Global Warming & Climate Change: Humans' Reactions & Responses

[rynner2]

rynner wrote:

If I was living in London...

I do mate! But I'm not worried. A 6.5m sea level rise would mean us (at 10m) having a lovely river-side view :lol:

But I think you might get quite a bit of aggro from all those displaced persons who used to live under your 'lovely river-side view' - they might feel entitled to share your property.... :shock:

 

[Anome]

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll all drown eventually, and he can get on with enjoying his view of the bloated corpses and sewage.

 

[bazizmaduno]

rynner wrote

But I think you might get quite a bit of aggro from all those displaced persons who used to live under your 'lovely river-side view' - they might feel entitled to share your property....

Bugger! Can't have the great wet and unwashed at the door!

I have a cunning plan...

I'm going to jack the house up and build a raft of oil drums underneath - just need to drag it down to the beach

 

[ramonmercado]

This Global Warming Fix Stinks

By Elizabeth Svoboda| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Aug, 21, 2006

In the infamous “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” episode of The Simpsons, Mr. Burns designs a giant sun-blocking disc to ensure the town's dependence on nuclear power. A Nobel laureate has proposed a similar strategy with a nobler purpose: stopping global warming.

Scientists agree that the planet is getting warmer because excess carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere acts like a pane of glass, trapping heat from solar radiation. Using less electricity and driving less are often recommended by climatologists to reduce carbon emissions.

But Paul Crutzen, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, has a very different idea: He recommends injecting massive amounts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere so less sun will penetrate it.

Stanford ecologist Ken Caldeira, who has investigated similar climate-modification strategies, thinks Crutzen's clout will drive this seemingly off-the-wall project forward. Efforts to manipulate the environment fall under a category known as geoengineering, which "lived in a shadowy netherworld, just beyond what was considered politically acceptable," Caldeira said. "Crutzen's paper is important because it shines a light on geoengineering, bringing it out of that netherworld."

Crutzen published his proposal in the August issue of Climatic Change. He won the 1995 Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on the ozone layer.

When sulfur particles are released into the Earth's atmosphere, they reflect solar radiation back into space much as large ice sheets in the Arctic do. Crutzen envisions lofting sulfur into the stratosphere on small balloon crafts, which will use artillery guns to release their smelly payload.

It's a response, Crutzen writes, to the failure of international political efforts to establish carbon emission limits. "The preferred way to resolve this dilemma is to lower the emissions of greenhouse gases," he said in the Climatic Change editorial. "However, so far, attempts in that direction have been grossly unsuccessful."

Crutzen's idea might sound surreal, but it was inspired by a natural event. When Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it sprayed millions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere. Much to scientists' surprise, the sulfur reflected so much sun that the Earth’s surface cooled by almost one full degree Fahrenheit in the year following the eruption.

Because sulfur can achieve such immediate cooling effects, some scientists think Crutzen's plan could lower global temperatures even as more carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere.

"It's a short-term fix to a long-term problem," said Stephen Schwartz, an atmospheric scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. "Our entire energy economy is dependent on burning fossil fuel, and that's not going to stop anytime soon. We need a stopgap solution."

But Schwartz cautions that sulfur-spraying would not enable the international community to shelve measures like the Kyoto Protocol.

The sulfur solution would not be permanent, since the element lingers in the atmosphere for only a couple of years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, stays around for more than a century.

In addition, says John Latham, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the ecological domino effect of shooting sulfur into the stratosphere is unpredictable.

"Many species of plants, for instance, depend on specific amounts of sunlight to complete their normal growth cycles," he said. "If sulfur clouds blot this light out, even slightly, the ecosystems these plants belong to could be irrevocably altered."

Still, Latham believes the consequences of doing nothing could be grave. A few years ago, he proposed his own artificial global-warming fix: Spray droplets of ocean water into the air to encourage formation of clouds that would bounce solar rays back into space.

"Among the major oil-burning countries, there's very little sign that we're going to limit our consumption of fossil fuels," he said. "Because of that, it's good for our future that someone of Crutzen's distinction has come into the arena."


http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0, ... wn_index_1

 

[rynner2]

A powerful wake-up call here:

Top scientist's fears for climate
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

One of America's top scientists has said that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change.

In his first broadcast interview as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren told the BBC that the climate was changing much faster than predicted.

"We are not talking anymore about what climate models say might happen in the future.

"We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we're going to experience more," Professor Holdren said.

He emphasised the seriousness of the melting Greenland ice cap, saying that without drastic action the world would experience more heatwaves, wild fires and floods.

He added that if the current pace of change continued, a catastrophic sea level rise of 4m (13ft) this century was within the realm of possibility; much higher than previous forecasts.

To put this in perspective, Professor Holdren pointed out that the melting of the Greenland ice cap, alone, could increase world-wide sea levels by 7m (23ft), swamping many cities.

Safe limits

He blamed President Bush not only for refusing to cut emissions, but also for failing to live up to his rhetoric on harnessing technology to tackle climate change.

"We are not starting to address climate change with the technology we have in hand, and we are not accelerating our investment in energy technology research and development," Professor Holdren observed.

He said research undertaken by Harvard University revealed that US government spending on energy research had not increased since 2001. In order to make any progress, funding for climate technology needed to multiply by three or four times, Professor Holdren warned.

Last year, the UK's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, held a science conference to determine the threshold of dangerous climate change. Delegates concluded that to be relatively certain of keeping the rise below 2C (3.6F), CO2 levels in the atmosphere should not exceed 400 parts per million (ppm) and the highest prudent limit should be 450 ppm.

In October, at an international conference in Mexico, UK environment and energy ministers will try to persuade colleagues from the top 20 most polluting nations to agree on a CO2 stabilisation level.

Professor Holdren expressed doubt that progress could be achieved because if the US administration agreed that there was a need to limit CO2, this would inevitably lead to mandatory caps. President Bush has already rejected that option.

