Global Warming keeps children awake at night

[waltky]

Concern grows over global warming...

Poll shows Americans getting more concerned about global warming
October 20, 2007 -- Survey finds more Americans believe phenomenon proven; Majority say U.S. should take action even if other nations don't; Most Americans believe emissions from cars, industries the primary cause

Most Americans blame emissions from cars and industrial plants as the primary cause of global warming and believe the United States should reduce levels even if other countries don't, a survey shows. Fifty-six percent of poll respondents said the phenomenon of global warming has been proven, and can be largely blamed on human endeavors, such as power plants and factories, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

In comparison, 21 percent of those surveyed claimed global warming problems are caused either by natural changes or are unproven. Sixty-six percent of Americans believe the United States should do what it can to reduce global warming, even if other nations ignore it. This compares with 52 percent of respondents who believed that way in 2001.

In that year, 34 percent thought the United States needed to reduce harmful gases only if other nations did. A much smaller proportion, 16 percent, responded that way in 2007. The survey of 1,212 adults was conducted October 12-14 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Poll shows Americans getting more concerned about global warming - CNN.com

[waltky]

Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Increasing

Oct 22, 2007 - Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Increasing Faster Than Expected, Alarming New Study Finds

Just days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 percent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Increased industrial use of fossil fuels coupled with a decline in the gas absorbed by the oceans and land were listed as causes of the increase.

"In addition to the growth of global population and wealth, we now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slowdown" of nature's ability to take the chemical out of the air, said Canadell, director of the Global Carbon Project at the research organization. The changes "characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger-than-expected and sooner-than-expected climate forcing," the researchers report.

Kevin Trenberth of the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. said the "paper raises some very important issues that the public should be aware of: Namely that concentrations of CO2 are increasing at much higher rates than previously expected and this is in spite of the Kyoto Protocol that is designed to hold them down in western countries," Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, added: "What is really shocking is the reduction of the oceanic CO2 sink," meaning the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere.

MORE

[waltky]

Wars and rumors of wars...

Climate wars threaten billions
Sunday November 4 2007 - More than 100 countries face political chaos and mass migration in global warming catastrophe

A total of 46 nations and 2.7 billion people are now at high risk of being overwhelmed by armed conflict and war because of climate change. A further 56 countries face political destabilisation, affecting another 1.2 billion individuals. This stark warning will be outlined by the peace group International Alert in a report, A Climate of Conflict, this week. Much of Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Even Europe is at risk.

'Climate change will compound the propensity for violent conflict, which in turn will leave communities poorer and less able to cope with the consequences of climate change,' the report states. The worst threats involve nations lacking resources and stability to deal with global warming, added the agency's secretary-general, Dan Smith. 'Holland will be affected by rising sea levels, but no one expects war or strife,' he told The Observer. 'It has the resources and political structure to act effectively. But other countries that suffer loss of land and water and be buffeted by increasingly fierce storms will have no effective government to ensure corrective measures are taken. People will form defensive groups and battles will break out.'

Consider Peru, said Smith. Its fresh water comes mostly from glacier meltwater. But by 2015 nearly all Peru's glaciers will have been removed by global warming and its 27 million people will nearly all lack fresh water. If Peru took action now, it could offset the impending crisis, he added. But the country has little experience of effective democracy, suffers occasional outbreaks of insurgency, and has border disputes with Chile and Ecuador. The result is likely to be 'chaos, conflict and mass migration'. A different situation affects Bangladesh. Here climate-linked migration is already triggering violent conflict, says International Alert. Droughts in summer combined with worsening flooding in coastal zones, triggered by increasingly severe cyclones, are destroying farmland. Millions have already migrated to India, causing increasingly serious conflicts that are destined to worsen.

MORE

[waltky]

Children of India have something to worry about...

Global warming to hit India hard; may even reverse human development
Nov.12, 2007 : India and China will be hit especially hard by climate change, and there is a possibility of a reversal of decades of human development across the Asia, a powerful coalition of aid and green groups has warned.

With more than 60 per cent of the world's population, Asia is where the human drama of global warming will be played out, The Independent quotes the report of the alliance of 23 of Britain's leading poverty and environmental campaigning groups, from Oxfam to Friends of the Earth, as saying.

Asia, the report says has social and environmental characteristics that will make it especially vulnerable to climate change. These range from the fact that more than half of the population lives near the coast, and so is directly vulnerable to sea-level rise driven by the warming climate, to the fact that the continent is home to 87 per cent of the world's 400 million small farms, dependent on regular and reliable rainfall - which cannot be guaranteed in the future.

It also says that across the continent, there may be a substantial migration of peoples if conditions become untenable. The report titled Up in Smoke? Asia and the Pacific is the fourth in a series from the coalition, which is officially The Working Group on Climate and Development. Their first report in 2004 formally acknowledged that global warming had the potential to damage the poor of the world more than any other factor.

