Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

WWF justifies pollution rewards

admin /20 May, 2009

The World Wildlife Fund has produced a form letter which it is sending to the members who are leaving the organisation because of its support for the Labor Government’s Carbon Pollution Reward Scheme. Publisher of the Generator, Giovanni Ebono, was one of many members who cut off all ties with the organisation as a result of that decision. He has provided a copy of their letter.

China and US held secret talks on climate change deal

admin /20 May, 2009

China and US held secret talks on climate change deal

• Negotiations began in final months of Bush administration
• Obama could seal accord on cutting emissions by autumn

A high-powered group of senior Republicans and Democrats led two missions to China in the final months of the Bush administration for secret backchannel negotiations aimed at securing a deal on joint US-Chinese action on climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The initiative, involving John Holdren, now the White House science adviser, and others who went on to positions in Barack Obama’s administration, produced a draft agreement in March, barely two months after the Democrat assumed the presidency.

The memorandum of understanding was not signed, but those involved in opening up the channel of communications believe it could provide the foundation for a US-Chinese accord to battle climate change, which could be reached as early as this autumn.

Science alone will not save us

admin /19 May, 2009

Science alone will not save us

Changing behaviour will be as vital as new technologies in tackling climate change. So where is the funding for linguists, anthropologists and sociologists? Tariq Tahir reports

 

Wind Turbines at Royd Moor in South Yorkshire

Wind Turbines at Royd Moor in south Yorkshire. Public support is crucial to the expansion of this clean energy. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Naysayers aside, the world appears to have nudged its way towards the view that there is a scientific consensus that human activity has changed our climate. For many academics, the question is now about finding ways of dealing with the consequences of climate change. In that endeavour, natural scientists are increasingly being joined by other academics – most notably social scientists – in teams where many disciplines can interact.

Leaders of 40 largest cities meet to tackle climate change

admin /19 May, 2009

Leaders of 40 largest cities meet to tackle climate change

May 19, 2009

Article from:  Agence France-Presse

LEADERS of the world’s largest cities, which together produce more than two thirds of its climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, opened a summit in Seoul today hoping to reverse the trend.

Executives from the 40 largest cities plus 17 affiliate municipalities are attending the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in Seoul, the third such event since 2005.

Former US president Bill Clinton, whose Clinton Climate Initiative develops programs to help cities cut greenhouse gas emissions, called for commitments and concrete action at the meeting that ends on Thursday.

Study Halves Prediction of Rising Seas

admin /17 May, 2009

Study Halves Prediction of Rising Seas

Published: May 14, 2009

A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica’s massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming.

Dot Earth Topics: Global Warming

The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, according to the analysis, published in the May 15 issue of the journal Science.

The scientists also predicted that seas would rise unevenly, with an additional 1.5-foot increase in levels along the east and west coasts of North America. That is because the shift in a huge mass of ice away from the South Pole would subtly change the strength of gravity locally and the rotation of the Earth, the authors said.

Several Antarctic specialists familiar with the new study had mixed reactions to the projections. But they and the study’s lead author, Jonathan L. Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, agreed that the odds of a disruptive rise in seas over the next century or so from the buildup of greenhouse gases remained serious enough to warrant the world’s attention.

The NHS must wake up to climate change

admin /16 May, 2009

The NHS must wake up to climate change

Climate change will have a catastrophic effect on human health, but the NHS could do much to protect people from it

Richard Horton

It’s time for the NHS to wake up to climate change. Global warming is the biggest threat to our future health. This isn’t a message that has yet seeped into the public consciousness. It isn’t a message that most doctors and nurses think is relevant to health. But it’s time that health professionals stood on the front lines of political debate to explain why climate change is the most serious danger to our wellbeing, even to our survival.

 

The threat of climate change is with us now. A two-year commission between The Lancet and University College London (pdf), published today, sets out the scale of the threat to human health posed by climate change. “Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action”, the UCL team of health, climate change, and environmental scientists, together with lawyers, political scientists, and economists, conclude in Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change. This is an issue that should not only matter to us now. We should be concerned because of what is likely to happen to the health of our children and grandchildren in the future.

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