ApocaDocuments (12) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
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Sun, May 31, 2009
from Salon:
Deadly heat
Climate change is currently killing 300,000 people a year around the world, while seriously impacting the lives of hundreds of millions more, states a controversial new report from the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva. The report, "Human Impact Report: Climate Change -- The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis," predicts that by 2030, approximately 500,000 people will lose their lives to global warming annually. Even today, it charges that 325 million people are seriously affected by climate change, at a total economic cost of $125 billion a year.
"Climate change is a silent human crisis. Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time," said Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations, who is now the president of the Global Humanitarian Forum, in a statement. "Already today it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people, most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change. We need an international agreement to contain climate change and reduce its widespread suffering." ...
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Normally we could say, "then get out of the kitchen," but the heat's in the whole house!
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Sun, May 31, 2009
from London Independent:
Leaders called to special climate talks
World leaders are to meet for an unprecedented second summit on climate change this year to try to get agreement on a tough new treaty by December, and may even get together for a third time before the end of the year.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, is to call the world's heads of government to New York in September to "galvanise political will" about what he describes as "the defining issue of our time". And there are plans for another G20 summit to discuss the issue in the autumn.
These will follow a meeting of 17 key world leaders convened at the initiative of President Barack Obama immediately after the annual G8 summit in July. Observers cannot remember any similar progression of top-level meetings to address any issue over such a short period of time. ...
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So many summits... so little time...
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Sat, May 30, 2009
from Associated Press:
GOP belittles Democrats' climate change proposal
...Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, in the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, said the House's climate bill was "a classic example of unwise government." The address culminated a week of coordinated Republican attacks on the Democratic proposal, which would require the first nationwide reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming... The proposal to cap greenhouse emissions "will cost us dearly in jobs and income and it stands no chance of achieving its objective of a cooler earth" because other nations such as China and India will not have to follow, Daniels said. "The cost for all American taxpayers will be certain, huge, and immediate. Any benefits are extremely uncertain, minuscule, and decades distant," he contended. ...
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Then by all means let's just destroy the habitat, together, ASAP!
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from The Daily Climate:
Climate change hitting poor in U.S. hardest.
Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and minorities in the United States – a "climate gap" that will grow in coming decades unless policymakers intervene, according to a University of California study.
Everyone, the researchers say, is already starting to feel the effects of a warming planet, via heat waves, increased air pollution, drought, or more intense storms. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on society's disadvantaged, the researchers found. ...
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Isn't this what we call "trickle down"?
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Thu, May 28, 2009
from Reuters:
Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise
New York, Boston and other cities on North America's northeast coast could face a rise in sea level this century that would exceed forecasts for the rest of the planet if Greenland's ice sheet keeps melting as fast as it is now, researchers said on Wednesday.
Sea levels off the northeast coast of North America could rise by 12 to 20 inches more than other coastal areas if the Greenland glacier-melt continues to accelerate at its present pace, the researchers reported.
This is because the current rate of ice-melting in Greenland could send so much fresh water into the salty north Atlantic Ocean that it could change the vast ocean circulation pattern sometimes called the conveyor belt. Scientists call this pattern the meridional overturning circulation. ...
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Whateva ya call it, I'm bringing my snorkel!
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Thu, May 28, 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Prince Charles says world in 'last chance saloon' to stop climate change
Prince Charles, a long-term environmentalist, said that while global warming is set to cause "the extinction of millions of species and organisms", the majority of people are not willing to take action to prevent temperatures rising. Addressing the Nobel Laureates Symposium at St James's Palace in London, he said: "I don't know about your own experience, but it seems to me that whilst there is now only a mercifully small (if vociferous) number of people who do not accept the science of climate change and who should know better, there are still a great many who fail to recognise the real urgency of the situation.... We know about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and how to reduce deforestation, to name but a few, but we seem strangely reluctant to apply them. I fear that this hesitation will have catastrophic consequences."... ...
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The real question: When is last call?
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Thu, May 28, 2009
from NSF, via EurekAlert:
Sea-level rise may pose greatest threat to Northeast US, Canada
The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, according to new research.... They considered three scenarios: the melt rate continuing to increase by 7 percent a year, as has been the case in recent years, or the melt rate slowing down to an increase of either 1 or 3 percent a year.
