide critical services - including coastal protection, tourism and fishing - to millions of people worldwide. Global warming and ocean acidification, both driven by human-caused CO2 emissions, pose a major threat to these ecosystems.
"Our findings show that under current assumptions regarding thermal sensitivity, coral reefs might no longer be prominent coastal ecosystems if global mean temperatures actually exceed 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level," said lead author Katja Frieler from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
"Without a yet uncertain process of adaptation or acclimation, however, already about 70 percent of corals are projected to suffer from long-term degradation by 2030 even under an ambitious mitigation scenario," Frieler noted.
Thus, the threshold to protect at least half of the coral reefs worldwide is estimated to be below 1.5 degrees Celsius mean temperature increase.
http://articles.timesofindia.
2.31 Sea Ice in Antarctica is Growing! (23/9/2012)
The sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean has plummeted to its lowest level on record — but down at the other end of the world, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica has swelled. That’s no surprise, considering that winter is just ending in the Southern Hemisphere — but what may be surprising is that the overall extent of Antarctic ice has grown by about one percent per decade, on average, since satellite records began a little over 30 years ago.
http://www.climatecentral.org/
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The Northern hemisphere has more land mass, allowing the air to warm up faster. We could see a phenomenon where moisture in the atmosphere is transported closer to the south pole and dumped there (drying up the Northern hemisphere?)! Eventually however, as global warming progresses, the antarctic ice will also begin to melt.
Selvaraj
2.32 Nuclear Power / Climate Change (30/9/2012)
Speaking to at the sidelines of the Low Carbon Energy for Development Conference at Sussex University, Professor Gordon MacKerron, said it was not inevitable or desirable for countries to pursue large scale nuclear programmes.
“While nuclear power will remain as a potential option for some countries, the notion that it can play a large role in some kind of global low carbon future seems to me it would be frankly unrealistic and probably undesirable,” he said.
“It is a slow process; nuclear power takes a long time to develop, to pass through regulatory processes and to pass through political hurdles. There are other larges scale technologies – of which large scale solar is an obvious example – that might do just a good a job, cheaper and quicker and with less controversy.”
http://www.rtcc.org/energy/
2.33 Obama, Romney mum on global warming (10/10/2012)
Global warming may be the biggest topic that neither President Barack Obama nor GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to touch.
Obama devoted all of four sentences to climate change in his speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. Romney rarely mentions it at all.
It's a stark change from the 2008 presidential race, when both Obama and his Republican opponent, John McCain, preached the need to reduce greenhouse gases. And environmentalists are furious the issue is largely ignored.
"The silence of Governor Romney and President Obama on climate change is deafening," said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth Action.
His organization has launched a campaign called Climate Silence to inject global warming into the presidential race, working with another group called Forecast the Facts. The campaign's website features photos of Obama and Romney with duct tape over their mouths.
"Voters deserve to know where they stand on the most serious threat to our nation," Pica said in a news release. "Anyone who is elected to lead the country -- or aspires to do so -- should realize that true leadership means a willingness to engage difficult issues, not sweep them under the rug."
Nine environmental groups circulated petitions asking journalist Jim Lehrer, the moderator of last week's debate, to press the candidates on global warming. About 160,000 people signed, but Lehrer didn't mention climate change, or energy ....
Read more: http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/
2.34 Global warming: sea level rising faster than expected (5/11/2012)
“You would expect negative feedbacks to creep in at some point,” Hay said. “But in climate change, every feedback seems to go positive. Under human prodding, the system wants to go into a new climate state,” Hay said, concluding that the Earth’s climate seems to have certain stable states. Between those states things are unstable and can change quickly.
2.35 Call to include carbon emission from permafrost in global climate models (27/11/2012)
2.36 Global Warming (Do humans have the intelligence to solve this problem? (2/12/2012)
2.37 Global warming is not due to the sun (14/12/2012)
GCR - Glactic Cosmic Rays:
It's important to note that so far virtually all scientific research on GCRs has shown that they are not effective at seeding clouds and thus have very little influence over the Earth's temperature. In fact, as Zeke Hausfather has noted, the leaked IPCC report specifically states this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
2.1 Extinction of cultures
2.2 Global warming moving faster,
UGA ecologist says
2.3 Rising co2 emissions 'damaging' fish
brains
2.4 NASA video shows global warming is
real
2.5 Big Oil You Fracked Up The Planet:
Global Warming Worse
2.6 No Need to Panic About Global
Warming
2.7 Singapore raises sea defences
against tide of climate change
2.8 Wall Street Journal rapped over climate
change stance
2.9 Moving out of the dark ages
2.10 The reality of
warming / the myth of cooling - see graph
2.11 Global warming
affecting Mount Everest2.12 Scientists Call For Stronger Global Governance to Address Climate Change