For more than a year, the BBC has invited the US government to give its view on safe levels of CO2. Our request is repeatedly passed between the White House office of the Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the US chief scientist.

To date, we have received no response to questions on this issue that Tony Blair calls the most important in the world. Professor Holdren called on the US Government to back the UK position.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5303574.stm

 

[Rubyait]

One of America's top scientists has said that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change.

Well really?!! It seems that the world is slowly beginning to realise the fate it awaits. Seriously it's been on the cards for a while now. How much effect the population is having was the only real doubt, because this is difficult to judge, bugger all has really been done. The climate is and will continue to change throughout the rest of Earth's future. People it seems find it near on impossibe to fathom this on any longer timescale than their short lives. We are for sure in for some massive climate change over the next 100-150 years. It's quite possible that clear significant changes could occur within our life times and we, as a general population, are currently about as well prepared to deal with this as an attempt to sail around the world in a stone boat. People won't make any real preperations for this until lives are lost. It's always the same way.

 

[crunchy5]

A stark outlook according to Lovelock

http://tinyurl.com/eddtm

It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn."

Why is that?

"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return."

Sulfurous musings are not Lovelock's characteristic style; he's no Book of Revelation apocalyptic. In his 88th year, he remains one of the world's most inventive scientists, an Englishman of humor and erudition, with an oenophile's taste for delicious controversy. Four decades ago, his discovery that ozone-destroying chemicals were piling up in the atmosphere started the world's governments down a path toward repair. Not long after that, Lovelock proposed the theory known as Gaia, which holds that Earth acts like a living organism, a self-regulating system balanced to allow life to flourish.

Biologists dismissed this as heresy, running counter to Darwin's theory of evolution. Today one could reasonably argue that Gaia theory has transformed scientific understanding of the Earth.

Now Lovelock has turned his attention to global warming, writing "The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity." Already a big seller in the United Kingdom, the book was released in the United States last month. (He will speak in Washington, at the Carnegie Institution, Friday at 7 p.m.) Lovelock's conclusion is straightforward.

To wit, we are poached.

CONTINUED 1 2 3 4 5 Next > :cry:

 

[rynner2]

This should set the cat among the pigeons!

State sues car firms on climate

The state of California is suing six carmakers for costs associated with their cars' greenhouse gas emissions.

The suit names General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Chrysler and Nissan.

California is asking for "monetary compensation" for the damage which it says their emissions are doing to health, economy and environment.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), a pan-industry body, called it a "nuisance" suit and suggested it may be dismissed.

"Right now, global warming is harming California," runs the state's complaint.

"Human-induced global warming has, among other things, reduced California's snow pack (a vital source of fresh water), caused an earlier melting of the snow pack, raised sea levels along California's coastline, increased ozone pollution in urban areas, [and] increased the threat of wildfires."

State lawyers want any judgement for damages to be ongoing, so that manufacturers will be liable every year.

Guto Hari, the BBC's North American business correspondent, notes that California has taken an aggressive stance on global warming, passing legislation to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

'Time to answer'

The lawsuit, lodged on behalf of the Californian people by state attorney-general Bill Lockyer, alleges that emissions from cars made by the firms in question account for 30% of all carbon dioxide emissions in California.

The complaint alleges that the firms' activities have harmed the state's environmental health, with California having to spend million of dollars responding to environmental threats such as coastal erosion.

Mr Lockyer said he had not put a figure of the level of damages he was seeking but that it was likely to run into "hundreds of millions of dollars".

"Global warming is causing significant harm to California's environment, economy, agriculture and public health," he added.

"The impacts are already costing millions of dollars and the price tag is increasing. It is time to hold these companies responsible for their contribution to this crisis."

'Most significant'

This is the latest in a series of legal and quasi-legal cases in the US aimed at forcing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

An Inuit group is taking the federal government to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights

Conservation groups are trying to force the government to protect coral and polar bears from the effects of global warming

There are ongoing attempts to force the Environmental Protection Agency to define CO2 as a pollutant and regulate emissions
Roda Verheyen of Climate Justice, an international organisation which co-ordinates legal climate cases, said California's suit took action to a new level.

"It is the most significant piece of climate change litigation that has ever been brought," she said.

Car manufacturers have their own case against California pending over laws requiring them to reduce emissions.

The AAM said in a statement: "Automakers will need time to review this legal complaint [by California], however, a similar nuisance suit that was brought by attorneys-general against utilities was dismissed by a federal court in New York."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5365728.stm

 

[rynner2]

Ski resorts left hot and bothered by lack of snow
Roger Boyes and Joanna Bale

It does not look good for Rosi Schipflinger. The slopes close to her Sonnenberg restaurant in the Austrian resort of Kitzbühel should be white, not a muddy brown.

“Where are the queues for the ski lift?” she says with a glance at the skies that have yet to yield a single snowflake. I’m having to put out deckchairs on my terrace.”

Similar stories are emerging from ski communities across the Alps, where the warmest autumn on record is posing a threat to one of the great European traditions: the pre-Christmas downhill season.

At the same time, with the weak dollar, British ski operators are experiencing a surge in demand for skiing holidays to North America, where snow conditions are said to be the best for 15 years.

Marion Telsnig, spokeswoman for Thomson Ski and Crystal Ski, said: “There has been good snow over there for three weeks, so our holidays there have been selling well.”

In most Alpine countries the first weekend of December usually brings a rush of visitors to the slopes. But now, if climate experts are to be believed, aprés-ski may take on a more ominous meaning. “Within the next 15 years or so it will be impossible to find a continuous snow blanket below 1,500m,” Helga Kromp-Kolb, of the University of Natural Resources in Vienna, says. “In 30 to 40 years ski regions below 2,000m will no longer exist.”

The International Ski Federation reports cancelled races in France, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Italy because of a lack of snow. This month’s men’s downhill and Super G races at Val d’Isère, a French resort favoured by British skiers, have been scrapped. Not since Thomas Cook introduced ski tourism in the 19th century has there been so much dismay about the weather.