If Greenland's melt rate slows down to a 3 percent annual increase, the study team's computer simulations indicate that the runoff from its ice sheet could alter ocean circulation in a way that would direct about a foot of water toward the northeast coast of North America by 2100. This would be on top of the average global sea level rise expected as a result of global warming. Although the study team did not try to estimate that mean global sea level rise, their simulations indicated that melt from Greenland alone under the 3 percent scenario could raise sea levels by an average of 53 centimeters (21 inches).
If the annual increase in the melt rate dropped to 1 percent, the runoff would not raise northeastern sea levels by more than the 8 inches found in the earlier study in Nature Geoscience.
But if the melt rate continued at its present 7 percent increase per year through 2050 and then leveled off, the study suggests that the northeast coast could see as much as 51 centimeters (20 inches) of sea level rise above a global average that could be several feet. ...
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Red Sox: soggy. Mets: sodden.
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Tue, May 26, 2009
from ABC News:
From Oct 27, 2006: Senators to Exxon: Stop the Denial
ExxonMobil should stop funding groups that have spread the idea that global warming is a myth and that try to influence policymakers to adopt that view, two senators said today in a letter to the oil company.
In their letter to ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., appealed to Exxon's sense of corporate responsibility, asking the company to "come clean about its past denial activities."
The two senators called on ExxonMobil to "end any further financial assistance" to groups "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth."... Since 1990, the report said, the company has spent more than $19 million funding groups that promote their views through publications and Web sites that are not peer reviewed by the scientific community. ...
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"Corporate responsibility"? But what about their responsibilities to the stockholders?
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Mon, May 25, 2009
from London Guardian:
Climate change summit hijacked by biggest polluters, critics claim
A vital meeting in Copenhagen this weekend that will help shape the agenda for the most important climate change talks since the Kyoto protocol has been hijacked by some of the biggest polluters in the world, critics claimed today.
Among those attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change is Shell, which has just been named by environmentalists on the basis of new research as "the most carbon-intensive oil company in the world".
There is concern that the big energy companies will be pushing carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way of keeping the oil-based economy running....Six of the companies involved in the summit have been nominated for Climate Greenwash Awards because of their failure to live up to their PR spin on tackling climate change. ...
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You mean the foxes are watching the foxhouse AGAIN?
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Mon, May 25, 2009
from Associated Press:
Renowned climber warns Everest facing climate damage
A Sherpa from Nepal who holds the world's record for scaling Mount Everest said Monday the planet's highest peak was littered with trash and warned that its glaciers were melting because of global warming.
Appa, who like most Sherpas goes by only one name, scaled the peak last week not to draw attention to his own amazing feat -- he has now climbed Everest a record 19 times -- but to the impact that global warming is having on the majestic site.
Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, creating lakes whose walls could burst and flood villages below. Melting ice and snow also make the routes for mountaineers less stable and more difficult to follow.
"We have only one Everest, we need to clean it, protect it," said Appa, who flew back to Katmandu on Monday after reached the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) summit last Thursday for the 19th time. ...
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Everest, the poster child for beleaguered peaks.
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Mon, May 25, 2009
from Sandusky Register:
Latta: Energy bill could destroy Ohio jobs
Global warming is billed as one of the most dire problems facing the Earth. But will the burden of fixing it fall unfairly upon residents and businesses in Ohio?
U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, is trying to sound the alarm.
He warns a new bill making its way through the House will destroy jobs in Ohio and increase the costs of energy for almost everyone -- all in the name of reducing greenhouse gases.
"If you use coal, you're whacked," said Latta, whose district includes Huron County.
He notes in Ohio, unlike states such as California where "green" legislation is popular, everyone depends on electricity produced by coal plants. ...
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Poor widdle buckeyes...
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Mon, May 25, 2009
from Associated Press:
Amazon hit by climate chaos of floods, drought
SAO PAULO -- Across the Amazon basin, river dwellers are adding new floors to their stilt houses, trying to stay above rising floodwaters that have killed 44 people and left 376,000 homeless.
Flooding is common in the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness, but this year the waters rose higher and stayed longer than they have in decades, leaving fruit trees entirely submerged. Only four years ago, the same communities suffered an unprecedented drought that ruined crops and left mounds of river fish flapping and rotting in the mud.
Experts suspect global warming may be driving wild climate swings that appear to be punishing the Amazon with increasing frequency.
It's "the $1 million dollar question," says Carlos Nobre, a climatologist with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. ...
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Hey, if it's only a million bucks let's have a bake sale!
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