2.13 Stupid to the last drop
2.14 Warm weather in March fries up old records
2.15 Using maths to pinpoint global warming
2.16 New Push to Limit 'Super Greenhouse' Gases
2.17 Seagrasses beat rainforests in carbon storage
2.18 How the poor in India are reacting to climate change
2.19 Some towns are eying retreat from sea
2.20 Harper Budget Overturns Canada's Environmental Laws for Oil Industry
2.21 Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules
2.22 Who’s ‘Most to Blame’ for Global Warming?
2.23 Tibetan glaciers retreating, earlier study flawed:
Report
2.24 Ignored warnings about global warming
2.25 Climate science based on statistics
2.26
Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling
2.27 Prevention better than cure
2.28 Japan mines flammable ice
2.29 Japanese Fast Breeder Reactor
2.30 Threshold of 1.5 C for protecting Coral reefs
2.31 Sea Ice in Antarctica is Growing!
2.32 Nuclear Power / Climate Change
2.33 Obama, Romney mum on global warming
2.34 Global warming: sea level rising faster than expected
2.35 Call to include carbon emissions from permafrost in
global climate models
2.36 Global Warming (Do humans have the intelligence to
solve this problem?)
2.37 Global warming is not due to the sun
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2.1 Extinction of cultures (2/1/2012)
It’s not just animals that face extinction.
Human cultures do as well.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Writer Gretel Ehrlich explores global warming s effects on culture
Human cultures do as well.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Writer Gretel Ehrlich explores global warming s effects on culture
2.2 Global warming moving faster, UGA ecologist says (19/1/2012)
Global warming is advancing faster than even the worst predictions of a few years ago, and the pace is likely to pick up sharply, a prominent University of Georgia ecologist said Wednesday.
A few years ago, climate scientists were predicting the Arctic Ocean might be ice-free during summer by about 2040. Now, scientists believe the summer Arctic could be open ocean as soon as next year, ecologist Jim Porter told a crowd of more than 100 on the UGA campus.
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In my own research on Human Posture (www.humanposture.com), I have found myself increasingly puzzled: how can people be so dumb! Can they not see the distortion in the skeletal system? Why don't they realise that any tight apparel will distort the functioning of the muscular system?
This makes me worried, what chances do we have of solving our many problems?
In this connection I would like to sound a note of caution regarding traditional knowledge (rather attitudes). If Darwin is correct and we did evolve from apes, my graph for the relative contribution of our forebears to our intelligence would look like this:
* Contribution to our intelligence
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*.............................
*
******************************
5.............4.............3.
..............................
In short, our immediate forebears (may God rest their souls) were too drunk most of the time to think straight. They discovered God and worshipped him, but were so vain that they concluded that God looked like themselves. At one moment they were grovelling in front of their deity and in the next concluding that they themselves were Godlike.
Unfortunately we are the inheritors of this attitude. Unless we change our attitudes (which we have inherited from our illustrious forebears), well ....
Selvaraj
2.3 Rising co2 emissions 'damaging' fish brains (22/1/2012)
"For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 - and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival," Prof. Munday said.
In their latest paper Prof. Munday and colleagues reported world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.
2.4 NASA video shows global warming is real (24/1/2012)
If there were any doubt that a real warming trend is upon us, scientists at NASA have produced a visualization that depicts the recent rise in global temperatures as felt over a span of 130 years.
While the video shows a clear pattern of seasonal temperature changes along with momentary spikes throughout the centuries, you can see that it’s only recently that temperatures in most regions of the world (represented with intensified colors) started to really peak. In fact, since the year 2000, we’ve experienced nine of the 10 warmest years on record. And the researchers have noted that within the past 11 years, temperatures were significantly hotter than in the middle and late 20th century. For instance, the average temperature globally in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than baseline temperatures in the mid-20th century.
WEAKER SUN WILL NOT DELAY GLOBAL WARMING
A weaker sun over the next 90 years is not likely to significantly delay a rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases, a report said Monday.
The study, by Britain's Meteorological Office and the university of Reading, found that the Sun's output would decrease up until 2100 but this would only lead to a fall in global temperatures of 0.08 degrees Celsius.
Scientists have warned that more extreme weather is likely across the globe this century as the Earth's climate warms.
The world is expected to heat up by over 2 degrees Celsius this century due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Current global pledges to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are not seen as sufficient to stop the planet heating up beyond 2 degrees, a threshold scientists say risks an unstable climate in which weather extremes are common.
2.5 Big Oil You Fracked Up The Planet: Global Warming Worse (25/1/2012)
"The greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas also exceeds that of oil or coal when considered at decadal time scales, no matter how the gas is used."
.................
Gas extracted from shale is a huge contributor of greenhouse gases when both methane and carbon dioxide are considered, according to a major new study by three Cornell University researchers.
The natural gas industry already accounts for almost a fifth (17 percent) of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions inventory, when analyzed using recently available new evidence. This percentage is predicted to grow to almost one quarter (23 percent) as shale gas continues to replace conventional natural gas.
Methane, which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is the culprit, according to the new report.
... The 20-year time frame is particularly important, the authors explain, because it may well be the timing for a tipping point for climate change if emissions are not brought under immediate control. The new paper builds on major new findings from the United Nations and from researchers at NASA published over the past six months, highlighting the urgent need to immediately reduce methane pollution globally.