More Global warming to hit India hard; may even reverse human development

[waltky]

Should be keepin' adults awake at night too...

Warming may hit millions of jobs: UN
14 Nov 2007, Millions of jobs worldwide could be casualties of climate change, though efforts to mitigate its effects will also create huge new waves of employment, United Nations officials said on Monday.

The heads of the UN climate and weather agencies told diplomats that global warming could decimate the world fisheries sector, threaten the tourism industry and cause widespread job losses among those displaced by its impacts. At the same time, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner said scores of new jobs would be created in the environment technology sector as countries work to avoid and lessen the effects of climate change.

In the United States, there are already more environmental workers than those in the pharmaceutical industry, and in Germany environmental employment will eclipse the auto sector by 2020, Steiner said. "Global warming and the need to respond to climate change is becoming a major impulse for innovation and efficiency gains," he told diplomats, trade unionists and business representatives at the International Labour Organisation. Rising global temperatures, linked by scientists to human activity such as burning carbon dioxide-emitting fuels, are expected to cause dramatic sea-level increases and disrupt weather patterns worldwide, triggering fierce storms and droughts that may drive many people from their homes. Such trends are already well under way, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) secretary-General Michel Jarraud told the session at the ILO's Geneva headquarters.

"Warming is taking place even faster than the models predicted," he said, signalling major adjustments ahead for both businesses and workers whose livelihoods may be at risk. Matthew Farrow of the Confederation of British Industry cited a recent poll saying that global warming concerns were having a "fairly" or "very" big impact on the operations of more than 70% of businesses. He said government actions to restrict carbon emissions, or address the impacts of climate change, would have a big effect on European manufacturers and factory workers in coming years.

Labour union leaders also cited global warming as a major consideration for the coming years, calling for clear long-term strategies to help uprooted workers. "The problem is the jobs that will be created will not be created at the same time, or in the same place, as the ones that are lost," said Joaquin Nieto, president of Sustainlabo ur, an international foundation for sustainable development.

Source

[waltky]

10 years to annihilation if we don't fix global warming...

World must fix climate in less than 10 years: U.N.
Tue Nov 27, 2007 - Unless the international community agrees to cut carbon emissions by half over the next generation, climate change is likely to cause large-scale human and economic setbacks and irreversible ecological catastrophes, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.

The U.N. Human Development Report issued one of the strongest warnings yet of the lasting impact of climate change on living standards and a strong call for urgent collective action. "We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years," Kevin Watkins, lead author of the report, told Reuters.

The report, presented in Brasilia on Tuesday, sets targets and a road map to reduce carbon emissions before a U.N. climate summit next month in Bali, Indonesia. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere help trap heat and lead to global warming. "The message for Bali is the world cannot afford to wait. It has less than a decade to change course," said Watkins, a senior research fellow at Britain's Oxford University.

Dangerous climate change will be unavoidable if in the next 15 years emissions follow the same trend as the past 15 years, the report said. To avoid catastrophic impact, the rise in global temperature must be limited to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). But carbon emissions mostly from cars and power plants are twice the level needed to meet that target, the U.N. authors said.

MORE

See also:

Can baking soda curb global warming?
November 27, 2007, Some scientists have proposed compressing carbon dioxide and sticking it in underground caves as a way to cut down on greenhouse gases. Joe David Jones wants to make baking soda out of it.

Jones, the founder and CEO of Skyonic, has come up with an industrial process called SkyMine that captures 90 percent of the carbon dioxide coming out of smoke stacks and mixes it with sodium hydroxide to make sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. The energy required for the reaction to turn the chemicals into baking soda comes from the waste heat from the factory.

"It is cleaner than food-grade (baking soda)," he said. The system also removes 97 percent of the heavy metals, as well as most of the sulfur and nitrogen compounds, Jones said.

Luminant, a utility formerly known as TXU, installed a pilot version of the system at its Big Brown Steam Electric Station in Fairfield, Texas, last year. Skyonic, meanwhile, hopes to install a system that will consume the greenhouse gas output of a large--500 megawatts or so--power plant around 2009. Skyonic is currently designing one of these large systems.

"It has been working pretty well. It does present a potential solution to emissions," said a representative for Luminant. "But right now there is still a lot of work to be done." If the concept works on a grand scale, it could help change some of the pernicious economics and daunting engineering challenges surrounding carbon capture and sequestration.

MORE

[waltky]

Cambodia food production to suffer from global warming...

Cambodia faces immediate threats from climate change
Nov. 29, 2007 -- Cambodia faces immediate threats to its agricultural production and food security from climate change in rainfall, temperatures and availability of water, said the UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) 2007 released here on Thursday.