This November was the warmest in Austria since meteorological data was first gathered in 1775. At Cortina, the Queen of the Italian Dolomites, it is as if spring has arrived. At 1,224m midday temperatures are 15C — normal for May.

Alpine communities have coped with warm winter weather before, but this year there is a sense that it could be the beginning of the end of the European skiing experience.

Cold comfort

September, October and November have been the warmest since modern records began

The trend is for gradual warming with bigger fluctuations in conditions. Warm spells may be followed by heavy snowfalls

Snowmaking machinery is ineffective unless the temperature is near to freezing

Snow cannon also add to carbon emissions, which in turn add to global warming

The US Rockies and British Columbia have had huge falls. Kicking Horse, a resort in Canada, opened a fortnight early this weekend with 12ft of light fluffy snow Source: Patrick Thorne, the Green Resort Guide, www.saveoursnow.com

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 90,00.html

 

[rynner2]

Problems in UK too:

Warm weather melts skating rink

The opening of an outdoor ice rink has been delayed because it has melted during the warmest autumn on record.
The skating rink at Warwick Castle was expected to open on Saturday but there have been problems freezing the water.

Now bosses have shipped in 15 tons of ice from Grimsby in an attempt to get the rink cold enough.

It comes after the Met Office said an average temperature of 12.6C had made this the warmest autumn in central England since records began in 1659.

Jo Biggs, from Warwick Castle, said: "Due to the unusually mild weather getting the rink frozen is proving very challenging, however, we're doing everything we can to get it ready."

She said alternative time slots would be offered to people who had already booked tickets for the rink.

The ice delivered from Humberside has solidified but more layers of water are being frozen to obtain a safe thickness of ice.

Ms Biggs said guests should check the castle's website to check for updates on the rink.

An ice slide at the castle has been unaffected as it is in a sheltered area and has opened on time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cove ... 202016.stm

 

[ramonmercado]

More Than 50 Tribes Convene on Global Warming Impacts

The seal of the Cocopah Indian Tribe
by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 06, 2006

Near the Lower Colorado River, home to the Cocopah people for many centuries, an unprecedented gathering is underway. The Cocopah Indian Tribe and National Wildlife Federation have partnered to co-host the first-ever Tribal Lands Climate Conference-bringing together leaders from more than 50 tribes to address the growing global warming crisis.
"The Tribal Lands Climate Conference is an opportunity to unite tribal leaders from across the country with key decision makers in an open forum to discuss actions proactively addressing climate change," said Liz Pratt, Public Relations representative for the Cocopah Indian Tribe.

"The issues and challenges caused by climate change being discussed during the Conference currently affect, and will continue to affect, all tribes on a global scale. This forum brings tribes together to address the issues and challenges, in efforts to one day find solutions."

"Native Americans can provide key inspiration regarding global warming and its impact on our world, unite broad stakeholder support, and demonstrate actions that alleviate global warming impacts," said Garrit Voggesser, manager of the National Wildlife Federation's Tribal Lands Conservation Program.

Native Americans are critical eyewitnesses to global warming. Among the first to experience the devastating impacts of a changing climate, Indigenous people are uniquely able to compare what's happening today with experiences spanning generations of understanding natural cycles and resources.

The National Wildlife Federation is reaching out to those best able to tell the stories and first-hand, on-the-ground accounts about the impacts to fish, wildlife and natural resources fueled by manmade carbon emissions and global warming. The conference gathers representatives from more than 50 tribes throughout the Southwest, Northwest, Midwest, and Alaska - and political leaders, climate scientists, and NGOs - to exchange strategies and solutions to address global warming.

Global warming is a matter of environmental justice. As such, the Tribal Lands Climate Conference is engaging and empowering tribal advocates on global warming - connecting them with key decision-makers. With thousands of years of traditional knowledge and connections to the environment, Native Americans can play a significant role in shaping how America addresses and generates active responses to combat global warming.

The National Wildlife Federation is America's conservation organization inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children's future.


Tribes

 

[ramonmercado]

US science teachers pass on climate DVDs
07 December 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues
Advertisement
Psst! Want 50,000 free DVDs? The US National Science Teachers Association didn't, even though the DVDs in question were of An Inconvenient Truth, the climate change movie that is required viewing for all children in Norway and Sweden.

Why not? Because according to Laurie David, one of the film's producers, the NSTA has accepted millions of dollars from oil firms, including Exxon Mobil and Shell. The NSTA has even promoted oil companies' "special interests and implicit endorsements", David said in the The Washington Post on 26 November.

Not so, Jodie Peterson of NSTA told New Scientist. "Our board of directors has to approve our funding before it is accepted. No one has ever given us money with any stipulations attached; it's just never happened."

NSTA president-elect Jonathan Witsett said during a call-in to National Public Radio that NSTA would have accepted the donated DVDs if it hadn't been for the distribution costs, which he estimated at $250,000.

From issue 2581 of New Scientist magazine, 07 December 2006, page 6

Inconvenient

 

[ramonmercado]

Aerospace Manufacturers Meeting The Technology Challenge Of Climate Change

In the past 12 months, manufacturers have responded to the tough targets set by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) to reduce the environmental impact of air transport, including the need to reduce fuel consumption by 50 per cent and NOx emissions by 80 per cent, for new aircraft entering into service by 2020, compared to their 2000 equivalents.

by Staff Writers
London, UK (SPX) Dec 08, 2006

The UK aviation industry has launched its inaugural Sustainable Aviation progress report. This highlights the leading role played by aerospace manufacturers and the pound130 million invested in the past 12 months in research and technology programmes to deliver the improvements required to reduce aviation's impact on the environment.
The progress report comes at a time of increasing interest and awareness of aviation's contribution to climate change, in the wake of the government's recent Stern report.