Robert W. Howarth, David R. Atkinson professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, said: We believe the preponderance of evidence indicates shale gas has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional gas, considered over any time scale. The greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas also exceeds that of oil or coal when considered at decadal time scales, no matter how the gas is used. We stand by the conclusion of our 2011 research: "The large [greenhouse gas] footprint of shale gas undercuts the logic of its use as a bridging fuel over coming decades, if the goal is to reduce global warming.`
2.6 No Need to Panic About Global Warming (27/1/2012)
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
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Fifteen distinguished scientists have affixed their signature to the above letter.
I have three questions.
1. Is the ice at the Northern Polar region melting?
2. If it is melting, why is it melting?
3. Are our distinguished scientists aware that when ice melts absorbing 80 cal of heat for every gram, there is no increase in temperature?
Selvaraj
2.7 Singapore raises sea defences against tide of climate change (27/1/2012)
Singapore, the world's second most densely populated country after Monaco, covers 715 square km (276 sq miles). It has already reclaimed large areas to expand its economy and population -- boosting its land area by more than 20 percent since 1960.
2.8 Wall Street Journal rapped over climate change stance (2/2/2012)
Leading scientists, including climate change experts, complain about opinion piece akin to 'dentists practising cardiology'
.. The Wall Street Journal has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change.
In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, took on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming.
The offending article, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, which appeared last week, argued that climate change was a cunning ploy deployed by governments to raise taxes and by non-profit organisations to solicit donations to save the planet.
... The letter also choose not to dig into the long history of the Wall Street Journal's rejection of climate science. The paper had earlier refused to publish a similar letter from 255 scientists from the National Academy of Sciences that supported the mainstream view on climate change.
The rejection was seen by some as further evidence that Rupert Murdoch is using his news organisations, such as the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, to further his own anti-regulatory agenda.
.. The letter goes on to note that some 97% of researchers who actively publish on climate science agree that climate change is real and caused by humans. It concludes: "It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses."
2.9 Moving out of the dark ages (5/2/2012)
The Catholic Church reacted strongly Friday to a White House defense of new rules that will force many religious employers to providecontraception to their workers in government-mandated health insurance plans.
"The White House information about this is a combination of misleading and wrong," said Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He said the bishops would "pursue every legal mandate available to them to bring an end to this mandate. That means legislation, litigation and public advocacy. All options are on the table."
"The White House information about this is a combination of misleading and wrong," said Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He said the bishops would "pursue every legal mandate available to them to bring an end to this mandate. That means legislation, litigation and public advocacy. All options are on the table."
.......................
It pains me greatly to write anything negative about the Catholic Church, having myself studied in a catholic institution. But it is time that the Catholic church got real.
1. One does not have to be a naturalist of eminence like Darwin to realise that most living things have been gifted to procreate well beyond their actual survival capabilities. In the case of all living things except humans, there is a natural weeding out and very few make it to adulthood. To believe that humans can, without contraception, stabilise their population seems absurd.
2. The Catholic Church has been embroiled in child molestation controversies. Reading a recent pot boiler by Robin Cook it becomes obvious why this has been so. Many sexual activities would come under the definition of 'sin', which a person would have to 'confess' to; this obviously provides an open door which leads to 'communication' that leads to molestation. The Church needs to take a deeper look at the definition of 'sin' and what needs to be confessed.
3. The Catholic Church mainly represents the opinion of Males not Females. On the issue of procreation, where the burden is unfairly high on women, should not the Church more deeply consult its female constituents?
4. The whole of humanity I am sure is beholden to the Catholic Church for upholding the dignity of human beings. The final proof however is not through dogma alone; we have to also look at the results.
Selvaraj
2.10 The reality of warming / the myth of cooling - see graph (22/2/2012)
Global Warming Know-It-Alls Write More BS In The Wall Street Journal
Two Canadian climate change scientists from the University of Victoria say the public reaction to their recently published commentary has missed their key message: That all forms of fossil fuels, including the oilsands and coal, must be regulated for the world to avoid dangerous global warming.
Read more: http://www.
Read more: http://www.
2.11 Global warming affecting Mount Everest (27/2/2012)
One of the most prolific climbers of all time, who has conquered Everest a record 21 times, says he may not be able to do it again.
Why? Because climate change is making the world’s highest and most treacherous peak unclimbable, Asa Sherpa contends.
.. He said: 'In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers'.
Apa added: 'Also, climbing is becoming more difficult because when you are on a mountain you can wear crampons [spiked footwear designed for climbing on ice] but it’s very dangerous and very slippery to walk on bare rock with crampons'.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.
2.12 Stronger Global Governance To Address Climate Change (18/3/2012)
2.13 Stupid to the last drop (18/3/2012)
In its desperate search for oil and gas riches, Alberta is destroying itself. As the world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change, Alberta plunges ahead with uncontrolled development of its fossil fuels, levelling its northern Boreal forest to get at the oil sands, and carpet-bombing its southern half with tens of thousands of gas wells. In so doing, it is running out of water, destroying its range land, wiping out its forests and wildlife and spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding to global warming at a rate that is unrivalled in Canada or almost anywhere else in the world. It’s digging, drilling and blasting its way to oblivion, becoming the ultimate symbol of Canada’s – and the world’s – pathological will to self-destruct.
