We saved the planet? Already?

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Granny says, "Is `cause all dat ice is meltin' an' it gonna flood Miami...

UN Secretary General inspects Antarctica's ice shelf
Saturday 10th November, 2007 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has flown across Antarctica to observe the impact of climate change on the ice shelf.

The flight took just under an hour, during which time Mr Ban flew from Chile's southernmost city of Punta Arenas to the Chilean air force base on the Antarctic.

He saw several glaciers while touring different Antarctic bases. As he visited the base of South Korea, his home country, traditional food was served and he was toasted at a reception.

On returning to Punta Arenas, Mr Ban was scheduled to visit Torres del Paine national park, where experts say the effects of global warming on glaciers are obvious.

UN Secretary General inspects Antarctica's ice shelf

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UN chief says global warming an 'emergency'
November 11, 2007 - WITH prehistoric Antarctic ice sheets melting beneath his feet, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent political action to tackle global warming.

Antarctica has warmed faster than anywhere else on Earth in the last 50 years, making it a fitting destination for Mr Ban, who has made climate change a priority since he took office earlier this year. "I need a political answer. This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action," he said during Friday's visit to three scientific bases on the barren continent, where temperatures are their highest in about 1800 years.

Antarctica's ice sheets are nearly 2.5km thick on average - five times the height of the Taipei 101 tower, the world's tallest building. But scientists say they are already showing signs of climate change. Satellite images show the West Antarctic ice sheet is thinning and may even collapse in the future, causing sea levels to rise.

Amid occasional flurries of snow, Mr Ban flew over melting ice fields in a light plane, where vast chunks of ice the size of six-storey buildings could be seen floating off the coast after breaking away from ice shelves. "All we've seen has been very impressive and beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful," he told reporters.
"But at the same time it's disturbing. We've seen ... the melting of glaciers."

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Granny says, "Purt soon Florida gonna be our first underwater state...

Study - Climate changes happening faster than expected
Wednesday 14th November, 2007 - The Washington-based Centre for Global Development has ranked Australia as the world's worst greenhouse gas emitter on a per capita basis.

The analysis group surveyed the emissions of 50,000 power stations around the world and found Australia's power sector to be the world's worst in per capita carbon dioxide emissions. The survey reported that two power stations, the Bayswater and Eraring plants in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, are among the top 100 greenhouse gas emitters in the world.

Meanwhile, an Australian independent climate change report has found pollution's impact on global warming is worse than previously predicted. The University of Melbourne study was commissioned by The Climate Institute. It found temperature rises and ice cap melting are occurring faster than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the United Nations.

The Climate Institute released alarming predictions of the temperature rises on the world’s population and said overall temperature rises would increase droughts and wildfires and would put at risk the Greenland ice sheets and some of the Antarctic ice sheets, causing major sea level rises if they slipped into the oceans.

Study - Climate changes happening faster than expected

[waltky]

Granny says, "A trillion dollars? Dat's a lot o' money...

Global warming's trillion dollar debate
November 16 2007: UN scientists say climate change is happening faster than thought as politicians head to Bali to hammer out Kyoto's successor.

Kyoto, the far-reaching agreement reached in 1997 intended to reduce global carbon emissions, is nothing compared to what could be coming next as the world's governments confront the ecological damage from global warming and debate what needs to be done to fix it. The fourth and final UN report on climate change, due Saturday, is expected to emphasize that the warming of the planet is "unequivocal" and that humans are the main cause. That report will act as a blueprint for the next crucial round of climate talks starting next month in Bali, Indonesia.

The Bali talks will set the groundwork for the successor to the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012. They will also guide global climate policy for at least the next decade, and dictate the types of long-term investment decisions made by big industries and utilities. Scientists say up to an 85 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions is needed to head off potential catastrophic changes that could lead to more floods and famine. How to best achieve those cuts is where the fight begins.

Backed by the strong language in the new United Nation's report, some will argue for mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions, which could be expensive for big carbon emitters, such as utilities, and seen by some as barriers to development. Proponents for mandatory caps say they are the best way to avoid the catastrophic changes that would cost trillions of dollars and put hundreds of millions of lives at risk.

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Have we already reached the tipping point??