Commenting on the progress made by manufacturers as part of Sustainable Aviation, SBAC Director General, Sally Howes, said: "Climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing our industry. The UK aerospace industry is facing up to the challenge through intensive research and development of more environmentally-friendly engines and more efficient airframes, alternative fuels and better understanding of aerodynamics and advanced materials. The Sustainable Aviation signatories have made important progress in these areas in the past 12 months and this is highlighted in the report".

The progress report has been produced in collaboration with the other UK aviation trade associations, with endorsement from Sustainable Aviation signatories comprising major airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and aerospace manufacturers.

In the first year since the publication of Sustainable Aviation, important progress has been made in a number of key areas, including:

- The launch of major aerospace technology validation programmes for environmentally friendly engines and integrated wing, as well as aerospace innovation networks for aerodynamics and new materials and structures.

- The agreement between UK airlines of a common metric and reporting on aircraft emissions and fuel efficiency.

- The establishment by a major UK airline of a voluntary carbon offset programme to help educate passengers about the carbon impacts of air travel and the opportunities to help mitigate them.

- The assistance of signatory companies to the European Commission in developing the EU emissions trading scheme to include aviation.

- The promotion of best practice in environmental management by SBAC, the Airport Operators Association and the British Air Transport Association, working with signatory companies.

- The completion of a Continuous Descent Approach outreach programme to publicise and inform airports and airlines about the noise, fuel burn and emissions benefits of this operating technique.

In the past 12 months, manufacturers have responded to the tough targets set by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) to reduce the environmental impact of air transport, including the need to reduce fuel consumption by 50 per cent and NOx emissions by 80 per cent, for new aircraft entering into service by 2020, compared to their 2000 equivalents. The progress report reinforces the findings of the Stern review that the industry is well on track to meeting these objectives.

Research has been undertaken through the National Aerospace Technology Strategy, which is a key part of the industry's road-map to achieve the ACARE targets and highlights what can be achieved by government and industry working together. The pound35 million Integrated Wing Advanced Technology Programme involves 17 partners and addresses the development and validation of technologies associated with wing and major system (landing gear and fuel) design, manufacture and integration. In addition, Rolls-Royce's 5-year, pound95 million Environmentally Friendly Engine research and technology programme seeks to exceed the 2020 ACARE target for fuel efficiency. The industry is also setting up Aerospace Innovation Networks, focusing on advanced materials and structures and aerospace dynamics.

Looking forward, manufacturers will continue to closely monitor the evolving science of climate change to further understand aviation's environmental impacts, seeking to reinforce their position as global leaders in the field of aerospace research and technology. However, they realise that that there is no room for complacency. SBAC Director General Sally Howes warned that: "Whilst evolutionary technological developments are important in managing the environmental impacts of aviation, radical improvements in the way aircraft are designed, manufactured and integrated hold the key to future success and we must work together to achieve this. Revolutionary or step-changes in performance can only be delivered through substantial long-term investment by all stakeholders, in the public and private sector".


Aerospace

 

[ramonmercado]

Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 220936.htm


Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Date: December 21, 2006


Plant A Tree And Save The Earth?
Science Daily — Can planting a tree stop the sea level from rising, the ice caps from melting and hurricanes from intensifying?


In the first study to investigate the combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation in a fully interactive three-dimensional climate-carbon model, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and Université Montpellier II found that global forests actually produce a net warming of the planet. (Image courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

A new study says that it depends on where the trees are planted. It cautions that new forests in mid- to high-latitude locations could actually create a net warming. It also confirms the notion that planting more trees in tropical rainforests could help slow global warming worldwide.

In the first study to investigate the combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation in a fully interactive three-dimensional climate-carbon model, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and Université Montpellier II found that global forests actually produce a net warming of the planet.

The study provides a holistic view of the deforestation issue. “This is the first comprehensive assessment of the deforestation problem,” said Govindasamy Bala, lead author of the research that will be presented on Dec. 15 at the American Geophysical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.

The models calculated the carbon/climate interactions and took into account the physical climate effect and the partitioning of the carbon dioxide release from deforestation among land, atmosphere and ocean.

Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere and increase cloudiness, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth. Climate change mitigation strategies that promote planting trees have taken only the first effect into account.

“Our study shows that tropical forests are very beneficial to the climate because they take up carbon and increase cloudiness, which in turn helps cool the planet,” Bala said.

But the study concludes that by the year 2100, forests in mid and high latitudes will make some places up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than would have occurred if the forests did not exist.

“The darkening of the surface by new forest canopies in the high latitude Boreal regions allows absorption of more sunlight that helps to warm the surface. In fact, planting more trees in high latitudes could be counterproductive from a climate perspective,” Bala said.

The study finds little or no climate benefit when trees are planted in temperate regions.

“Our integrated systems approach allowed us for the first time to estimate the total effects of land cover change in different regions of the world,” Bala said.

Afforestation has been promoted heavily in mid-latitudes as a means of mitigating climate change. However, the combined carbon/climate modeling study shows that it doesn't work. The albedo effect (the process by which less sunlight is reflected and more is absorbed by forest canopies, heating the surface) cancels out the positive effects from the trees taking in carbon.

“Our study shows that preserving and restoring forests is likely to be climatically ineffective as an approach to slow global warming,” said Ken Caldeira, a co-author of the study from the Carnegie Institution. “To prevent climate change, we need to transform our energy system. It is only by transforming our energy system and preserving natural habitat, such as forests, that we can maintain a healthy environment. To prevent climate change, we must focus on effective strategies and not just ‘feel-good’ strategies.”

Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

 

[rynner2]

London-on-Sea: the future of a city in decay
By Roger Highfield
Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 27/12/2006

This map reveals how Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Canary Wharf will be among the areas at risk of flooding according to a new estimate of rising sea levels.