Governance is needed to mitigate human impact on the earth’s climate and to ensure sustainable development, according to 32 scientists who published a paper in Friday’s issue of the journalScience.
In “Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance,” (summary), the scholars argue that current institutions, including the United Nations, have shown themselves inadequate to the necessities now facing humanity.
In a podcast accompanying the article, lead author Frank Biermann, an environmental policy specialists from VU University in Amsterdam, cites climate change as the most prominent example of the failure of global governance to meet the needs of global society:
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I have a couple of bean plants growing on my rooftop; these bean plants are colonized by 0.8 cm long ants. The job they are doing keeping these plants free of pests is amazing; what is even more amazing is that this small army of ants seem to be knowing at every moment what precisely to do. I don't find any traffic jams, any working to cross-purpose, any long winded discussions - deciding what to do next ...
I would not agree with the authors of the above report. What we need are:
1. Overhaul of our educational system - which at present is mainly focused on producing soldiers for the Market Economy. (Not more that 50% of the educational system should have such a focus).
2. Overhaul of the way in which we communicate. Presently, The Market Economy decides what we get to hear. The din created by the Market Economy also ensures that important issues get smothered.
The key idea is, people across the world need to be better informed. Centralized planning is not a good idea. The ants in America, faced with a different environment, should be doing things differently from the ants in India - while collectively working for the common good.
Selvaraj
2.13 Stupid to the last drop (18/3/2012)
In its desperate search for oil and gas riches, Alberta is destroying itself. As the world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change, Alberta plunges ahead with uncontrolled development of its fossil fuels, levelling its northern Boreal forest to get at the oil sands, and carpet-bombing its southern half with tens of thousands of gas wells. In so doing, it is running out of water, destroying its range land, wiping out its forests and wildlife and spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding to global warming at a rate that is unrivalled in Canada or almost anywhere else in the world. It’s digging, drilling and blasting its way to oblivion, becoming the ultimate symbol of Canada’s – and the world’s – pathological will to self-destruct.
2.14 Warm weather in March fries up old records (9/4/2012)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.
In March, at least 7,775 weather stations across the nation broke daily high temperature records and another 7,517 broke records for night-time heat. Combined, that's more high temperature records broken in one month than ever before, Crouch said.
‘When you look at what's happened in March this year, it's beyond unbelievable,’ said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver.
NOAA climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi compared the increase in weather extremes to baseball players on steroids: You can't say an individual homer is because of steroids, but they are hit more often and the long-held records for home runs fall.
They seem to be falling far more often because of global warming, said NASA top climate scientist James Hansen.
In a paper he submitted to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and posted on a physics research archive, Mr Hansen shows that heat extremes aren't just increasing but happening far more often than scientists thought.
What used to be a 1-in-400 hot temperature record is now a 1 in 10 occurrence, essentially 40 times more likely, said Mr Hansen, who has become an activist in fighting fossil fuels.
2.15 Using maths to pinpoint global warming (12/5/2012)
2.16 New Push to Limit 'Super Greenhouse Gases' (15/5/2012)
Unlike CFCs, HFCs don't destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere, but they do have a downside: they are extremely powerful global warming gases. In fact, HFC-134a, which is the most popular HFC substitute and is used in air conditioning systems in vehicles, has a global warming potential that is more than 1,400 times that of carbon dioxide, the main manmade global warming gas.
2.17 Seagrasses beat rainforests in carbon storage (23/5/2012)
Florida (global-adventures.us): Coastal seagrass beds store up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer, mostly in the soils beneath them. By comparison, a typical terrestrial forest stores about 30,000 metric tons per square kilometer, most of which is in the form of wood.
However, seagrasses are among the world's most threatened ecosystems. Some 29 percent of all historic seagrass meadows have been destroyed, mainly due to dredging and degradation of water quality. At least 1.5 percent of Earth's seagrass meadows are lost every year. New research shows that seagrasses are a vital part of the solution to climate change and, per unit area, seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world's temperate and tropical forests.
... Seagrasses have long been recognized for their many ecosystem benefits: they filter sediment from the oceans; protect coastlines against floods and storms; and serve as habitats for fish and other marine life. The new results emphasize that conserving and restoring seagrass meadows may reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon stores - while delivering important "ecosystem services" to coastal communities.
http://www.global-adventures.
2.18 How the poor in India are reacting to climate change (28/5/2012)
Raging floods kill scores of people in this part of the country almost every year. But, of late, the floods have become more frequent and furious. Kosi - the sorrow of Bihar - caused massive damage here in 2007 and 2008. With their fields under water for long periods, people here have turned to growing makhana, or fox nut, which grows well in waterlogged farms. Over the past decade, the Bihar government has promoted this 'industry' in a big way to relieve the poor whose crops are swept away again and again.
2.19 Some towns are eying retreat from sea (3/6/2012)
Up and down the California coast, some communities are deciding it's not worth trying to wall off the encroaching ocean. Until recently, the thought of bowing to nature was almost unheard of.
