We saved the planet? Already?

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Could Climate Change Fuel World Conflict?
Dec. 6, 2007 - From Nepal To Nigeria, Indonesia To The Arctic, A Warmer World Poses Different Problems

Nepal: Unforeseen flash point

When it came to climate change fueling conflict, "Nepal was not on people's watch list," says Marc Levy, a political scientist at Columbia University. But several experts now say the country's Maoist insurgency has received a substantial boost from global warming.

During the past decade, a change in precipitation patterns and the shrinking of glaciers -- events linked to climate change -- have put added stress on Nepal's impoverished western hill districts. "There is a lack of irrigation," says Bishnu Upreti of the National Centre for Competence Research in Kathmandu, Nepal. As snowmelt and glacial runoff have been interrupted, he says, "it has caused a lot of tension."

Maoists have used this to their advantage. These areas "were expecting help from the government, but the government was not able to handle the difficulties," Mr. Upreti says. Maoists stoked these frustrations to turn people against the government.

Many highland Nepalis have left, overcrowding lowland districts along the border with India. Twenty years ago, 18 percent of the population lived in these districts, which make up one-fifth of Nepal's area. Today, nearly half of all Nepalis live there. Says Geoff Dabelko, director of the Woodrow Wilson Institute's Environmental Change and Security Program in Washington: "It's becoming harder for people in the highlands to earn a living."

Indonesia: Unintended effects

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With water rights being one of the issues between the Israelis and Palestinians, global warming's effect on the water supply could very well be the cause of a flare-up between the two...

Will Global Warming Really Lead To More Wars?
Thursday, December 13, 2007 - When the Nobel Committee awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to former US Vice President Al Gore, Jr. and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) part of their rationale was:

Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

So saving the environment is working for peace. A new study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) says that is only true if the concept of peace is broadened substantially. The Nobel Committee interprets “working for peace” as including saving the Earth’s environment. Researchers, advocacy groups, politicians and the media have all highlighted local resource crises as the reason for a host of armed conflicts around the globe. The premise underlying the Nobel Committee’s expanded definition of peace is that there is a causal connection between natural resource shortages and violent conflict.

But is that true?

Resources and populations

In their article, the NTNU researchers challenge a popular school of thought, the Neomalthusian school. They see climate change and the over consumption of natural resources as a modern day illustration of Thomas Malthus’ theory. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) developed the well-known theory that a country’s food production cannot keep up with its population growth over the long run. Starvation, war and early death would regulate the balance between food availability and population numbers. That means that the bulk of the population would live a minimalist existence.

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Gettin' dry out west again like in the `30's...

Study: Global Warming Responsible for Western Droughts
Friday, February 1, 2008; Decline in Snowpack Is Blamed On Warming; Water Supplies In West Affected

The persistent and dramatic decline in the snowpack of many mountains in the West is caused primarily by human-induced global warming and is not the result of natural variability in weather patterns, researchers reported yesterday. Using data collected over the past 50 years, the scientists confirmed that the mountains are getting more rain and less snow, that the snowpack is breaking up faster and that more rivers are running dry by summer.

The study, published online yesterday by the journal Science, looked at possible causes of the changes -- including natural variability in temperatures and precipitation, volcanic activity around the globe and climate change driven by the release of greenhouse gases. The researchers' computer models showed that climate change is clearly the explanation that best fits the data.

"We've known for decades that the hydrology of the West is changing, but for much of that time people said it was because of Mother Nature and that she would return to the old patterns in the future," said lead author Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego. "But we have found very clearly that global warming has done it, that it is the mechanism that explains the change and that things will be getting worse."

Many in the West and the Southwest depend on the snowpack's springtime melt for power, irrigation and drinking water. When the snow fields melt earlier and more suddenly, dams are able to capture less of the water and must release more of it to flow on to the ocean. "Our results are not good news for those living in the western United States," the researchers wrote, adding that the changes may make "modifications to the water infrastructure of the western U.S. a virtual necessity."

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Destruction of tropical forests...

Rain Forests Fall at 'Alarming' Rate
Feb 2, 2008 - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests. The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists—and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate. Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation—at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen—sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

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Bolivia suffering from climate change flooding...