The need for new defences is underlined by a study that concludes that levels may rise more quickly in the coming decades than previously thought - by as much as an additional metre (39in) over the next century, according to Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading climate expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Map showing the areas where London will flood
- click to enlarge
A sea level rise of a metre or more would be "very bad news" for major coastal cities, greatly increasing the risk of devastating storm surges. Particularly at risk are cities on or close to North Atlantic shores, such as London, according to his study in the journal Science.

Dr Nassos Vafeidis of the University of the Aegean, Greece, and Prof Rob Nicholls of the University of Southampton and colleagues have weighed up the impact of rising levels on the Thames Estuary, where 1.25 million people currently live, 1.5 million commute and there are assets worth up to £100 billion.

The areas marked on the right in blue will be at risk after the additional metre rise predicted by Prof Rahmstorf. The team points out that new developments planned for London are "in, or bordering on, the tidal flood risk zone.

"Even a small increase in sea level will increase the risk of serious flooding in the Thames Estuary.

"We need to integrate our thinking about these extreme scenarios into decisions we make about more probable flood management today," they say in a paper submitted to the journal Climate Change with colleagues in the Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, Stockholm Environment Institute and the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

"In some areas insurance cover might be withdrawn altogether, leading to the collapse of the property market and the associated urban decay. The business and finance areas in Canary Wharf would be very vulnerable to increasing flood risk."

There is a current effort to upgrade London's defences by 2030 in the Environment Agency's Thames 2100 project, so named because it aims to protect the capital for the rest of this century. The new study raises the risks and "reinforces the need for defence upgrade in the Thames", said Prof Nicholls.

"The larger sea level rise might influence the Thames 2100 design or accelerate the next upgrade."

Prof Rahmstorf's findings also present "big problems for the Norfolk Broads and the Wash, which would be completely transformed from their current states", said Dr Nick Brooks of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia.

"Generally the higher the mean sea level the worse storms and erosion are going to get —without worrying about changes in wind, rain, and the frequency of storms themselves."

Scientists have so far expected sea levels to rise by between 9cm and 88cm (3.5in to 34in) this century, depending on how much greenhouse gas we emit and how strongly the Earth's climate system responds.

Using the warming scenarios from climate experts — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — Prof Rahmstorf predicts from current measurements of global air temperature and sea level changes that the sea level could rise 0.5 to 1.4 metres (20in to 55in) above 1990 levels by 2100, which is a wider range and a higher maximum than current predictions.

Prof Rahmstorf found a close link between the amount of global warming and the rate of sea level change: the warmer it gets, the faster sea levels rise. The link is confirmed by 20th century data, which revealed how global sea level rose by 20cm (8in) over the last century.

He was prompted to carry out the analysis because current computer models of climate significantly underestimate this 20cm sea level rise. "The fact that we get such different estimates using different methods shows how uncertain our sea level forecasts still are," says Prof Rahmstorf.

A major reason for the uncertainty is the behaviour of the large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which is very difficult to predict.

"For a given warming scenario, we may end up getting twice the sea level rise expected thus far," he said.

http://tinyurl.com/y3nkd8

 

[rynner2]

..and to emphasise the point

Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island

For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports
Published: 24 December 2006
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless

Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environme ... 099971.ece

 

[techybloke666]

yep I read that in 50 years time there will be NO LINKS golf courses in the UK if sea levels continue to climb

looks like were doomed :shock:

 

[Rubyait]

Climate resets 'Doomsday Clock'

Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind.

As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to midnight.

The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, now stands at five minutes to the hour.

The clock was first featured by the magazine 60 years ago, shortly after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.

Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand so close to midnight.

Full Story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6270871.stm

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
Ill never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...strangers hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1995348,00.html

Global warming: the final verdict

A study by the world's leading experts says global warming will happen faster and be more devastating than previously thought

Robin McKie, science editor. Sunday January 21, 2007. The Observer

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.

The impact will be catastrophic, forcing hundreds of millions of people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants whose movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent countries.

'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert.

Climate concerns are likely to dominate international politics next month. President Bush is to make the issue a part of his state of the union address on Wednesday while the IPCC report's final version is set for release on 2 February in a set of global news conferences.

Although the final wording of the report is still being worked on, the draft indicates that scientists now have their clearest idea so far about future climate changes, as well as about recent events. It points out that:

· 12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;

· ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath the surface;

· glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres;

· sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year;

· cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.

And the cause is clear, say the authors: 'It is very likely that [man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average temperature increases since the mid-20th century,' says the report.

To date, these changes have caused global temperatures to rise by 0.6C. The most likely outcome of continuing rises in greenhouses gases will be to make the planet a further 3C hotter by 2100, although the report acknowledges that rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Ice-cap melting, rises in sea levels, flooding, cyclones and storms will be an inevitable consequence.

Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are 'likely' to occur this century. Its latest report, based on sophisticated computer models and more detailed observations of snow cover loss, sea level rises and the spread of deserts, is far more robust and confident. Now the panel writes of changes as 'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'.

And in a specific rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural variation in the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change, the panel says mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the climate than any fluctuations in solar radiation. We are the masters of our own destruction, in short.

There is some comfort, however. The panel believes the Gulf Stream will go on bathing Britain with its warm waters for the next 100 years. Some researchers have said it could be disrupted by cold waters pouring off Greenland's melting ice sheets, plunging western Europe into a mini Ice Age, as depicted in the disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.

The report reflects climate scientists' growing fears that Earth is nearing the stage when carbon dioxide rises will bring irreversible change to the planet. 'We are seeing vast sections of Antarctic ice disappearing at an alarming rate,' said climate expert Chris Rapley, in a phone call to The Observer from the Antarctic Peninsula last week. 'That means we can expect to see sea levels rise at about a metre a century from now on - and that will have devastating consequences.'

However, there is still hope, said Peter Cox of Exeter University. 'We are like alcoholics who have got as far as admitting there is a problem. It is a start. Now we have got to start drying out - which means reducing our carbon output.'