Over the past half-century, the weapon of choice against a shrinking shoreline has been building a seawall or other defense. Roughly 10 percent of California's 1,100-mile coast is armored. In Southern California, where development is sometimes built steps from the ocean, a third of the shore is dotted with man-made barriers....
http://www.insidebayarea.com/
2.20 Harper Budget Overturns Canada's Environmental Laws for Oil Industry (5/6/.)
2.21 Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules (29/6/2012)
Even with a multitude of extreme weather events in recent years —
tornadoes in New York City, blizzards in Washington, D.C., 15,000
warm-temperature records shattered across the U.S. in March — each
consistent with computer models of a warming world, Emanuel and many
other noted scientists have been unwilling to attribute any one event to
global warming. There’s just too much variability in the weather, these
experts say, and their dedication to data has helped prop open the door
for “denialists” to sow doubt about the reality of our warming world.
But Hansen’s shot across the bow this morning indicates that the
unwillingness to point fingers may be changing. According to a
peer-reviewed paper Hansen has submitted to a leading scientific journal
and made available to Time.com prior to publication, scientists can now
state “with a high degree of confidence” that some extremely high
temperatures are in fact caused by global warming, simply because they
occur much more frequently than they used to. (A preliminary draft of
the article is available here.)
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.2.16 New Push to Limit 'Super Greenhouse Gases' (15/5/2012)
Unlike CFCs, HFCs don't destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere, but they do have a downside: they are extremely powerful global warming gases. In fact, HFC-134a, which is the most popular HFC substitute and is used in air conditioning systems in vehicles, has a global warming potential that is more than 1,400 times that of carbon dioxide, the main manmade global warming gas.
... In
the U.S., HFC emissions have skyrocketed in recent years, growing by
216 percent between 1990 and 2009, according to data from the Energy
Information Administration. The Institute for Governance and Sustainable
Development (IGSD), an environmental think tank in Washington, claims
that phasing down HFC production and use under the Micronesian plan
would be the equivalent of preventing 100 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide emissions by 2050.
"Phasing down HFCs is the biggest, fastest, cheapest piece of climate
mitigation available to the world in the next few years," IGSD president
Durwood Zaelke said.
Why phase down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol?
2.17 Seagrasses beat rainforests in carbon storage (23/5/2012)
Florida (global-adventures.us): Coastal seagrass beds store up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer, mostly in the soils beneath them. By comparison, a typical terrestrial forest stores about 30,000 metric tons per square kilometer, most of which is in the form of wood.
However, seagrasses are among the world's most threatened ecosystems. Some 29 percent of all historic seagrass meadows have been destroyed, mainly due to dredging and degradation of water quality. At least 1.5 percent of Earth's seagrass meadows are lost every year. New research shows that seagrasses are a vital part of the solution to climate change and, per unit area, seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world's temperate and tropical forests.
... Seagrasses have long been recognized for their many ecosystem benefits: they filter sediment from the oceans; protect coastlines against floods and storms; and serve as habitats for fish and other marine life. The new results emphasize that conserving and restoring seagrass meadows may reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon stores - while delivering important "ecosystem services" to coastal communities.
http://www.global-adventures.
2.18 How the poor in India are reacting to climate change (28/5/2012)
Raging floods kill scores of people in this part of the country almost every year. But, of late, the floods have become more frequent and furious. Kosi - the sorrow of Bihar - caused massive damage here in 2007 and 2008. With their fields under water for long periods, people here have turned to growing makhana, or fox nut, which grows well in waterlogged farms. Over the past decade, the Bihar government has promoted this 'industry' in a big way to relieve the poor whose crops are swept away again and again.
2.19 Some towns are eying retreat from sea (3/6/2012)
Up and down the California coast, some communities are deciding it's not worth trying to wall off the encroaching ocean. Until recently, the thought of bowing to nature was almost unheard of.
.. In the U.S., the starkest example can be
found in Alaska, where entire villages have been forced to move to
higher ground or are thinking about it in the face of melting sea ice.
Hawaii's famous beaches are slowly shrinking and some scientists think
it's a matter of time before the state has to explore whether to move
back development.
Several states along the Atlantic coast have
adopted policies meant to keep a distance from the ocean. They include
no-build zones, setbacks or rolling easements that allow development but
with a caveat. As the sea advances, homeowners promise not to build
seawalls and must either shift inland or let go.Over the past half-century, the weapon of choice against a shrinking shoreline has been building a seawall or other defense. Roughly 10 percent of California's 1,100-mile coast is armored. In Southern California, where development is sometimes built steps from the ocean, a third of the shore is dotted with man-made barriers....
http://www.insidebayarea.com/
2.20 Harper Budget Overturns Canada's Environmental Laws for Oil Industry (5/6/.)
The Alberta Caribou Committee, tasked with the recovery of the
province's dwindling caribou populations, is dominated by timber, oil
and gas industry interests. Participating scientists have been silenced -
their reports rewritten and their recommendations overlooked.
......................
Unfortunately
the basic idea that we need to share our planet with other life forms
has been fully missing from the debate for the last 100 years. The huge
din created by our respected scientists, engineers and religious and
political leaders (and our media controlled by these characters) has not
permitted this issue to be raised or debated. Our scientists and
engineers may shed crocodile tears now, but they are the ones (in their
search for glory), who created the problems in the first place.
Now it seems too late to turn the tide!
