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. 

Warmer seas put marine food chain at risk

admin /29 July, 2010

Warmer seas put marine food chain at risk

By Alison Caldwell

Updated 3 hours 10 minutes ago

Phytoplankton are important because they generate roughly half of all organic matter on the planet and produce half the world's oxygen.

Phytoplankton are important because they generate roughly half of all organic matter on the planet and produce half the world’s oxygen. (Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre)

A study published in the journal Nature finds a strong link between higher sea surface temperatures and a major decline in phytoplankton, which forms the base of the marine food chain.

The three-year study by Canadian scientists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reveals the crucial marine species is dying, which could significantly change the way humans live.

The study suggests phytoplankton have declined by roughly 40 per cent since 1950, most likely because of rising sea surface temperatures and changing ocean conditions.

Phytoplankton are important because they generate roughly half of all organic matter on the planet and produce half the world’s oxygen.

Climate check-up ‘screams world is warming’

admin /29 July, 2010

Climate check-up ‘screams world is warming’

By Lisa Millar

Updated 41 minutes ago

Maximum temperatures were generally above normal throughout Australia.

Maximum temperatures were generally above normal throughout Australia. (user submitted: Karen Tagg)

A report on the world’s climate has confirmed that 2009 was one of Australia’s hottest years on record and provides more evidence of global warming.

Three hundred scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association compiled the report, which the association’s data centre chief Deke Arndt says paints a compelling picture.

“It’s basically the annual check-up that looks at the year that ended in a climate perspective and so you can kind of think of that as we all go to the doctor for our annual check-up,” Mr Arndt said.

“But because 2009 was the end of a decade we wanted to take stock of a longer-term view.”

The list of last year’s extreme weather events includes a flood in Brazil that left 376,000 people homeless, heavy rainfall in England that damaged 1,500 properties and three intense heat waves in Australia, one of them coinciding with the Victorian bushfires that killed 173 people.

Islanders plead for help as homes sink

admin /28 July, 2010

Islanders plead for help as homes sink

By Liam Fox in Bougainville

Posted 1 hour 10 minutes ago

Residents of Papua New Guinea’s sinking Carteret Islands are known as the world’s first climate change refugees but international attention has not translated into relief from their plight.

A relocation process started several years ago but only a handful of islanders have moved to nearby Bougainville.

They are pleading for help to save their relatives from their sinking island homes.

The isolated islands are slowly disappearing under the Pacific Ocean, with rising water inundating crops and spoiling water supplies.

Voters reject climate citizens assembly

admin /26 July, 2010

Election 2010

 

Voters reject climate citizens assembly

 

Julia Gillard … has not been popular with her climate change policy. Source: Herald Sun

AUSTRALIANS have overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s plans for a Citizens’ Assembly to decide the nation’s future climate change policy.

Almost two-thirds of all voters now believe the proposal was confirmation the Government was incapable of making a decision.

An exclusive Galaxy Poll to mark the start of the campaign’s second week revealed that 62 per cent of people have rejected Labor’s plan for a 150-strong “people’s forum” to decide the fate of an emissions trading scheme.

But a new problem is emerging for the Government. More than 10 per cent of voters revealed they would be less likely to vote Labor on polling day if the Reserve Bank put up interest rates when it meets on August 3, 18 days before polling day.

US Senate drops bill to cap carbon emissions

admin /25 July, 2010

US Senate drops bill to cap carbon emissions

Plan to charge large polluters abandoned in favour of narrower legislation focusing on increasing firms’ liability for oil spills

 

Containment efforts for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Gulf of Mexico, America - 06 May 2010 Senate Democrats hope to pass a narrower energy bill next week that would increase the liability of companies for oil spills, for instance in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features

A major climate change bill that would have capped carbon emissions has been abandoned by Democrats in the US Senate in the face of opposition from both sides of the house.

Under pressure from falling popularity ratings, Barack Obama had hoped the bill would add to the two biggest legislative successes of his presidency: the comprehensive health care bill and reform of the US banking and financial sector.

Obama blocked on climate

admin /24 July, 2010

Obama blocked on climate

  • Brad Norington, Washington correspondent
  • From: The Australian
  • July 24, 2010 12:00AM
  • BARACK Obama’s push for bold climate change legislation to curb US carbon emissions has been abandoned, after leaders of his Democratic Party accepted they lacked enough votes in the Senate.

The decision means that a comprehensive climate change bill sought by the US President is unlikely to be passed before mid-term congressional elections in November, as he wanted.

And Mr Obama’s hopes of passing any such legislation in his first term to combat greenhouse gases could be dashed.

It is widely expected that Democrats will lose many seats in this year’s mid-term elections, threatening their majorities and potentially jeopardising further support for the presidential agenda, including climate change.

With Republicans standing as a united bloc against legislation to introduce an emissions target and a cap-and-trade scheme, the Obama administration is left in a similar predicament to Labor in Australia after the Rudd government’s bill was rejected in the Senate.

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