'Warming's impact may be irreversible'
17 Nov 2007, The UN’s Nobel-winning panel on climate change on Friday completed a draft report that said the consequences of global warming could be far-reaching and irreversible.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) encapsulates a massive review of the global-warming issue, with the goal of guiding policymakers for the next five years. IPCC delegates agreed on the draft summary after night-long negotiations, chief French delegate Marc Gillet went on to say.

Human activities “could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts,” the agreed text said. The report will be officially adopted on Saturday, followed by a press conference attended by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, delegate said.

The so-called synthesis report summarises the main points from three massive documents issued this year covering the evidence for climate change; the present and possible future impacts of it; and the options for tackling the peril. “The synthesis is quite balanced. It is a good summary of what was described in the three reports,” said Gillet.

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Climate 'catastrophe' beckons, says UN
November 18, 2007 - GOVERNMENTS must do more to fight global warming, spurred by a new UN scientific report and damage to nature that is already as frightening as science fiction, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

“This report will be formally presented to the (UN Climate Change) Conference in Bali,” Mr Ban told delegates from more than 130 nations in Valencia and praised them for agreeing an authoritative guide to the risks of climate change. “Already, it has set the stage for a real breakthrough - an agreement to launch negotiations for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace,” he said.

Mr Ban singled out the US and China, the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, which have no binding goals for curbs, as key countries in the process. He welcomed initiatives by both and urged them to do more. “I look forward to seeing the US and China playing a more constructive role starting from the Bali conference,” Mr Ban told a news conference. “Both countries can lead in their own way.”

Mr Ban said he had just been to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica and the melting Torres del Paine glaciers in Chile. He also visited the Amazon rainforest, which he said was being “suffocated” by global warming. “I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet - treasures that are being threatened by humanity's own hand,” he said. “These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie,” Mr Ban said. “But they are even more terrifying, because they are real.”

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Okay, so what do we do now?...

Dismal Warming Report: Now What?
November 19, 2007 - After downbeat U.N. report on global warming, economists ask how to control it.

Coming right after this weekend's climate report from the IPCC, a paper from MIT and Boston University says greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. could increase more quickly over the next 50 years than over the last, and new technology--often seen as a solution to greenhouse warming--may make things worse rather than better.

"We found that, in spite of increasing energy prices, technological change has not been responsible for much reduction in energy use, and that it may have had the reverse effect," says a statement from retired MIT economist Richard Eckaus, who's been working the issue along with Ian Sue Wing of Boston University. They've published a paper in the November issue of the journal Energy Policy. The abstract is HERE.

The IPCC's latest "Synthesis Report," issued at a meeting in Valencia, Spain, over the weekend, is HERE. It's a 23-page document, dense reading, but worth going through if you want to understand where the climate issue stands now. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level," it says in boldface on the first page.

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Using microbes as methane scrubbers...

Methane-eating bacteria could halt warming
November 23, 2007 - NEW Zealand scientists hope a newly discovered bacterium that eats methane could ultimately help counter a key global warming gas.

The bacterium was discovered living about 30cm below the ground in the hot, acidic environment at Hells Gate in Rotorua, a geothermal area. Microbiologist Dr Matthew Stott, who was part of the team that made the discovery, said they had been puzzled as to why methane produced geothermally at Hells Gate did not reach the surface. The answer was a tough methane-consuming bacterium tentatively named Methylokorus infernorum.

Dr Stott said he hoped the organism could ultimately be used to help landfills and methane-producing factories reduce their emissions. "Potentially it could be used to combat methane emissions," Dr Stott said. He estimated that a cubic metre of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. Methane is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect.

But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane.

Methane-eating bacteria could halt warming | NEWS.com.au

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The flooding due to rising seas is beginning...

Floods hit Jakarta after climate change warning
Tuesday 27th November, 2007 - Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, has been partially flooded, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes.

Authorities have used pumps to keep the water levels down but some houses have been inundated by water from floods which have come in from the sea.

A highway to the main airport was cut by the floodwaters, causing flights to be postponed or cancelled. Floods reached 23 feet in the worst-hit areas and washed more than a mile inland.