No wonder, driven to desperation, T.S. Eliot penned this immortal poem:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Selvaraj
2.21 Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules (29/6/2012)
WASHINGTON—A federal appeals court on
Tuesday upheld the first-ever regulations aimed at reducing the gases
blamed for global warming, handing down perhaps the most significant
decision on the issue since a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse
gases could be controlled as air pollutants. The rules, which had
been challenged by industry groups and several states, will reduce
emissions of six heat-trapping gases from large industrial facilities
such as factories and power plants, as well as from automobile
tailpipes.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said that the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to address global warming, denying two of the challenges to four separate regulations and dismissing the others.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said no one expected the "complete slam dunk" issued by the court Tuesday, and said the decision was exceeded in importance only by the Supreme Court ruling five years ago.
Read more: Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said that the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to address global warming, denying two of the challenges to four separate regulations and dismissing the others.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said no one expected the "complete slam dunk" issued by the court Tuesday, and said the decision was exceeded in importance only by the Supreme Court ruling five years ago.
Read more: Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/
2.22 Who's 'Most to Blame' fro Global Warming (23/7/2012)
On a per capita basis, the biggest portion of cumulative CO2 heating the planet was emitted not by the United States, but by the United Kingdom.
That’s partly because the United Kingdom created the “industrial revolution” around the year 1800, first by burning enormous amounts of coal.
The UK led that revolution for so long that, on a per person basis, it is still the “most responsible” for the world’s excess heat now and in the near future, with Americans a close second and Germans a close third.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/
2.23 Tibetan glaciers retreating, earlier study flawed: Report (17/7/2012)
The study also found that there has been a 26% increase in the area covered by glacial lakes, formed from melting glaciers, in the region since the 1970s. The earlier GRACE study which announced that glaciers were increasing in size could have been misled by these lakes says the present study because it was measuring gravity pull by satellite and would not have been able to distinguish between water and ice.
http://timesofindia.
2.24 Ignored warnings about global warming .. (1/8//2012)
For those who believe in the scientific method, the last few years have been discouraging. Despite increasingly dire warnings from climate scientists, the public is more concerned about Snookie than a climate that risks our very survival. Republican politicians consider their ignorance and defiance of global warming a badge of honor, while Democrats run and hide if the issue comes up. The rest of the world is waiting for America to lead. My friends and colleagues have despaired that it appears nothing will change until Americans start seeing food shortages. That may become a real possibility, and soon.
Amidst record breaking heat, the worst drought since the 1930s Dust Bowl is choking much of the nation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, already ranks this drought as one of the worst on record. Eighty-one percent of the lower 48 states are experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions, and 63 percent are mired in moderate-to-exceptional drought. Parts of 29 states have been declared disaster areas, the largest in our nation's history, much larger than the Dust Bowl area, and long-term forecasts offer no real hope for improvement. Commodity food prices are skyrocketing.
http://www.deseretnews.com/
2.25 Climate science based on statistics (5/8/2012)
The relentless, weather-gone-crazy heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare it cannot be anything but man-made global warming, a top Nasa scientist says.
The research, by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than one in 300. Now the odds are closer to one in 10, according to the study by Professor James Hansen.
He says that statistically what is happening is not random or normal, but simply climate change. "This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Prof Hansen said.
Prof Hansen is a scientist at Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist seeking government action to curb greenhouse gases.
But his study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change sceptics, although several scientists have praised the new work.
In a blunt departure from most climate research, Prof Hansen's study - based on statistics, not the more typical climate modelling - blames these three heatwaves purely on global warming - last year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought; the 2010 heatwaves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths; and the 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.
http://www.google.com/
2.26 Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling (6/8/2012)
In general, nobody in charge of anything made of steel and concrete can plan based on past trends, said Vicki Arroyo, who heads the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, a clearinghouse on climate-change adaptation strategies.
Highways, Mr. Scullion noted, are designed for the local climate, taking into account things like temperature and rainfall. “When you get outside of those things, man, all bets are off.” As weather patterns shift, he said, “we could have some very dramatic failures of highway systems.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
National
Drought Goes On And On
http://blog.chron.com/2.27 Prevention better than cure (24/8/2012)
The plan panel chapter almost entirely focused on reducing emissions and sidelined what has been the primary focus of India's climate change policy - adapting to inevitable climate change. The ministry said, "The draft focuses primarily on a mitigation strategy for addressing climate change in India. The document must equally outline a comprehensive strategy for adaptation. The draft treats these issues nominally and instead, gives disproportionate prominence to the measures needed to curb emissions on the basis of report of the expert group on low carbon strategy."
http://timesofindia.
................
Has the environment ministry heard of the adage 'Prevention is better than cure"?
It will be interesting to know how our Environment Ministry plans to 'adapt' to climate change. I am sure if the Environment Ministry has concrete plans, the Planning Commission can review their plan document. The Planning commission is there to plan for the distant future, is it necessary for the Environment Ministry to meddle, especially when the planning commission seem to be moving in the right direction? What the Planning Commission does need not be referred to in international fora, if that is what the Environment Ministry is scared of.