Bolivia calls for flood aid, blames climate change
Bolivia faces second straight year of devastating floods that have killed 49; Foreign minister says global warming to blame for country's flood disaster; Official: Nations that produce most greenhouse gases have responsibility to help; U.S. has pledged $100,000 to help Bolivia with this year's flooding

Bolivia's foreign minister says the world has an obligation to send aid to flood-ravaged areas of Bolivia, linking a disaster that has killed 49 people to global climate change. As Bolivia faces a second straight year of devastating floods, David Choquehuanca argues that developed nations who produce most of the world's greenhouse gases are morally obligated to pitch in when the negative effects of climate change strike poorer countries. "The international community has the obligation to help to Bolivia because these are the consequences" of global warming, he told media Thursday.

A rainy season aggravated by La Nina -- a periodic cooling of waters in the Pacific Ocean -- has hit hard all across the country. In the capital, La Paz, high in the Andes, hundreds of thousands are living under severe water rationing after rain-fed landslides last month ruptured water mains throughout the city. The mountain storms' runoff is now flooding the eastern lowlands. Trinidad, a city of 90,000, was surrounded by muddy water, and thousands of local residents camped out under tarps along the shoulders of the city's one raised highway.

Some scientists believe that global warming has raised ocean temperatures and increased evaporation, boosting the amount of moisture in the air and making La Nina storms more intense. Bolivian President Evo Morales last year vowed to seek legal remedies if rich countries do not agree to pay for the environmental damage they have wreaked on the developing world. To help Bolivia recover from this year's floods, the United States has so far pledged $150,000 and plans to deliver another shipment of supplies to Trinidad next week. On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI sent $50,000 in aid, adding to assistance already from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Japan.

Bolivia calls for flood aid, blames climate change - CNN.com

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Gonna have to stop dumpin' our garbage in the oceans...

Is Man Ruining the Oceans?
WASHINGTON Feb 14, 2008 - Researchers Compile New Map Showing How and Where People Affect Seas; New map shows pollution, fishing, temperature changes worldwide.

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop pristine, might be the lament of today's Ancient Mariner. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, and every single spot has been affected by people in some way. Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have impacted the seas. The map was released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston and published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

"Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me," said lead author Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The areas most affected include the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, Caribbean Sea, the east coast of North America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and parts of the western Pacific, the study found. It said the least affected areas are near the poles.

However, the researchers said it is likely that human activities will affect polar regions more and more as climate change warms those areas. Damage includes reductions in fish and sea animals as well as problems for coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, rocky reefs and shelves and seamounts. "There were two things we didn't anticipate," Halpern said in a telephone interview. "Every single spot in the oceans was affected by at least one human activity ... we figured there'd be places people just hadn't gotten to yet." And "more than 40 percent is impacted by multiple different activities," he added. "The oceans are not in good shape." Yet Halpern did find room for hope.

More ABC News: Is Man Ruining the Oceans?

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Warming threat to Antarctic life
Friday, 15 February 2008, Sharks will migrate into Antarctic waters if warming continues, threatening marine animals, scientists warn.

Unique marine life in Antarctica will be at risk from an invasion of sharks, crabs and other predators if global warming continues, scientists warn. Crabs are poised to return to the Antarctic shallows, threatening creatures such as giant sea spiders and floppy ribbon worms, says a UK-US team.

Some have evolved without predators for tens of millions of years. Bony fish and sharks would move in if waters warm further, threatening species with extinction, they say. In the last 50 years, sea surface temperatures around Antarctica have risen by 1 to 2C, which is more than twice the global average.

Loss of species

Speaking in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the researchers said global warming could fundamentally change the ecosystem, leading to the loss of some species.

Antarctic sea life has developed a delicate equilibrium " The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we're going, that could happen this century "
Prof Cheryl Wilga

More BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Warming risks Antarctic sea life

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Rainforest deforestation continuing...

Brazil: Amazon destruction is on the rise
June 4,`08 -- Brazil's rainforest is being destroyed at a higher rate this year despite government efforts to curtail the cutting down of trees in the Amazon, officials said.

Satellite photos released by Brazilian environmental agencies showed that 430 square miles were destroyed in April and the depletion was accelerating, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

Deforestation in Brazil had declined for three straight years, said environmental officials -- who blame illegal logging for most of the destruction in the world's largest rainforest.

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Island 'doomed by climate change'
June 05, 2008 : THE President of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati says his country may already be doomed because of climate change.