 

[rynner2]

in a way, i'm glad i probably won't be around to experience the worst of it.

but i suppose that, before i die, all polar bears may have disappeared from the wild...

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

in a way, i'm glad i probably won't be around to experience the worst of it.

but i suppose that, before i die, all polar bears may have disappeared from the wild...

After rynner, the Flood.

Let's hope we get the chance to meet up for a few beers, sometime, before that, though, eh?

 

[ramonmercado]

A matter of security
Josh Arnold-Forster

Published 29 January 2007

Why is the MoD so seriously concerned about global warming? Josh Arnold-Forster on the social collapse we are not prepared for


The Ministry of Defence is not known for its concern for the environment. Nevertheless there is one group of people at the MoD very interested in climate change and, in particular, catastrophic climate change - namely the strategic planners.

They know that the armed forces can react and adapt very rapidly to limited changes in the strategic environment. What the forces cannot do is meet a fundamentally different kind of challenge from the one with which they are equipped to deal. In 1939, the British army was the wrong size, had the wrong equipment and, most dangerously, the wrong doctrine to meet the threat from Germany.

That is why the MoD's planners insist on trying to look ahead several decades. Of course, much of this futurology is speculative, subjective and all too frequently wrong. But one trend on which there is ever greater scientific certainty is the impact of climate change.

In the 2003 defence white paper the MoD argued: "Religious and ethnic tensions, environmental pressures and increased competition for limited natural resources may cause tensions and conflict - both within and between states. The UK may not remain immune from such developments."

More recently in an MoD discussion note, climate change was one of four themes identified as strategically important: "The combined effects of increased global human activity, economic output and population growth look likely to intensify pressure on the environment and food, water and energy resources. This trend will be exacerbated by urbanisation and the creation of 'mega-cities', while industrialisation and personal expectations in developing countries will strain all resources." In Darfur, environmental pressures (through lack of water) have already contributed to generating an internal conflict that is rapidly becoming regional. In Afghanistan, a recent six-year drought has helped to impoverish people, making young men more willing to accept cash inducements to join the Taliban and farmers more likely to grow opium.

These influences are small compared to what may be the start of far more disturbing changes. What happens if, or when, sea levels rise and force millions from their homes in Bangladesh, the Nile Delta and the coastal regions of China? What happens when floods, landslides and storms regularly leave millions unemployed and homeless?

Many in the MoD strongly believe that these are not just environmental or development issues, but vitally important security questions that need to be given far more serious consideration, both within government and by the public. Naturally, failed states and international terrorism are significant current threats to security, but that does not excuse us from focusing on future threats.


Rapid response

There are two ways in which the UK's armed forces will have to respond to challenges presented by climate change.

First is disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. In principle, civil organisations could play a bigger role in disaster relief. Sadly, so far none has been willing to stump up the very large amounts of cash required to gain the military's ability to provide rapid response, or operate in very difficult terrain.

The second and more difficult task that the armed forces may face is the potentially huge security challenge created by climate change. No one knows how this will manifest itself. As more and more people in Bangladesh seek sanctuary from rising sea levels, will the tensions created lead to a collapse of the state and war with India? Will poverty caused by growing water shortages in North Africa boost support for international terrorism? Will floods and environmental degradation in China lead to economic collapse and a rise in nationalism?

In an ideal world, the best and cheapest methods of dealing with these scenarios would be non-military. Appropriate diplomatic action and well-targeted humanitarian assistance can do much, and these need to be well funded. But we do not live in an ideal world, and the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office may fail to meet these challenges. One way or another, Britain's armed forces will become involved - in the best scenario as part of a UN peacekeeping force, but possibly having to take more drastic action to protect our security interests.

Climate change is already making the world more dangerous and no one knows how much more dangerous it will become. A Labour government which ignored this growing threat would be repeating the tragic mistake of George Lansbury in his opposition to rearmament in the 1930s.

Josh Arnold-Forster was special adviser to John Reid at the Ministry of Defence from 2005 to 2006



Countdown to climate disaster

8 out of 10 of the warmest years since records began in 1860 have occurred in the past decade
60,421km2 annual rate of decline of sea ice
43cm estimated maximum rise in sea level by the year 2100
100 million combined population of the 13 most populous coastal cities in the world
11.55pm time on the Doomsday Clock, now set closer to midnight as a result of global warming


Research by Mosarrof Hussain

http://www.newstatesman.com/200701290015

 

[rynner2]

things could be worse than the IPCC report suggests:

Experts split over climate danger to Antarctica

Scientists challenge 'cautious' UN report

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday January 28, 2007
The Observer

Serious disagreement has broken out among scientists over a United Nations climate report's contention that the world's greatest wilderness - Antarctica - will be largely unaffected by rising world temperatures.
The report, to be published on Friday, will be one of the most comprehensive on climate change to date, and will paint a grim picture of future changes to the planet's weather patterns. Details of the report were first revealed by The Observer last weekend.

However, many researchers believe it does not go far enough. In particular, they say it fails to stress that climate change is already having a severe impact on the continent and will continue to do so for the rest of century. At least a quarter of the sea ice around Antarctica will disappear in that time, say the critics, though this forecast is not mentioned in the study.

One expert denounced the report - by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC - as 'misleading'. Another accused the panel of 'failing to give the right impression' about the impact that rising levels of carbon dioxide will have on Antarctica.

Antarctica possesses the Earth's greatest mass of ice and acts as an engine that drives the globe's weather systems. Disturbances to Antarctica could have wide repercussions. If all its ice were to melt, sea levels round the world would rise by 70 metres. The fate of that continent crucially affects the fate of the planet, and according to scientists at the British Antarctic Survey it is already being affected by global warming.

'The greatest temperature rise on Earth over the past five decades has been found on the Antarctic peninsula, which stretches north from the continent towards South America,' said Dr John Turner. 'Temperatures have risen 5C on the peninsula.' That figure is 10 times the average global temperature rise for the same period.