As matters stand at the moment, it is quite clear that western nations are not going to act - their energy needs are humungous due to climatic conditions. If countries in the tropics could rein in their energy requirements, it may just be possible that we could keep 'Titanic' from sinking.
Selvaraj
2.28 Japan mines flammable ice (10/9/2012)
Billions of tons of methane hydrate, frozen chunks of chemical-laced water buried in sediment some 3,000 feet under the Pacific Ocean floor, may help Japan win energy independence from the Middle East and Indonesia. Japanese engineers have found enough ``flammable ice'' to meet its gas use demands for 14 years. The trick is extracting it without damaging the environment.
Japan is joining the U.S. and Canada in test drilling for methane even as scientists express concerns about any uncontrolled release of the frozen chemical. Some researchers blame the greenhouse gas for triggering a global firestorm that helped wipe out the dinosaurs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
Pressure / Temperature graph for methane hydrate:
Therefore, the operation of the “increasing temperature” or “decreasing pressure” of layers bearing methane hydrate is the actual way of the production of methane hydrate. The production method that involves increasing the temperature is called the “heating method,” and another that involves decreasing the pressure is called the “depressurization method.”
http://www.mh21japan.gr.jp/
Risks associated with mining methane hydrate:
But there is a fairly large amount of risk involved in the extraction process. Mining of methane hydrates means, drilling rigs that go all the way down to the sea bed (around 500 mts below sea level). Even if you place a rig safely, methane hydrate is very unstable once removed from high pressure and low temperature. Methane gas will try to escape, even as it is brought to the surface of the water. And believe me when I say that the risk of leakage should be the last thing on your mind. Even though, methane is a greenhouse gas and if released it would increase the global warming at a catastrophic rate. Still, the bigger risk lies deep under the sea. Many geologists believe that methane hydrate plays a major role in stabilizing the sea floor (tectonic plates). Drilling the seabed for mining of methane hydrate deposits may lead to destabilizing of the sea bed causing underwater landslides which could rigger massive tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
http://www.bleedgreen.in/
------------------------
All these heroic efforts nevertheless side step the issue of global warming!
Selvaraj
2.29 Japanese Fast Breeder Reactor (11/9/2012)
NAOTO KAN, FORMER JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (voiceover translation): I think the time has come to make a decision over Monju which has cost an immense amount over many years. And it seems it has no prospect of attaining its goals, despite constant extensions to the project.
SATORU KONDO (voiceover translation): So far $12 billion have been used for research and development at Monju. If we stop now, we're wasting 50 years of effort.
http://www.abc.net.au/
2.30 Threshold of 1.5 C for protecting Coral reefs (22/9/2012)
LONDON: Two thirds of corals could be saved only under a scenario with strong action on mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions and the assumption that corals can adapt at extremely rapid rates, suggests a study.
Otherwise all coral reefs are expected to be subject to severe degradation.
Coral reefs house almost a quarter of the species in the oceans and provide critical services - including coastal protection, tourism and fishing - to millions of people worldwide. Global warming and ocean acidification, both driven by human-caused CO2 emissions, pose a major threat to these ecosystems.
"Our findings show that under current assumptions regarding thermal sensitivity, coral reefs might no longer be prominent coastal ecosystems if global mean temperatures actually exceed 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level," said lead author Katja Frieler from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
"Without a yet uncertain process of adaptation or acclimation, however, already about 70 percent of corals are projected to suffer from long-term degradation by 2030 even under an ambitious mitigation scenario," Frieler noted.
Thus, the threshold to protect at least half of the coral reefs worldwide is estimated to be below 1.5 degrees Celsius mean temperature increase.
http://articles.timesofindia.
2.31 Sea Ice in Antarctica is Growing! (23/9/2012)
The sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean has plummeted to its lowest level on record — but down at the other end of the world, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica has swelled. That’s no surprise, considering that winter is just ending in the Southern Hemisphere — but what may be surprising is that the overall extent of Antarctic ice has grown by about one percent per decade, on average, since satellite records began a little over 30 years ago.
http://www.climatecentral.org/
-----------------------
The Northern hemisphere has more land mass, allowing the air to warm up faster. We could see a phenomenon where moisture in the atmosphere is transported closer to the south pole and dumped there (drying up the Northern hemisphere?)! Eventually however, as global warming progresses, the antarctic ice will also begin to melt.
Selvaraj
2.32 Nuclear Power / Climate Change (30/9/2012)
Speaking to at the sidelines of the Low Carbon Energy for Development Conference at Sussex University, Professor Gordon MacKerron, said it was not inevitable or desirable for countries to pursue large scale nuclear programmes.
“While nuclear power will remain as a potential option for some countries, the notion that it can play a large role in some kind of global low carbon future seems to me it would be frankly unrealistic and probably undesirable,” he said.
“It is a slow process; nuclear power takes a long time to develop, to pass through regulatory processes and to pass through political hurdles. There are other larges scale technologies – of which large scale solar is an obvious example – that might do just a good a job, cheaper and quicker and with less controversy.”
http://www.rtcc.org/energy/
2.33 Obama, Romney mum on global warming (10/10/2012)
Global warming may be the biggest topic that neither President Barack Obama nor GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to touch.