Local police cliam it is the worst flood in years and the environment minister said that global warming was partially to blame for making coastal areas of Indonesia vulnerable to flooding. The flooding came with Indonesia on the verge of hosting the U.N. climate change conference next week in Bali.

Floods hit Jakarta after climate change warning

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UN: Climate Aid to Poor Costly
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007 - Helping the world's poor adapt to more floods, droughts and other changes from a warming planet will cost the richest nations at least $86 billion a year by 2015, an expert panel warned Tuesday.

"They must have help from the rich world," said Claes Johnasson, a co-author of the report commissioned by the U.N. Development Program. "Climate is forcing people into human development traps." Half the cost, $44 billion, would go for "climate-proofing" developing nations' infrastructure while $40 billion would help the poor adapt how the live to cope with climate-related risks, says the panel's report. The other $2 billion would go to strengthening responses to natural disasters.

The report recommends the biggest share be paid by the United States and other rich nations, based on aid targets and financing calculations by the World Bank and Group of Eight major industrialized nations. The Bush administration said in a statement that one of its top priorities is "to alleviate poverty and spur economic growth in the developing world by modernizing energy services." The Human Development Report each year compares nations by life expectancy, literacy and other data. This year, it focuses on climate change, coming just a week before the world's nations convene in Indonesia to negotiate a new climate treaty.

It adds a dire economic perspective to previous U.N. scientific findings that carbon and other heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" emissions must stabilize by 2015 and then decline. Without the money, the panel found, a warmer world "could stall and then reverse human development" in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less. Scientists have reported that temperatures rose an average 1.3 degrees in the past 100 years, bringing the prospect of a century of extreme weather, rising seas, widening drought and disease and harm to fisheries, forests and farmland.

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Rainforest loss in SE Asia...

Forest Loss in Sumatra Becomes a Global Issue
December 6, 2007 — Here on the island of Sumatra, about 1,200 miles from the global climate talks under way on Bali, are some of the world’s fastest-disappearing forests.

A look at this vast wasteland of charred stumps and dried-out peat makes the fight to save Indonesia’s forests seem nearly impossible. “What can we possibly do to stop this?” said Pak Helman, 28, a villager here in Riau Province, surveying the scene from his leaking wooden longboat. “I feel lost. I feel abandoned.”

In recent years, dozens of pulp and paper companies have descended on Riau, which is roughly the size of Switzerland, snatching up generous government concessions to log and establish palm oil plantations. The results have caused villagers to feel panic. Only five years ago, Mr. Helman said, he earned nearly $100 a week catching shrimp. Now, he said, logging has poisoned the rivers snaking through the heart of Riau, and he is lucky to find enough shrimp to earn $5 a month.

Responding to global demand for palm oil, which is used in cooking and cosmetics and, lately, in an increasingly popular biodiesel, companies have been claiming any land they can. Fortunately, from Mr. Helman’s point of view, the issue of Riau’s disappearing forests has become a global one. He is now a volunteer for Greenpeace, which has established a camp in his village to monitor what it calls an impending Indonesian “carbon bomb.”

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Serious drought in China...

Drought Leaves 83,000 People Short of Drinking Water in China's Hunan
Dec. 5, 2007 - About 83,000 people in central China's Hunan Province are facing drinking water shortages as a drought that has been plaguing the area for months continues.

As of Friday, 83,000 people in 31 counties in the province and 40,000 heads of livestock had been affected by the shortage, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters. The drought also affected 400,000 hectares of cropland and dried up more than 1,500 reservoirs.

The water level of some stretches of the Xiangjiang River, the province's main waterway, is at a historical low. "This year, Hunan suffered drought both in summer and autumn," said Xiao Kuntao, an official with the headquarters. "The sustained drought has caused all-time lows in the water level of the Xiangjiang River."

Statistics with the provincial meteorological bureau showed the province had 123 millimeters of rain from September to November, down nearly 50 per cent from normal years. The headquarters said it had ordered reservoirs used to generate hydroelectric power to increase the volume of water discharged to ensure an adequate water supply for residents.

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Arctic warming past the tipping point?

Ominous Arctic melt worries experts
Wed Dec 12, 2007 WASHINGTON - An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press. "The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

More Ominous Arctic melt worries experts - Yahoo! News