In addition, researchers reported last October that in just over a month, an entire Antarctic ice shelf, bigger than Gloucestershire, had disintegrated and disappeared, with its loss directly linked to man-made global warming.

Yet there is no mention of these events in the draft version of the panel's report obtained by this newspaper. It paints a broad picture of how carbon emissions will alter global temperatures, which will rise by between 3C to 5C by the end of the century, triggering storms of increasing severity, the acidification of seas and the spreading of deserts.

But when it comes to certain types of climate change, especially those concerned with Antarctica, the report is fairly coy. 'Current global studies project the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall,' states the draft version of the report.

But this vision is disputed. Last year, Dr Turner and colleagues, using records returned by Russian research balloons that were flown over the whole of Antarctica between 1971 and 2003, discovered that temperatures in the lowest level of the atmosphere over the continent have already risen by about 0.7C. Their paper, in Science, was published in March, too late for inclusion in the IPCC's deliberation.

Other factors - including the expected disappearance of the Antarctic ozone hole, which has had a cooling effect on the continent - will lead to a further rise of 5C-6C over parts of the continent over the rest of the century.

Critics point out that the IPCC is a conservative body whose documents are a co-operative effort, with contributions from hundreds of scientists. Only points that are considered indisputable by all of them are included. This consensus deflects potential accusations that the body might be exaggerating the threat to the planet. But the critics say it also means its documents tend to err too much on the side of caution.

'From what I hear of the report, it seems misleading to suggest nothing much is going to happen to the Antarctic over the coming decades,' said Dr Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey.

'Some parts of the continents are already losing substantial amounts of ice and others will in future - and that will have direct consequences for the rest of the planet.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story ... 60,00.html

 

[ramonmercado]

A Congressman Brandishes His Gavel
By Eli Kintisch
ScienceNOW Daily News
30 January 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- In an indication of Democratic eagerness to investigate whether the Bush administration has interfered with federal global warming research, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) today charged the White House with "an orchestrated effort to mislead the public." Waxman, who this month became chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, says his staff has found evidence that scientific reports were manipulated for political ends despite efforts by the Administration to block recent requests for information.
Nonprofit groups and a prominent whistleblower have alleged for several years that White House political appointees have distorted federally funded climate science. The whistleblower, former Administration climate change program official Rick Piltz, said in 2005 that former White House Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Philip Cooney manufactured doubt and uncertainty in a number of reports by the Administration. A number of the incidents have been reported previously. A call to the White House was unreturned at press time.

At the hearing, Waxman cited several White House documents in support of his allegations. Last July, Waxman joined then-committee chair Tom Davis (R-VA) in requesting memos, letters, and notes related to climate science reports. Yesterday, the White House released nine of the 39 requested documents, although Waxman said only some of the papers related to his request. We've "received virtually nothing from this Administration," he said. White House officials allowed Waxman's staff to see the other documents but not keep copies, citing concerns about the release of diplomatic correspondence and other "deliberative" documents.

Among those documents, Waxman said, was evidence showing efforts by political officials including Cooney to delete discussion of human impacts by climate change, remove mention of specific carbon emission levels, and remove statements connecting human activities to warming trends. The documents related to a 2002 Climate Action report to the United Nations, a draft of the 2003 State of the Environment report by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Asia-Pacific partnership the Administration led in 2005. "The political gatekeepers would step in" to alter findings and create doubt, Piltz testified.

In one edit Waxman's staff says they saw, Cooney had removed a reference to the 2001 National Research Council report on the human contribution to warming. Elsewhere, he had added that "satellite data disputes global warming," a statement NASA climate researcher Drew Shindell of Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City told the committee was wrong.

Another witness, University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr., described what he called "heavy-handed Bush Administration information management" on a number of climate policy issues. But Pielke said past Administrations had acted in a similar fashion, citing among other things poor scientific evidence by the Clinton Administration to justify missile strikes in 1998 on the Al-Shifa factory in Sudan. Waxman plans to hold follow-up hearings, but no date has been set.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/co ... 2007/130/3

 

[rynner2]

France 'dims' for climate protest

The lights of Paris dimmed for five minutes on Thursday in a nationwide "lights out" campaign, aimed at raising public awareness over global warming.
The Eiffel Tower, lit by 20,000 bulbs, also went dark at 1955 (1855 GMT).

During the switch-off, the power grid operator RTE observed a fall of 800 megawatts, representing just over 1% of France's total consumption.

It comes a day before the release in Paris of a major report warning of humanity's role in climate change.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to say that climatic changes seen around the world are "very likely" to have a human cause.

'A real issue'

Environmental campaigner Anne Briangault told the BBC that people would like to be involved in tackling climate change but needed advice on what they could do.

"... we are explaining they can do things, they can switch off some lights but it's not enough. Politicians have to make actions too," she said from the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Some experts warned the switch-off could backfire, arguing that more energy could be consumed because of a power spike when lights were turned back on. However, no problems were immediately reported.

Several other European cities also staged symbolic blackouts. In Rome, the lights of two of its celebrated monuments, the Colosseum and the Capitol, were turned off.

In Spain, Madrid's Puerta de Alcala arch was plunged into darkness.

In the Greek capital, Athens, lights illuminating several public buildings - including the parliament, city hall, and the foreign ministry - went dark.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6322589.stm

 

[rynner2]

The scientists spoke cautiously but the graphs said it all

Oliver Burkeman in Paris
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian

This is how the world ends: not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with a PowerPoint presentation.

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, unveiled in the angular grey Unesco headquarters in Paris yesterday morning, was concise and to the point. But the graphs and charts projected on to a vast screen, above the heads of the assembled scientists, were more concise still. They showed how global temperatures have skyrocketed in recent decades, and how they would skyrocket further in the immediate future, and they brought the words "hell" and "handcart" to mind.