Obama devoted all of four sentences to climate change in his speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. Romney rarely mentions it at all.
It's a stark change from the 2008 presidential race, when both Obama and his Republican opponent, John McCain, preached the need to reduce greenhouse gases. And environmentalists are furious the issue is largely ignored.
"The silence of Governor Romney and President Obama on climate change is deafening," said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth Action.
His organization has launched a campaign called Climate Silence to inject global warming into the presidential race, working with another group called Forecast the Facts. The campaign's website features photos of Obama and Romney with duct tape over their mouths.
"Voters deserve to know where they stand on the most serious threat to our nation," Pica said in a news release. "Anyone who is elected to lead the country -- or aspires to do so -- should realize that true leadership means a willingness to engage difficult issues, not sweep them under the rug."
Nine environmental groups circulated petitions asking journalist Jim Lehrer, the moderator of last week's debate, to press the candidates on global warming. About 160,000 people signed, but Lehrer didn't mention climate change, or energy ....
Read more: http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/
2.34 Global warming: sea level rising faster than expected (5/11/2012)
“You would expect negative feedbacks to creep in at some point,” Hay said. “But in climate change, every feedback seems to go positive. Under human prodding, the system wants to go into a new climate state,” Hay said, concluding that the Earth’s climate seems to have certain stable states. Between those states things are unstable and can change quickly.
2.35 Call to include carbon emission from permafrost in global climate models (27/11/2012)
FRISCO
— With temperatures on polar regions rising twice as fast as the global
average, there’s a good chance that between 30 to 85 percent of
near-surface permafrost could melt, releasing billions of tons of carbon
into the atmosphere by the end of the century.
But
most existing climate models don’t accurately account for the impact of
permafrost carbon dioxide and methane emissions, according to a new
report from the United Nations Environment Program. The report recommends that the IPCC compile
a special assessment report on permafrost. It also recommends that
nations with extensive permafrost create national monitoring networks
and make plans to mitigate the risks of thawing permafrost. These
nations include Russia, Canada, China, and the United States.
2.36 Global Warming (Do humans have the intelligence to solve this problem? (2/12/2012)
DOHA (Reuters) - Major nations' policies are inadequate to
limit global warming and the United States is off track even in carrying out
its weak pledge to limit greenhouse gas emissions, a scientific scorecard
showed on Friday.
The Climate Action Tracker report, issued on the sidelines of talks among almost 200 countries in Doha about climate change, said a toughening of policies was still possible to avert damaging floods, heat waves and rising seas.
The Climate Action Tracker report, issued on the sidelines of talks among almost 200 countries in Doha about climate change, said a toughening of policies was still possible to avert damaging floods, heat waves and rising seas.
Major emitters China, the
United States, the European Union and Russia all got "inadequate"
ratings for their plans to help limit global warming to an agreed U.N. ceiling
of below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, it said.
The global response to climate change is incapable of
addressing the catastrophic consequences to a planet dependent on
burning fossil fuels for energy, spewing greater volumes of the
greenhouse gases that are boosting temperatures at an accelerating rate.
This
gloomy assessment is based on new scientific studies that describe,
with increasing certainty, the arrival of severe climate disruption
sooner and with greater intensity than scientists had predicted even a
few years ago.
------------------------------
There is a necessity to break the problem down to its
constituent elements and debate individual issues.
There are a number of issues:
1. The issue of governance: There is a necessity to have a
central planning body for the whole world, which can look at all the issues in
a dispassionate manner. Individual nations are not going to reach even the
planning stage on their own as they jockey to put themselves in more
advantageous positions.
2. There is little doubt that the main culprits are the
developed nations, who a) are the thought leaders for the existing economic
system b) control the existing economic system c) have enormous needs for
energy due to their severe climatic conditions… Expecting these gentlemen to
give leadership on the issue of global warming is like asking the fox to guard
the chicken coop.
3. There is a need to break the problem down to individual
elements and debate individual issues rather than indulge in collective breast
beating as is being done now.
The Issues:
1. Do we need to tweak the existing economic system?
2. How important is the issue of population growth?
3. How much more energy is needed for people living in
colder climates to survive and to have a good quality of life?
4. Do we need to convince the world population that it is
in our collective interest to batten down and reduce our collective
non-essential consumption for the next 50 years?
5. How do we deal with the media, which depends on the advertisement
of largely useless products for their survival? How do we solve the problem of
Global Warming, when the media is making everyone in the world progressively
dumber?
6. What are the lifestyle changes that we need to adopt?
7. How do we differentiate the problem a) in terms of
climatic conditions? b) lifestyles? c) developed / underdeveloped nations?...
etc.
Selvaraj
2.37 Global warming is not due to the sun (14/12/2012)
GCR - Glactic Cosmic Rays:
It's important to note that so far virtually all scientific research on GCRs has shown that they are not effective at seeding clouds and thus have very little influence over the Earth's temperature. In fact, as Zeke Hausfather has noted, the leaked IPCC report specifically states this:
"...there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of [cloud condensation nuclei] or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle in any climatically significant way."But more importantly in this context, even if GCRs did influence global temperature, they would currently be having a cooling effect.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
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