President Anote Tong says communities have already been resettled and crops destroyed by seawater in some parts of the country, made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator. Although scientists are still debating the extent of rising sea levels and their cause, Mr Tong told a news conference marking World Environment Day that changes were obvious in his country of 92,000 people.

"I am not a scientist but what I know is that things are happening we did not experience in the past," Mr Tong said. "We may be beyond redemption, we may be at the point of no return where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on to contribute to climate change to produce a sea-level change that in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged," he said. "Villages that have been there over the decades, maybe a century, and now they have to be relocated. "Where they have been living over the past few decades is no longer there, it is being eroded."

At international meetings others had argued that measures to combat climate change would hurt their countries' economic development. "In frustration, I said, 'No, it's not an issue of economic growth, it's an issue of human survival'." Under the worst-case scenario, Kiribati would be submerged by the end of this century and its people would have to be resettled in other countries, he said.

Island 'doomed by climate change' | NEWS.com.au

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Looks like the bad publicity worked...

Brazil to protect more of Amazon
June 06, 2008 - BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, under pressure over his stewardship of the Amazon rainforest, has unveiled plans to create three protected reserves covering an area the size of the US state of Vermont.

In a speech marking World Environment Day, Mr Lula said the steps aimed at combating a spike in deforestation would take time to work, and foreigners did not have the moral authority to tell Brazil how to manage the world's largest forest. "It's not easy to discuss the environment, thinking that the mere creation of a law or a decree will solve the problem," he said.

"Sometimes a thing that seems so consensual can take two or three years to materialize because we have to respect institutions." At least 23 million hectares of the rainforest are already protected. The new reserves in Para and Amazonas state would expand the area by 2.6 million hectares.

Mr Lula's proposal has to be approved by Congress and could face challenges in the Supreme Court. The resignation last month of renowned Amazon defender Marina Silva as environment minister raised worries among environmentalists that Mr Lula is siding with farming and industrial interests that want to develop the forest.

The measures were welcomed by Denise Hamu, the head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, who said it was a positive step. Others were more skeptical. "Is it important? Yes. Is it sufficient? No," said Mario Menezes of Friends of the Earth, adding that the government lacked a systematic approach to protecting the forest.

Brazil to protect more of Amazon | NEWS.com.au

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$45 Trillion Needed to Combat Warming
June 6, 2008 - New study calls for $45 trillion to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2050

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday. The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a "energy revolution" that would greatly reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.

"Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said. A U.N.-network of scientists concluded last year that emissions have to be cut by at least half by 2050 to avoid an increase in world temperatures of between 3.6 and 4.2 degrees above pre-18th century levels.

Scientists say temperature increases beyond that could trigger devastating effects, such as widespread loss of species, famines and droughts, and swamping of heavily populated coastal areas by rising oceans. Environment ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and Russia backed the 50 percent target in a meeting in Japan last month and called for it to be officially endorsed at the G-8 summit in July.

More ABC News: $45 Trillion Needed to Combat Warming

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Record ice dam gonna break in Argentina...

Argentine ice dam to break for the first time
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 - A huge ice dam on Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier will break apart for the first time in the southern hemisphere winter, likely as a result of global warming, scientists and environmentalists said Monday.

The 60-meter (yard) high wall of ice holding back a portion of Lake Argentina breaks apart spectacularly in cycles of one year to several years, but always in summer, and is one of Patagonia's top tourist attractions.

"This is the first time the glacier breaks up in winter. It could be related to global warming as rising temperatures affects ice friction," said Los Glaciares National Park director Carlos Corvalan.

The Perito Moreno glacier, one of the world's largest, measuring 275 square kilometers (106 square miles) and five kilometers (three miles) wide at its mouth, is located 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) southeast of Buenos Aires.

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U.S. coral reefs under threat, report finds
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 - Half of U.S. coral reefs are in poor or fair condition, threatened by climate change and human activities like sports fishing, shipping and the release of untreated sewage, a U.S. government report said on Monday.

Reefs in the Caribbean, in particular, are under severe assault and coral in the U.S. Virgin Islands and off Puerto Rico had not recovered from 2005, when unusually warm waters that led to massive bleaching and disease killed up to 90 percent of the marine organisms on some reefs.

"The evidence is warning us that many of our coral reef ecosystems are imperiled and we as a community must act now," said Kacky Andrews, program manager of the Coral Reef Conservation program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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