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. 

Arctic meltdown still accellerating

admin /7 June, 2007

ILULISSAT, Greenland (Reuters) — Atop Greenland’s Suicide Cliff, from where old Inuit women used to hurl themselves when they felt they had become a burden to their community, a crack and a thud like thunder pierce the air.

"We don’t have thunder here. But I know it from movies," says Ilulissat nurse Vilhelmina Nathanielsen, who hiked with us through the melting snow. "It’s the ice cracking inside the icebergs. If we’re lucky we might see one break apart."

It’s too early in the year to see icebergs crumple regularly but the sound is a reminder. As politicians squabble over how to act on climate change, Greenland’s ice cap is melting, and faster than scientists had thought possible.

A new island in East Greenland is a clear sign of how the place is changing. It was dubbed Warming Island by American explorer Dennis Schmitt when he discovered in 2005 that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.

If the ice cap melted entirely, oceans would rise by 23 feet, flooding New York and London, and drowning island nations like the Maldives.

 

Super funds call for carbon tax

admin /27 May, 2007

Content provided to you by AAP.

By Carrie LaFrenz

SYDNEY, May 24 AAP – Climate change is a huge risk not only to the environment but also to superannuation, say industry players.

Carbon dioxide (Co2) and its role in climate change have not been more topical, nor more alarming.

Catholic Super chief investment officer Tim Hughes said climate change was the "biggest long-term risk we face", but also presents great possibilities to capture opportunities.

Firms want to see a price put on carbon to mitigate some of the risks they are taking.

"Climate change is a huge risk to the superannuation industry," Mr Hughes said at a climate change forum in Sydney.

He said there were weather-related risks such as increasing cyclone or hail storms that could affect business productivity.

And as most super funds had a large proportion of their savings invested in Australian and international companies, the returns of fund members were linked directly to the long-term financial performance of those investments.

Another major risk was that the government was likely to impose limits the amount of greenhouse gases companies were allowed to emit.

Companies that exceed these limits may pay penalties that could affect their bottom line.

These types of risks also posed a threat to superannuation because they could affect a company’s long-term profitability and, therefore, its share price, which, in turn, had an affect on fund members’ returns.

Mr Hughes said it was important for superannuation funds to engage corporate Australia to find out their carbon risks and that businesses should be aware of their carbon risk.

"Its simple really, … super funds want to see change," Mr Hughes said.

"We don’t want to wake up one day and see that our portfolios are invalid because (the businesses in which they invest are) so far behind the rest of the world’s policies.

"We want to see a price put on carbon."

Antarctic Ocean releasing CO2

admin /20 May, 2007

By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer

The Southern Ocean, a massive storehouse for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is slowly losing its capacity to buffer the world from rising concentrations of the greenhouse gas, researchers reported Thursday.

As a result, the study said, carbon dioxide could accumulate in the atmosphere faster than expected over the coming decades.

 
The ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, accounts for about a third of all carbon stored in the world’s five oceans.
 
Antarctic Sea
The researchers described a vicious cycle in which global warming reduced the ocean’s ability to absorb the heat-trapping gas. That would then accelerate the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, triggering more warming.
"The buffer doesn’t seem to be kicking in as one might expect," said Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, who was not involved in the study.

The findings are controversial. Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., said the measurements of carbon dioxide changes were so subtle that they could easily be sampling errors.

"I think they make a good case, but I am not entirely convinced," he said, adding that there is little evidence that the planet’s ability to absorb carbon is fading.

The extent to which the oceans will be able to buffer against rising carbon dioxide emissions is a key uncertainty in predicting temperature increases.

Murdoch pledges a carbon neutral News

admin /14 May, 2007

Rupert Murdoch may own a hybrid car but he’s found an even more carbon-neutral way of getting to work: walking. Plenty of footprints, none of them carbon. He walked to work, even if it was only a short stroll from Fifth Avenue to Sixth, where News Corp headquarters are located, on the day he announced Continue Reading →

Carbon peak set for 2015

admin /5 May, 2007

The UN has warned that greenhouse gas emissions will have to start falling by 2015

The UN has warned that greenhouse gas emissions will have to start falling by 2015 (Reuters)

Nations must get greenhouse gases to start declining by 2015 to avoid the most destructive effects of climate change, United Nations experts say in a new set of global warming recommendations.

The report came after a week of marathon negotiations in Bangkok, as countries haggled over recommendations on how to tackle global warming, with China leading efforts to blame rich nations for the crisis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s leading authority on the subject, said greenhouse gas emissions should peak in 2015 and then fall by 50 to 85 per cent below 2000 levels.

That would limit global warming to 2.0-2.4 degrees Celsius, generally recognised by experts as the threshold at which some of the most extreme impacts of climate change will begin.

Arctic ice to disappear completely

admin /3 May, 2007

Science Daily — Arctic sea ice that has been dwindling for several decades may have reached a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth’s temperate regions, says a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

When the ice thins too much, researchers expect the bottom will drop out leading to a seasonally ice-free Arctic. (Credit: Canadian Ice Service)

Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center who led the study synthesizing results from recent research, said the Arctic sea-ice extent trend has been negative in every month since 1979, when concerted satellite record keeping efforts began. The team attributed the loss of ice, about 38,000 square miles annually as measured each September, to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases and strong natural variability in Arctic sea ice.

"When the ice thins to a vulnerable state, the bottom will drop out and we may quickly move into a new, seasonally ice-free state of the Arctic," Serreze said. "I think there is some evidence that we may have reached that tipping point, and the impacts will not be confined to the Arctic region."

«« 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 »»