Every phrase in the report had been dissected, every sentence subjected to gruelling debate over several days, among 300 delegates representing 600 scientists and 113 countries, until everyone present concurred on every word. When the members of the IPCC agree on something, they really agree. You wouldn't want to have been there when they were deciding where to have dinner [ ]- but when they deliver what amounts to an imminent planetary death sentence, you're probably justified in feeling scared.
Naturally, the report came swaddled in the cautious language of science. But that couldn't smother the sense that a historic moment was unfolding. Perhaps it wasn't the first time the world's experts had declared the debate over the reality of manmade global warming was settled, once and for all, but it was certainly the most emphatic.

It would no longer be possible, you got the feeling, to be a climate-change denier and to present yourself as some kind of feisty maverick. From today onwards that position will be the exclusive preserve of the deluded and the breathtakingly cynical.

British delegate Phil Jones, the soft-spoken director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, wasn't feeling the sense of history just yet, however. "Mainly what I'm feeling is knackered," said Professor Jones. He had spent the last few days lobbying, successfully, for the use of the word "unequivocal" to describe the evidence that burning fossil fuels leads to global warming. "There was a lot of discussion about what that word meant in Spanish, and in French," he sighed. [ ] "You'd have thought we'd have got past all this by now."

Of course, the IPCC scientists, presenting their findings to hundreds of reporters and scores of TV cameras in the cavernous debating chamber, did indeed get past the human responsibility issue quite a long time ago. The really frightening part of their report was the conclusion that, if left unchecked, our current activities are likely to contribute to a rise of up to 6.4 degrees in world temperatures by the end of the century, unleashing catastrophic flooding, droughts and storms.

The world's media gamely tried to persuade the buttoned-up climate scientists to admit that they were worried sick, and to attack the inactivity of governments. They had no luck. "It's my personal scientific approach to say that it's not my role to communicate what should be done," said Susan Solomon, the American co-chair of the working group that produced the report. But the charts above her head spoke volumes.

It's a crucial part of the IPCC's balancing act, though, to avoid giving the impression that devastation is inevitable - that we might as well just throw up our hands and turn up the air-conditioning. The report, endorsed by every IPCC member state including the US, ought to be seen "not only as a milestone, but truly as a moment when the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth we are going to do about it," insisted Achim Steiner, director of the UN Environment Programme. "We're looking for an unequivocal commitment from politicians, business leaders and civil society leaders to take climate change as truly the challenge of our century."

We already knew that this was a crisis of unprecedented proportions. But the ceremony of yesterday's proceedings mattered all the same. Apart from anything else, the gathering of so much scientific firepower in one place drew the attention of the American TV networks, which turned out in force.

A tipping-point of public awareness was being reached. The time for talking, as the politicians kept saying yesterday, was over. Now it was time for action.

Although in saying this they were, of course, still just talking.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/clima ... 07,00.html

 

[stu neville]

things could be worse than the IPCC report suggests:

... If all (Antarctic) ice were to melt, sea levels round the world would rise by 70 metres. The fate of that continent crucially affects the fate of the planet, and according to scientists at the British Antarctic Survey it is already being affected by global warming.

Hang about: 70 metres?

Has anyone actually got a firm estimate of by how much sea-levels would actually rise? I've read everything from a few feet to (now) over 200 feet. Yes, there's a lot of ice, but there's also a lot of ocean.

 

[eburacum]

If the Arctic sea ice melts - no change.(floating ice displaces the same mass of water)
If the Greenland icecap melts -7 metres rise
if Antarctica melts- 60 metres rise
other glaciers 0.5 metres rise
a total of 67.5 metres rise ; isostatic recovery in Antarctica and Greenland might add another five metres or so in the long term. So a total of 70 metres rise is a good estimate.

 

[rynner2]

Bush stands alone in his refusal to take heed
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Nigel Morris in London
Published: 03 February 2007

The Bush administration - out of touch with much of the world and much of the nation over climate change - has been put under even greater pressure to take action to deal with global warming as a result of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings.

As Washington continues to refuse to impose limits on carbon emissions - even while governments at state level are taking action in this area - Mr Bush was urged to adopt a new policy immediately.

Senator John Kerry, author of one of several congressional bills seeking to address climate change, said: "Although President Bush just noticed that the earth is heating up, the American public, every reputable scientist and other world leaders have long recognised that global warming is real and it's serious. The time to act is now."

The White House, which rejected the Kyoto treaty, sought to muddy the science about climate change and rejects binding international agreements on the way forward, issued a statement saying the administration has devoted $29bn to climate-related science, technology and international assistance - "more money than any other country".

Last week Mr Bush called for a 20 per cent reduction in petrol consumption over the next 10 years in the US, which is responsible for 25 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Yvo de Boer, the top UN climate official, said: "The findings leave no doubt as to the dangers mankind is facing and must be acted upon without delay.

"Any notion that we do not know enough to move decisively against climate change has been clearly dispelled."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/ame ... 211558.ece

 

[rynner2]

Mark Mardell says:

I wonder whether the desperate search for solutions [to global warming] blinds us to some of the big questions about the subject. It seems to me that for years the debate was hindered by the calls to "Save the Planet". It is quite clear the planet is doing quite nicely, thank you, and would continue to revolve on its axis if temperatures doubled tomorrow.

What is threatened are higher life forms in general, and us in particular. What climate change will do is put under water places where people live, destroy the crops and water supplies they live on. It is because it would trigger unacceptable mass migration and deaths that it is a danger, not because we have some mystical union with the biosphere.

Let's face it, we want to save polar bears because they are furry and impressive and the Brazilian earwig doesn't get the same consideration. I'm sure if we had been around at the time we would have wanted to save Triceratops, too.

What people are talking about is reducing climate change, altering the way things are going at the moment. But if it is changing anyway, what is our attitude to that? If the polar ice caps are going to melt anyway, in thousands of years, should we be investing in technology to stop that natural process? Presumably keeping the environment static would put the brakes on evolution. Do we want to, should we want to do that?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6339985.stm