For most Cambodians live in rural areas and are reliant on agriculture, long-term risks associated with climate change include water insecurity, increased sea level, cyclones and disruption or collapse of Cambodia's critical ecosystems, said the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the report.

Climate change may increase occurrence of drought and flood while increasing the vulnerability of Cambodia's poor people to their effects, it said. Increase of disease with climate change may have an adverse impact on people's health, particularly the most vulnerable poor, it said.

MORE

[waltky]

Report on deforestation...

New report warns failure to understand root causes of deforestation
Dec. 7, 2007 -- A new study by one of the world's leading forestry research institutes warns Friday that the new push to "reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD)" is imperiled by a routine failure to grasp the root causes of deforestation.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), a leading international forestry research organization, said that the study, based on more than a decade of in-depth research on the forces driving deforestation worldwide, found that there is ample opportunity to reduce carbon emissions if financial incentives will be sufficient enough to flip political and economic realities that cause deforestation. The study by researchers at CIFOR sought to link the underlying causes of loss of 13 million hectares of forest each year to the promise -- and potential pitfalls -- of REDD schemes.

The report was released Friday at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-13) in Bali, a resort island of Indonesia, where environment ministers from over 180 countries are meeting to draw up a long-term strategy for combating global warming. High on the agenda is reducing the 1.6 billion tons of carbon emissions caused each year by deforestation, which amounts to one-fifth of global carbon emissions and more than the combined total contributed by the world's energy-intensive transport sectors.

"After being left out of the Kyoto Protocol agreement, it's promising that deforestation is commanding center-stage at the Bali climate talks," said CIFOR's Director General Frances Seymour." But the danger is that policy-makers will fail to appreciate that forest destruction is caused by an incredibly wide variety of political, economic and other factors that originate outside the forestry sector, and require different solutions."

Source

[waltky]

Even the lakes are drying up in China...

Climate change blamed as drought hits 100,000 at China's largest freshwater lake
December 14, 2007 - More than 100,000 residents are suffering drinking water shortages around the Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, as drought strikes - and an expert has warned that the condition may blight the area for a further 10 winters, a direct result of climate change.

"The lake now covers less than 50 square kilometers, down from about 3,000 square kilometers in summer this year. The water surface was 300 to 500 square kilometers last winter," said Tan Guoliang, director of the Hydrological Bureau in east China's Jiangxi Province. "My house used to be by the side of the lake. Now I have to go over a dozen kilometers away to get to the lake water. We have been used to the seasonal variations of the lake, but we have never been badly short of drinking water supply before," said Yu Wenchang, a villager living in the northeastern part of the lake.

Some 1,000 villagers in Yu's village of Xiayangzui in Changdu County of Jiangxi now live on water from four wells. "A total of 52 of the 56 wells in the village have dried up, as the lake water retreats. Only four have water. Senior citizens told us that they had never seen the lake reduced so drastically in winter," Yu said. Villagers have channeled water from a nearby pond to the dry wells, and they are preparing to dig deeper for water. Many villagers have abandoned the use of boats since they can walk across the marsh of the exposed lake bed.

Jiang Tong, an expert with the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that the Poyang Lake's winter drought is likely to continue for the next 10years. "Both the stream flows into the river and the Yangtze River water to replenish the lake will be insufficient in dry seasons in the future, because of climate change and the exploitation of water resources," said Jiang, who is a specialist in seasonal water responses to climate and land changes in Poyang Lake Basin.

More Climate change blamed as drought hits 100,000 at China's largest freshwater lake - People's Daily Online

[waltky]

Granny wonderin' if ya can put a house trailer on pontoons?...

Sea level rise could be double - warning
December 17, 2007: THE world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists have predicted, according to researchers who looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago, the last time Earth got this hot.

Experts working on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have suggested a maximum 21st century sea level rise - a key effect of global climate change - of about 0.8m. But researchers said in a study appearing yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience that the maximum could be twice that, or 1.6m.

They made the estimate by looking at the so-called interglacial period, some 124,000 to 119,000 years ago, when Earth's climate was warmer than it is now due to a different configuration of the planet's orbit around the sun. That was the last time sea levels reached up to 20 feet 6m above where they are now, fuelled by the melting of the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica.

The researchers say their study is the first robust documentation of how quickly sea levels rose to that level. "Until now, there have been no data that sufficiently constrain the full rate of past sea level rises above the present level," lead author Eelco Rohling of Britain's National Oceanography Centre said. Mr Rohling and his colleagues found an average sea level rise of 1.6m each century during the interglacial period.

Back then, Greenland was 53C to 5C warmer than now - which was similar to the warming period expected in the next 50 to 100 years, Mr Rohling said. Current models of ice sheet activity did not predict rates of change this large, but they did not include many of the dynamic processes already being observed by glaciologists, the scientists said.

Sea level rise could be double - warning | NEWS.com.au